Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

A digression about guitars, technique, and details of my day ... which, if I've used the HTML tags that do what I think they'll do, should be set off in an easy-to-skip-over way.

Guitars: I was told we were going to work on 12-string tunes, so I didn't bring my 6-string or the classical. Actually, there was one piece I did want the 6-string for, but we'll get to that next time. Unfortunately I broke two strings -- the octave G, and then a short time later, the string I replaced it with. Fortunately there was a rather pleasant Alvarez 12-string next to me to borrow. It's easier on my left hand than my own guitar, but the way I wound up holding it made my right arm get tired faster (switching straps did help -- and sparked some amazement at the flamboyant strap I put on it). It's got a lovely sound, but it's not my guitar's sound ... for some tunes it worked better than mine, and for others I really wanted mine. And some tunes we recorded with both and we'll sort it out later. The Alvarez has a clear, ringing sound, with excellent highs and very good bass, but compared to my Yamaha it's weak in the mids / high-mids. (There's no problem with its sound in absolute terms; I'm just used to having a certain robustness to the middle.) And the Alvarez neck is so very sweet, so easy to finger, so much easier to play a Bm chord on than my 12-string.

In contrast, my Yamaha has decent but unremarkable highs, a strong bottom, and a very full midrange. I didn't really notice how full until I compared it to the Alvarez (I'm used to comparing it to my 6-string). The Yamaha does not have a "difficult" neck in any sense, but certain makers -- including Alvarez -- make especially easy necks.

Posture, Pain, and Microphones: Part of my pain problems were from playing to microphones on stands (stereo pair near the soundhole, another mic near the head pointed down the fingerboard). I can't make those small adjustments to my posture when I'm concentrating on staying At The Mics. (And I kept bumping into the very expensive, very sensitive, fingerboard mic. %sheepish look%) And when I switched from seated to standing, I had to pay attention to mic placement all over again. I hate playing to a mic stand, especially when using more than one approach to the guitar in the same set of tunes. (I hate it more on stage.) I want one posture for flatpicking, another for intricate right-hand work, and a third for vigorous but basic reel strumming. (Imagine a march/strathspey/reel set, for example.) I want to shift how I'm holding the instrument to make those Bm chords easier, but not be limited to my "barre chord on a 12-string when my hands are tired" position for the whole set. This is why I use a soundhole pickup in my 6-string and a clip-on condenser mic on my 12-string when I play on stage. Well, that and the fact that I like to bounce around, but the discomfort of playing to a stand, and the distraction of trying to remember to stay near it, are the major reasons. Being able to leap about is nice, but not hurting and not being distracted are more important.

This isn't intended as a complaint about the studio experience so much as an observation of something I need to learn better ways to cope with and/or work around. I need to learn how to play to the microphones without causing myself pain (yet another of those "doesn't sound like it's a skill that one needs to learn anything about until you pay attention to it" things ... I've been noticing those lately). And I need to figure out what else I can do to compensate for the effects -- how often to take breaks, what stretches to do, what height the stool needs to be, etc. Some of this I probably wouldn't notice enough to worry about if I didn't have to compensate for the fibromyalgia. I'm sure it would matter without the fibro, but I probably wouldn't have the sense to pay heed to it except for the way my body magnifies these pains and discomforts, and how a small problem that makes my arm tire faster can turn into narcotics-worthy pain if I don't deal with it first.

I did find that stopping once in a while to warm my fingers over the kerosene heater made a big difference in my ability to play well.

Nails: And there was one set that we'll have to come back to because the nail of my right index finger hasn't grown back enough yet for me to play it cleanly. *grumble* That nail, which is one of the ones I don't have acrylic on, developed a longitudinal crack in the tip a while ago (something more common in winter). It was a hairline crack and not very long -- not even enough to be visible (it kept catching on things), but if left alone it would lengthen -- and each time I thought I had filed down past it, either it started again or I hadn't actually filed far enough. Realizing this could go on all winter, I gave in and clipped it back far enough to know I'd removed all of the cracked part ... which was down to the edge of the quick (it was already pretty short by then). This, of course, was obviously a problem for any flatpicking, but better than having the same thing happen anyhow with no control over the timing, and I hoped it'd have time to grow out before I seriously needed that nail again. That was before finding out I'd be recording today.

Two more weeks should be enough growth -- I don't need much there, but one sixty-fourth of an inch or less of white isn't enough to play that particular melody ("Butterfly") cleanly on the 12-string, parts of the melody aren't suited to substituting my middle finger on, and being a southpaw who plays right-handed, trying to do it holding a pick in my non-tool-using hand just wasn't going to work on a few minutes practice. I really do rely on my nails, which is why I've got acrylic on the three that take the most strumming damage. (I prefer the tone and feeling of greater control I get with a bare nail on my index finger for picking, though I'll sometimes use my middle finger for extra volume, like switching from a light pick to a heavy. But there are some delicate bits in "Butterfly" that I wanted to keep sounding delicate, and using my middle finger would've cost me the subtlety and some of my speed.) I did try playing some parts of the tune (where the hand-string angle let me get away with nearly no nail) with my index finger and other parts (where the speed penalty wouldn't make a run sloppy) with my middle finger, but it wasn't working cleanly enough in a reasonable amount of time to spend on it in the studio with the meter running. So for want of an index-finger nail, that tune got postponed until the next time it's my turn in the studio.

Just getting the melody out isn't a problem. Getting it out the way I (and those of my bandmates whose opinion I know) want it to sound on the recording needs a little bit of nail.