Travel guitars are stupid
There are some guitar designs that are just plain stupid. The travel guitar is one of them.
Even though it doesn't cost all that much, a Traveler Guitar it's still too expensive for what it is.
The Traveler is simply a dumb guitar design. It looks ugly. Playable it may be, and yes it is an acoustic-electric so it can be plugged in, but why would anyone buy one when you could get a Yamaha GL1 for a third of the price of the Traveler.
The above is a Yamaha GL1 6-string ukulele/guitalele. Very small, very easy to play, very lightweight, and even in small size, it looks like a proper guitar.
If I were taking a travel guitar along with me, I'd take the Yamaha over the Traveler any day. As far as travel guitars go, this one is just so much better and you get so much more for the money.
Do fat guys get any respect as guitar players?
Short answer: Yes. But let's find out why.
Johnny Hiland is a monster guitar player, and I'm not talking about his size. The guy is an absolute wizard on the 6-string.
Listen to the album All Fired Up. Good album. I suggest getting it.
Now I admit, when you see Johnny play, the first thing you notice is that he's a big guy and dwarfs any guitar he straps on. He makes full adult-size guitars look like toys when set against his large frame. He'd probably even make an ES-335 look small. But after that, you quickly stop staring at the man and start staring at the guitar instead, because the guy is that good.
What I've noticed over the years concerning fat guys (or fat girls for that matter) is that those who play and play well do get respect as musicians. Why? Because at the end of the day it's about the music and not about the appearance. If the music is good, fatness doesn't matter.
Am I a fat guy? No. But there are plenty of guitar players out there who are big people. If you're a fat guy, don't let that stop you from playing guitar.
The advice I'd give to fat players is the same I'd give to skinny players. Don't suck. :) Keep playing, keep practicing, get good and enjoy the instrument.
How to save on the air conditioning bill in Florida
I've decided to get the jump on cutting down the electric bill for A/C use this year.
Right now the weather where I live in Tampa Bay Florida is pleasant, but summer is coming, and with it the heat. That means I'll have to turn on the A/C and my electric bill will go up for the next several months.
Note that I said turn on the A/C and not turn up. From about mid-November to late April, the A/C stays off. And I mean completely off. When I kick it back on, on first start-up I'm usually treated to a slight musty smell for the first few minutes since the unit has been sitting there unused for months, but it quickly goes away once the cold starts coming through.
Last year, I wished I had a twin window fan in my bedroom. This year I bought one. the Bionaire BW2300. I've not received it yet but it will arrive in the mail in about a week. However, that's not the only thing I bought. More on that in a moment.
Is the BW2300 cheapest window fan? No. But it is the lowest priced concerning what it's capable of doing.
What this particular fan does that's special is the following:
- Blades spin in either direction, meaning it can act as an intake (brings air in from the outside) or exhaust (blows air to the outside.)
- Exchange mode option. One blade is the intake, the other the exhaust. This is a big deal in Florida when the fan is running at night, because it brings the cool night air in and blows the hot air out.
- Has 3 speeds instead of just 1 or 2.
- Has a thermostat that can be set to come on at a specified temperature and shut off at another.
- Has an LCD display with dimmer button.
- Has a remote control.
The remote is actually not needed, but it's nice it comes with one. Other than that, the stuff this fan can do is exactly what's needed so I can turn down my A/C even lower than last year so it doesn't have to run as often. In fact, there's a good chance it will pay for itself in under 6 months.
But then there's that old saying, "It's not the heat; it's the humidity."
True? Yes. Florida is loaded with humidity. While it never reaches 100F here and tops out at around 96F, the humidity more than anything else is what makes hot weather miserable.
So I bought a dirt simple dehumidifier, a Eva-Dry E-333. It was a choice between this one and the E-500 model. The difference between the two is that one handles 333 cubic feet and the other 500 cubic feet. I went with the smaller one specifically because I don't want it to work too well.
The way the E-333 and E-500 work is you charge it up, then just let it sit. If the unit is dry, the crystals are blue in that little window thing you see in the photo. If they turn pink, it then needs a recharge.
I do not know how well or not well one of these works just yet, but I do know my bedroom is small, and if the room is too dry, that would be uncomfortable. All I need is a slight decrease in humidity. Nothing drastic.
The E-333 may or may not work for me. If it doesn't, Plan B will be to use it in my car instead where I absolutely know it will work, then get a bigger dehumidifier with a small water collector. That one handles up to 1,100 cubic feet and is as large as I would go for my small bedroom. It requires power to operate, but that's what is needed when you start using the larger stuff.
What savings do I expect?
For summer 2014 I actually did well with my electric bill, and was able to shave almost 20% of the bill. Yes, really. It's amazing how much you save just by adjusting the A/C a few degrees and running fans.
I'm going to try to shave off 30% this year, which means I'm aiming for another 10%. I think that's reasonable. While I don't expect a huge difference by use of a twin window fan and the use of a small dehumidifier, it may be enough to reach my 10% goal.
Also, bear in mind I'm doing this for just my small bedroom and not my entire place.
For daytime use, I should be able to turn down (but not off) the A/C a few degrees and still be comfortable.
