The learning curve and guitar lessons at sea
One thing I’ve learned these last couple of weeks: starting a new blog is HARD! Not only am I faced with the daunting task of getting a decent amount of content going, but I am learning a new blogging platform as well! I had a scheduled post that was supposed to hit while I was out of town - didn’t work. And I emailed a post from the airport in Miami - didn’t go through.
Those two reasons - lack of a decent content base and an unconquered learning curve - are why I’m staying in “beta” mode for the time being. Basically all that means is that while this blog is public (the more the merrier!), it comes with a disclaimer. I have no idea what I’m doing. Yet 
Another challenge of starting a new blog is when you’re out of action for a few days. In this case, I was on a boat in the Caribbean for 4 days. But since playing the guitar is a lifelong pursuit, let me fill you in on a couple of things that happened on the cruise:
- Degarmo and Key did a reunion show on the cruise. It was one of the first times they’d played together in 15 years. Dana Key got his guitar out of the case and realized it had sustained a bad crack at a critical point on the neck, making it impossible to keep in tune. So he borrowed my PRS Mira. They put on a phenomenal show, and Dana flat out BROUGHT IT on guitar. You would have thought he’d been playing that guitar for years! My takeaways from the experience: 1) always proceed with confidence in live settings, even in tough situations. Attitude is everything 2) That Mira is one cool guitar! I’ve always liked it - I would say it’s one of my top 3 guitars that I play - but seeing somebody else tear it up like that really cinched it. Look for a full blog post about that guitar.
- The “amp du jour” concept: Nels Cline is one of my guitar heroes. On his website he talks about what he calls the “amp du jour” - those live settings where you use whatever amp they happen to have on hand. You can win in these settings if you go into it with the right approach. (Again, this is worthy of a full blog post!) Well, on hand they happened to have perhaps the coolest amp I’ve ever played in my life. What amp was it, you ask? The Dr Z KT-45. It’s similar in some ways to the Maz 38 I usually play, but it’s got EF86 tubes which give it a bad attitude. I love finding an amp that is able to deliver on a lot of familiar tones, but that comes at it from a different angle like that. Very cool…
Look for me to return to regularly scheduled programming this week with some of your gear questions answered, and a series of lessons getting underway!
If you enjoyed this post you might like these:
- Bon Voyage…
- Keeping it positive
- Practice makes perfect week
- The absolute worst thing you can do
- Guitar Horror Stories
