GAS attack - oh, dear.
So I took ‘La Mouette’, my 1994 Seagull steel string in for an adjustment. I’m getting old, my friends, and I spend so much time playing a classical that I can no longer work with my steelie the way I used to like it. I used to have the nut and the bridge quite high, with high tension upper strings and extra high tension basses. That was also when I would play quite vigorously with a heavy pick and only occasionally do finger-style stuff. Sometimes, I’d beat the shit out of it playing Gypsy style.
Now, it’s almost all finger-style, and my left hand got too tired, so off to John at Ring Music. One of the things that’s really cool about John is that he makes you play for him for at least five minutes, then he takes the guitar and plays it himself, then back to you… By the time you’ve left, he has a very good impression of how you want the guitar to feel. One does not go into Ring Music without a fair amount of time to spend. It’s also a good idea to practice beforehand.
Anyway, that was just over a week ago. I went back yesterday to pick it up, and the difference is remarkable. The nut is cut a little lower, the neck is trued, the saddle had a millimetre shaved off to accommodate the pickup. I now have the D’Addario bluegrass strings, which are light tops/normal bottoms. And the instrument is beautifully responsive to finger picking now, light and easy on my left hand.
So as I’m paying up, I made the mistake of saying that I didn’t know when, but that one of these days I needed to get a 12-string, and that if and when I did, I had a couple of very specific ideas about how I’d like him to set it up. I’d like mine with a fresh cut nut and saddle so that I can have the bass strings ‘up’, ie closest to the ceiling, and I’d also like both the nut and saddle notched so that instead of the bottoms of the strings being co-planar, the tops of the strings would be co-planar. He said ‘That’s pretty easily done; I haven’t heard about the notches before, but Rickenbacker electric 12s were factory-made to have the lower octave ‘first’. I’ve just finished setting up Bruce Cockburn’s 12 string, and he wanted the lower octaves ‘first’ on strings 4-6, but the upper octave first on the G string.’
When I recovered from my fanboy swoon (Someone mentioned my name in the same discussion as Bruce Cockburn’s? I had an idea all on my own that Bruce Cockburn had thought of?), I said ‘That must be for his finger picking - that way, he’ll hit the lower octave first with his thumb on 4-6, and still be able to hit the lower octave first with his ‘i’ finger on the third.’ John looked at me for a moment and said ‘That’s it!’.
We then chatted merrily away for a while about the 12 string techniques of Bruce Cockburn (which I’ve yet to hear - he got a 12 as a present from a fan and only recorded with it last year. He’s since got another better one, which is the one John had been working on…) , John McLaughlin, Leo Kottke and Ralph Towner.
Then he said ‘It’s interesting, because (famous Toronto sports writer) bought a Guild 12 string a couple of months ago, and he’s decided to sell it. He’s just not a ‘12’ guy. It’s in mint condition; do you want to see it? He has to sell it for a few hundred less than he paid for it; it’s going for $1000. right now…’
The hour was 3:15 on the Friday afternoon of the Victoria Day weekend, and I needed to be home by 3:30 when the kids get home from school. Plus I had a car full of Ikea furniture that ideally would magically get into the house before they got home. I begged off, humbly and politely.
Ever since then, the iPod seems to shuffle its way to Ralph Towner; I keep thinking of doing one-string tremolos by moving my nail back and forth; would I reverse the two ‘G’ strings?; when do they open again after the weekend?; Classic Rock radio played ‘And You And I’ with the complete extended double-checking the tuning intro, then followed it up with ‘Supper’s Ready’… Okay, Universe, I get the message!
My friends, I got GAS so bad, I think I’m flammable!!!