For nighttime use, there's cooler air outside I can bring inside while sending hot air outside from use of the twin window fan in exchange mode. That means during the night I might be able to actually turn off the A/C completely and still sleep comfortably. Maybe. That's an unknown at this point.
I'll be happy to receive the fan and dehumidifier to see how they work. Both of them have received really good reviews so they should work fine.
Every guitar player needs a cheap keyboard
Fun fact: I was a synth player before I was a guitar player.
Yes, really. I've literally spent thousands on synths over the years. Everything from the cheap stuff to the ritzy workstations. I was doing pattern sequencing back in the '90s before any guitar players had a clue what that is.
However, these days, I'm perfectly happy with a Casio SA-46 kid's keyboard. And no, I'm not kidding.
While I can get along with a little SA-46, most guitar players need something a little more substantial that has 61 keys on it and more sounds. For that, a Yamaha YPT series keyboard does the job in fine style. It's cheap, it works and it sounds good.
Why have a cheap keyboard?
While I know my way around the piano keys, even if you know next to nothing about synthesizers, there are several good reasons to own a cheap keyboard.
1. Bass sounds
Personally, I prefer the bass guitar (mine is a Yamaha RBX170EW) over synthesized bass on the keyboard. However, there are many, many guitar players who play the bass parts of songs on a synth when songwriting. Keyboard bass always sounds better compared to detuning your guitar or using an octave shifter.
2. String sounds
The string sound on a synth is orchestral strings and not guitar strings. This is a good sound to play along with guitar chords for a bigger, fuller sound.
3. Piano sounds
When a guitar player wants to write a more ballad-like song, having a piano in there is pretty much required, even if it's just simple soft-played chords. Take any piano sound, drench that in reverb and you've got "ballad sound."
To note, piano takes to reverb much better than guitar does. You can pile on the reverb and it sounds fine. Remember, people are used to hearing grand pianos in large rooms where a huge amount of natural reverberation is present by nature.
Remember that adding in effects makes any synth sound better
You can always route your synth through your guitar effects. So if you have delay and chorus pedals, don't be afraid to try those on the keyboard.
A great example of this is the Korg DW-6000. The DW-6000 is an old synth from 1985. But the add-in of a BOSS RV-5 reverb pedal makes this thing sound like a million bucks.
The DW-6000 sounds awful on its own, but reverb and delay do wonders for synth tones. And the RV-5 makes not only the DW-6000 but any other synth sound great.
Remember that you don't have to play using two hands at once
If you only play with one hand, that is OK. Play in whatever style is comfortable, and know that with a multitrack recorder, you can just add in other tracks for other keyboard parts, just like you would with other guitar parts.
If you suck at keyboards, so what? It's a great songwriting tool, it's fun to pluck around on, and it's cheap. Get one.
How long can you not play guitar before you forget how to play?
There are times when you have to put down the guitar to do other things, because life happens. How long would it take before you totally forget how to play? Let's find out.
Everyone's brain works differently, so these figures aren't exact. But generally speaking, what's listed below will be true for most guitar players regardless of how long you've been playing.
If you go without playing...
...for 1 week
After a week of not playing, you will be able to pick up the guitar again and play normally, but your fingers will feel "stiff" until you play for at least a good 15 minutes first.
...for 1 month
You'll probably have a lot of stiffness in the fingers and maybe forget a few chords, but they'll come back to you fairly quick and you'll be playing normally in about an hour.
...for 3 months
At this point both your fret hand and even your picking hand will be stiff to the point where strumming will feel weird. You'll still remember basic chords, but for solos and things of that kind, that will take a little while before you can do that again. You'll need to play for at least an hour a day for a few days before you start to feel truly comfortable with the instrument again.
...for 6 months
This is the point where you actually start forgetting how to play the guitar. It doesn't matter what your age is, because whether you're 15 or 55, anything you stop doing for 6 months will be largely forgotten when you go back to it later.
...for 1 year or more
If you haven't played so much as one note on a guitar for a year, you will more or less have to relearn the entire instrument again after putting the guitar down for this amount of time. A lot of what you learned will be forgotten and it will take at least a good solid week of play even to get basic strumming relearned again.
Is learning the guitar like "riding a bicycle?"
There's an old saying that learning to ride a bicycle is something you never forget once you learn it.
That's not true for guitar playing.
If you put down the guitar for an extended period of time, such as 1 year or more, then pick it up again, you will have forgotten pretty much everything about how to play it. In fact, the only thing you probably will remember is how to tune it, maybe a few chords and where notes are, but not much else.
Why does a guitar player forget so much after putting down a guitar for a while? Because there's a lot to remember. Many notes, many chords, many playing styles that require practice to keep the fingers nimble and the memory sharp.
However, one can always relearn the guitar. If you've not played in a while, yes your fingers will be very stiff and yes you will have forgotten much, but you can learn again. Once you start relearning, memories will trigger and things will come back to you.
But bear in mind that guitar playing is not like riding a bike. It will take time to get the fingers working like they should on the instrument. And again, this will happen regardless of age whether young, old or anywhere in between.
In other words, if you're playing now and like the guitar, keep playing. :)