What have I done so far?
The first thing to do is restring your guitar, right?
Ok, great, that’s done. Whilst watching Lewis Hamilton (apologies, Sir Lewis), win in Portugal on Sunday.
A quick note…
I’m going to try and avoid talking too much about gear. Kit. Etc. Mainly because I could just talk about that, and nothing else. Thus exacerbating my problem of not concentrating on what will help me improve. New kit can motivate, so can indirectly drive improvement, but in itself doesn’t often directly improve. Certainly not for me (I’m fortunate to have a good standard of gear to play with, and I may well acquire more of it, but focussing on that isn’t going to drive the improvement that I need).
Back to the discussion…
Strings, on the other hand, can make a material difference. Brighter, fresher, more responsive, they can be described in different ways. Environmentally-unfriendly is another way, so I’m going with Rotosound 0.10s for for the first time (they, like me, are made in UK, and so avoid being distributed around the world for me to get them onto my guitar). Nothing so far has made me feel that’s anything other than a good decision, so I’m looking forward to trying them out some more.
What’s that? New strings require tuning, and that requires kit? An amnesty on the “no kit” rule then, as I really love my pedal tuner (it’s the PolyTune 3 Noir, for anyone who cares). It works, really well, it’s simple, it stops me being out of tune and immediately assuming that it’s me technique that’s making me sound so bad.
I did watch an interesting – really – YouTube video posted by Anderton’s, a guitar shop based in Guildford that I walked past many times whilst I was uninterested in guitar playing, that compared different electronic pedal tuners. I was quite surprised by the result.
I’ve been motivated by many videos, blogs and general online information, and I’ll share that in a page on this site over the next few days and keep it updated.
So actually, what have I done so far?
I’ve restrung and tuned my guitar. Good start. Critical start, if I don’t want to immediately be put off playing.
Less practically, I’ve also found people at work who I work and chat with regularly, and who are current or lapsed guitar players. What a great way to enjoy five minutes of chat at work during these “remote” times with a new shared interest. Even better, I think I’ve encouraged one of my colleagues to restring their guitar and to remember how much they enjoy playing.