Way OT rant - Practice? Bah!

[geoff]

In message , Bob Eager writes

Lets face it

most of us took what we could get at that age

[Roger Chapman]

Depends on how old you are as to whether the two are simultaneous. Susan George is some 4 years younger than Hayley Mills. I am older than both and was an adult before I had heard of Susan George.

[Tim Lamb]

In message , Bill Payer writes

Ah! Sympathetic vibration.

One of our physicists will explain.

When the string is tuned to the same frequency as the noise source, it vibrates and the bit of paper jumps off.

regards

[Bill Payer]

OK, I've never heard of this before and I'm probably being a bit thick here (I often am) but surely the paper will jump off as you pick the string anyway? Or are you saying that you don't pick the string; merely blow the pitch pipe at it and hope that that sets it off vibrating?

Baffled of Lancashire :-)

[Huge]

Wouldn't the paper sit at the antinode of the standing wave on the vibrating string?

(I've never heard (or seen) this either, BTW)

[Bill]

In message , harry writes

An American Skype friend was going to try teaching himself guitar by starting with slack key style after seeing the man in the youtube below in concert in California. Podgy fingers and the rest were one of the reasons, I think.

Must ask how he is getting on.

This is a slow one to show how easy it is. :-)

[Tim Lamb]

It is all a long time ago now. Roughly coincident with Beatlemania.

You use the pitch pipe to tune the bottom E string say.

5th. fret on bottom E should be the same as open on the next string. You can either *pick* them independently and listen for any difference or hang a tiny piece of folded paper on the second string and see if it jumps off when you *pick* bottom E 5th. Etc.

NB 5th. string is tuned to 4th. fret on no 4 but I expect you knew that:-)

I am going out in the dark to rub up some brick joints. My fingers don't do music anymore.

Speaking of musical oddities. All my paternal relatives played musical instruments including church organs and pianos. AFAIK none of them could read music and neither can I.

regards

[Bill Payer]

Well I'm amazed. Thanks for explaining that Tim :-)

[geoff]

Held me back no end, having a good ear for music did. When I started out, if my piano teacher played it to me, I could then play it without needing the music, which was good ... up to a point

Once I reached that point, life became very hard, because I hadn't developed my sight reading in line with the music

Actually, the above tuning method isn't the best - you tune to the harmonic on the 5th fret with the harmonic on the 7th fret of the above string

[Bob Martin]

You also need to like the sound : I don't mind the acoustic guitar but the electric guitar is the work of the devil.

[Tim Lamb]

There was a fashion for fitting electric guitar strings to acoustic guitars to minimise the *squark* as you slide a finger up or down.

regards