Thanks ace. Yes, I sing and play - my voice is better for “character songs” like the male part in Love Shack, or Blister in the Sun, but I do sing. In this case, I am just laying down guide tracks for my drummer to jam with when we can’t get together. I am not looking to dazzle with my vocals or lead playing 
There’s a lot of slop in that video, but I couldn’t be arsed to record more than 1 take. It’s a flippin’ guide track, y’know? The groove gives the drummer what he needs.
That’s a great idea.
EtF, I will! Wordman, that’s primarily why I have a GS Mini as well (although to be fair I also have/had a pair of Fender DG-7s (one I bought expressly as a campfire guitar and the other was a rescue that was given to me in pretty rough shape) that goes camping with us that is a perfectly servicable 6 string, especially once I swapped the saddle and nut for bone and Graphtech bits , and put a set of Schaller tuning machines on them). all in cost for both of them (I gave one to my son) was about $200. Pretty hard to beat that for bang for the buck.
In the process of setting up my Jazz Bass, I realized that the pickups were set way, way way, too low (like a half inch from the strings) and they weren’t coming up when I tried to adjust the screws. So I had to tear some things apart, add some new high-density foam, and put things back together. Now the pickups are set at 6/64ths on the treble side and 8/64ths on the bass side, as per Fender specs, and I’m getting way more sound than I was when I got the instrument, which makes me very happy! Learning is fun! 
Oh yeah! Pickup distance matters. Great job.
I’ve generally bailed on this thread - not through anyone’s fault, I’m just not a gear head, so I usually feel stupid - but I felt the need to pour this out. Welcome to my semi-biannual guitar journal. No I don’t do Facebook anymore, deal with it.
I think I’ve made a break through in my playing. I know that sounds weird coming from a 52 year old guy who’s played since he was 18, but there you have it. I never played seriously. I played in a band in college, when I barely knew how to play and then the next band I was in I joined when I was over 40. That did not end amicably for a number of reasons but I grew as a player by leaps and bounds. I went from god-awful to intermediate inside of about 5 years. But I was really stifled with those guys. I was not a “core member,” I was just a “contributing artist.” Long story, but you can imagine the egos. I was just a guy who could be ignored when it was handy - (at one of the first shows I played with them, they started the second set while I was still taking a piss).
Now for the last five years I’ve been playing with a new outfit, of which I am a full member. It’s a real saga - I was originally brought in by my brother-in-law, the drummer, who was also in the ego band with me. I was to replace a guitarist, call him T, because he was driving everybody crazy. Before the switch could be made, the other guitarist, call him Q, quit, and I took his place instead. Then my brother-in-law got sick and had to quit so we got a new drummer (all these guys, besides me, played with each other in dozens of bands back in the 80s and 90s). Then we all got sick of T again he got kicked out and Q came back. That’s when things really started gelling.
I wrote my first song at age 51. I’ve now got three songs in our set list and I’m working on a couple more. But my breakthrough is in my ability to solo. I never learned my scales and I could never quite ear my way into a decent solo so I never improved. Then I got a looper. I looped a chord progression in the key of A-minor and picked out the notes that worked in it and, low and behold, I taught myself A-minor pentatonic. I’ve been having a field day up and down the neck with that form, in all keys, for about a year now and yesterday I finally felt it - I was riding the tube - I wasn’t thinking about what I was playing and I heard things I didn’t think I could do. Now I’m not saying I pulled off anything Claptonesque, but at my level it’s a bit of something.
And here’s the whole point to my longwinded bullshit. I tripped into sort of Zen and the Art of Soloing exercise. I discovered in my soloing that I had a habit of doing quick slides up the neck, or sometimes down, at the end of a phrase. Sort of an idiosyncrasy that I discovered I had instead of one I planned. But then it got good. Once I realized I was doing it, I couldn’t get myself to repeat it without it feeling completely forced and out of placed. I thought I’d ruined myself. But the more I played the more I forgot that I was *trying *to do and I just did it. I don’t know if that makes any sense to anyone, but it felt so good.
Anyway, talk to you again in another six months when I figure out open tuning or something.
That makes total sense: You got more comfortable, got more muscle memory goin’, and were able get back to doing your moves more without thought, like you did when you stumbled across them the first time.
Totally been there. Yay!
