Smoothing out the bumps
Entry posted by mark555
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After a couple of months our trusty little band of four is now rehearsing once again. Having to deal with the problems life throws up at you can put things in perspective. For example, Pete, our other guitarist, has a daughter who has had surgery to remove a brain tumour, so he has been down in London where his daughter lives to look after her and make sure all has been well. Thankfully the patient has had a tremendous recovery and is doing well.
However, all this time off has slowed progression down and we need to really get things going much faster now, life moves quickly and is there to be grabbed hold of, not pass us by. So, I finally got round to starting to play in open G tuning which just opens things up for playing all those Rolling Stones songs you wanted to do. Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Woman etc all now roll off the fret board so easily that I wonder why on earth I never did this years ago. But, better late than never.
We have also given ourselves a name, and we go under the snappy title of 'The Alligators' which even though I say it myself, I think it is pretty good.
Last Wednesday we had a short practice and rocked it with Brown Sugar, The Promised Land and Whiskey in the Jar, next weeks numbers for adding to the list are Rosalie and Back in the ussr, so we keeping up the dance rock theme. We don't play to impress other guitarists who just want to let you know they can play better than you, we are in for the fun and giving people a good night out for little expense - how many people work long hours for a low wage and just want a few beers on a weekend and get some entertainment they can enjoy and afford?
Which brings me onto another subject. How many musicians strap on their guitar and just indulge themselves? I have seen many musicians in bands play to themselves - long drawn out solo's that are repetitious and boring, with obscure scales that just have no relevance to the song. Whjat a lot of players do is forget that once they are on stage they are there and are paid to play to and entertain the audience. I have seen some fabulous players just spoil it all by their own self indulgent playing - there's a difference between entertaining and bragging, they don't go together.
I am still knocked over by my Tokai, perhaps I shouldn't be singing the praises of another manufacturer on a dedicated Heritage website, but this is a seriously good guitar, and incredible for the money, definitely one of the best buys I have made as far as a guitar go's. It performs great on the songs I use it for. It causes me to ask the quetion "why spend £thousands on a guitar when you don't need to? But if you DO need to, then that's a different matter.
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