Here's a demonstration of the arrangement of 'Down by the Sally Gardens' from the RGT acoustic guitar grade 4 handbook. This traditional tune has a simple but strong melody and the sparse arrangement really lets it take centre stage.
Although it is a relatively slow and simple arrangement it is not without its challenges. There are a few quick position changes and a couple of stretchy chords towards the end of the piece, which require some careful practice. Overall, the sparseness of the arrangement means that all of the notes are quite exposed, so it is quite tricky to get a smooth performance that brings out the melody. Thats my excuse anyway!
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This Tune by Max Milligan appeared on his album 'Homage' in 2005. It was written as a tribute to the acoustic guitar virtuoso Eric Roche, who died that year. It has quite a ragtime-y feel with a strong alternating bass throughout, but the chords that have been used give it a contemporary twist.
I made this video specifically to demonstrate the arrangement used in the RGT acoustic guitar grade 7 handbook. This arrangement has most of the sections of Max Milligan's original composition, but with some section repeats removed, which shortens the piece. The tempo is also a bit gentler than in the original version. My top tip for anyone practicing pieces for an exam is to target accuracy, rather than high tempo. You will get more marks for an accurate and musical performance, even if you are playing a little bit slowly. Enjoy! A customer contacted me, asking if I could cut down the nut slots on his 'Partscaster' Stratocaster. The guitar was made up of a 1980's Squier body to which he had recently added a Fender neck that he bought via eBay. The nut slots on the neck gave the guitar a very high first fret action. On inspecting the guitar, I realised that it really needed a full setup. This involved:
1. Adjusting the truss rod, 2. Shimming the neck/body joint to allow a good action to be obtained within the adjustment range of the bridge saddles, 3. Adjusting the bridge saddles to give a comfortable 12th fret playing action, 4. Cutting down the nut slots to give a comfortable 1st fret playing action, 5. Adjusting the intonation. Additionally, the customer asked for a couple of Tusq string guides to be fitted to the headstock and the earth wire solder joint onto the vibrato claw needed repairing. My first foray into video making.
This tune appeared on Stefan Grossman's album 'Love, Devils and the Blues' in the early 1990s. Sheet music for this and other tunes on the album is available in a book of the same name, published by Mel Bay Publications. The tune was recorded by Grossman on a high strung guitar, on which the usual E, A, D and G strings are replaced by the high octave strings from a 12 string guitar. It works just as well in standard tuning though. I checked my rendition against the sheet music and realised that when I learnt it (some years ago) I must have done so by ear. I'm playing some melody notes on the top E string, that would have been on the high-strung G string, so this isn't exactly as notated. I guess I'll have to call it my own arrangement! I hope you enjoy it! The customer had a Yamaha RBX375 bass, which has active circuitry. The pickup pan control and tone control didn't appear to be working properly. Active circuits can be tricky to work with as there are usually quite a few components, circuit boards and wires crammed into small spaces in the control cavities. The complexity of the circuits also makes them quite difficult to understand and diagnose without a circuit design diagram. Fortunately with this one I was able to find a service manual on the Internet, for a similar Yamaha bass. This helped me to home in on the part of the circuit which might be at fault. By doing some meter tests and physically inspecting the circuit (with a torch and magnifying glass) I found a solder joint which had been badly made in the factory and which had subsequently come apart. This was easily fixed, but is a good example of how this type of problem can take a lot more time to diagnose than to fix.
The customer had made a bass guitar some years ago, while at school. It had been unused for several years, but he had recently tried to play it. Unfortunately he found that the electrics weren't working and he had no recollection of how it should have been wired. He came to me to get it working.
I was slightly surprised when he turned up with just the scratchplate with the pickups and controls attached - no guitar! Anyway it didn't stop me doing the work. On examination, the wiring was a bit strange, plus one of the pots was broken. I suggested that I would get three new pots and wire it up as a Fender Jazz Bass, with a volume control for each pickup and a common tone control. In addition to this, the coil wire of one of the pickups was not properly soldered to the hookup wire, so this needed repair. Final testing was done by holding the scratchplate close to the vibrating strings of one of my basses and checking that a signal was being generated! The customer followed up with a text message: "Works like a dream. Thanks Duncan". As the title says, the customer had a Fender Precision Bass that he wanted setting up. He was particularly keen to get the intonation correct. I did a full setup including truss rod adjustment, action adjustment, pickup height adjustment and intonation adjustment, The intonation in particular was in need of sorting out, just as the customer had flagged up.
A customer wanted a pickup fitted to his Guild guitar. I had previously fitted a K&K Pure Mini pickup to one of his other guitars and he was very happy with it, so it was a simple decision to go with the same pickup. This type of pickup uses three small transducers which are attached to the bottom of the guitar's bridge plate. It is a passive design, so has no need of a battery. It also has no on-board controls, which some may see as a disadvantage. I've generally found that acoustic guitar pickups don't always do a great job of reproducing the sound of the guitar, This one does a good job and is relatively inexpensive.
Installation of this pickup is a little bit unusual in that the best results are obtained by supergluing the transducers onto the underside of the bridge plate. Needless to say that if you ever want to remove the pickup, the chances are that it will be destroyed in the process! |
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