I'm actually back to playing guitar, on my couch.. You may know that I have some great carved guitars made by Steve Holst. My favorite beautiful archtop is 25.5" scale. It's amazing and has only gotten better (including the color of the wood:) since he built it for me in 1997. BUT - since my left wrist was screwed up, I figured a short scale would help me at first as I get back to playing. So I bought an absolute POS guitar - which I actually like a lot. It's an Ibanez AF55. (Importantly, it was available in lefty and it was cheap). It's a plywood, steam pressed laminate of cheap soft wood. I gotta say, it sounds sweet. Nothing like the Holst of course. On Steve's guitar I can pluck an open string and hear ALL the overtones, way up, all the way up... On the Ibanez, I can hear the root, fifth, octave. That's about it. I put some flat 13's on it. It's taken quite a while to dial in the truss rod and bridge - and I'm not good at that, but I've finally gotten it sounding nice and playing easily. I hate fret buzz, but I like low enough action to play easily but still have dynamic range. It's gotten to a nice compromise. My picking hand, (left hand in my case) still needs work. My right hand and my brain playing over changes is fine, although I've lost 90% of my repertoire. Luckily the Real Book is online these days. Someday in the future I'll go sit in somewhere and play a couple of the most common standards known to humanity... There are great players down here in SoFlo! I've been amazed going to my local jazz place. When I have a little more technique and confidence, and income, I might look up Tom L. for some lessons :)
J
Post by Dom MinasiPost by pmfan57Anyone know what Jay is up to.
Joe
Ran into him a few years ago. I think he became a computer something
I'm alive which I guess is the most important thing. Living in Miami now. I injured my wrist many years ago and had to switch careers. it was a drag but you gotta do what you can. Hey, I love what I do now, but I do miss playing and teaching music of course. I might just buy a flugelhorn... I started off as a trumpet player as a kid which I guess helped becoming a left-handed guitar player (with the right-hand fingers doing the fancy fingerboard stuff). I lust don't know how tolerant my GF would be with me playing a horn in the house.
Jay
Thank you for all that you did here (and elsewhere) before, and I hope you are still able to enjoy some kinds of self-expression.