That gives me a lot of hope for my own playing, in that my story is very similar. I’ve never quite had the hang of soloing, and I’m really glad to hear your experience. Please stick around and tell us your trials and tribulations, there may be pie!
Isn’t that magic? I had the same experience the time my buddy Jim handed me a slide in the middle of a jam. I’d never even played slide before, so I avoided all my own cliches, and the music just poured out unfiltered.
Remembering a Randy Roos interview where he talked about playing a show one night as a middling guitarist, and experiencing a landslide of the subconscious that turned him into a completely different player overnight.
There’s always hope, just keep chankin’.
Kyser is offering Rosewood and Maple capo colors. I ordered 3 rosewood off Ebay. Standard price for any Kyser capo. It’ll blend nicely with my acoustics rosewood fret boards.
Been looking at this Glider capo. The guy in the demo is using some kind of trick.
Somehow he’s moving the capo without any break in the notes.
Doesn’t add up. Just releasing finger pressure mutes a note. Touching an open string will kill the sound. I gently tap open strings all the time to mute them.
how’s this guy making this happen? I like the design and the capo does seem effective in moving quickly.But Physics says you are going to lose a few notes moving any capo. A guitarist needs the band or his accompaniment to cover for him while moving a capo. keep the sound going.
check out this demo. how’s he making this work? he mentions fingerstyle playing. But you still have the issue of strings getting muted when touched by moving that capo.
ace, please don’t take this personally. When I look at stuff like that, the first thing that comes to mind is “someone has too much time on their hands and/or cares about a style of playing I have no interest in.” That is too cute by half.
It appears to be made of a material that rolls around an axle, maintaining contact as you roll over a fret, like you were sliding your finger up the neck pressed down really hard.
So? It’s a one-song tool. I avoid those kind of songs
Playing in Open G and capo’d up is a Keith thing, so I have gotten more fluent in capo management. I want a one-handed Kyser type capo that I can buy a 3-4 of and leave lying around and never think about.
I’m always looking for a capo that can be moved quickly. Kyser has been the best design so far.
The glider capo looked interesting and I wondered how it worked so well in the demo. I’ll stick with kyser for now.
Now I know you don’t generally like this kind of slap strum stuff, Wordman, but this video is really kind of cool. Jon Gomm - Passionflower - YouTube The fact he can sing and play while doing all the percussion and manipulating the tuners is just, wow. On a good day I can remember all the chords AND the lyrics.
Yeah, can’t deny the musicality of that. Stunt guitar, but in service to a song and structure. Some of the best of that I’ve seen.
But, man, doesn’t it seem like he has some Freudian angle with Michael Hedges? “I must show that I am worthy of Michael’s approval!!”
I can’t begin to wrap my head around the 100’s of hours practice that one performance must have required.
It’s certainly a performance no one else would even try to replicate.
My hats off to Jon’s dedication to his craft & art.
It’s not how I want to play. Not that there’s a remote possibility that I could ever play that complicated style. 
+1 to that. Still I really like how Rodrigo y Gabriela incorporate elements of percussion in their playing and I’ve tried to emulate it with varying degrees of success; but What Gomm does? Nope.
One more for the weekend! A-ha - Take On Me on One Guitar (Alexandr Misko) - YouTube Alexandr Misko.
I much prefer R&G to most of the poppy slappy cats. They have a musicality.
Misko and Take on Me - man, I wish I could like it more. The guy is phenomenally talented and he sells the vibe of the song pretty well. And I love playing that holds down multiple parts, a lot, so it isn’t the complexity per se.
About all I’ve got is that he lacks slop. His playing, in its way, to me sounds like The Edge. In that it is a style that requires a clean, precise delivery - here so the different parts mesh cleanly; the Edge so he paces with his delays and triggers them properly. I respect what it takes to play that way - I sure as heck never could. But it’s not my thing and I am realizing that I feel it robs the music of a bit of the swing and funk I love. But what do I know.
I totally get that sentiment. I like Neil Young’s playing because it’s gritty and sloppy; I’m less a fan of Yngwie because I think he plays technically very well but seems passionless.
I had that same conversation with a cow-orker, except he’s 26 so I first had to explain who Yngwie Malmsteen was. My high school analogue was always arguments about how David Gilmour could get more across with two notes than Eddie Van Halen could with a hundred.