Me circa 1992

[ellyssian]

Me circa 1992
Originally uploaded by ellyssian.

Okay, so it's not a very recent photo of me - it's from June 1992, if I remember right.

But hey, it's a picture, it's me, and I'm not actually holding a guitar!

This was taken in Sudbury, MA at the grist mill near the Longfellow Inn.

Comments

[celticess.livejournal.com]

Cool :) Re his turnaround not that the teacher before you was rough on the little guy. My sons hands are normal size. My son is actually 5ft 11 and will be 14 in Jan. His problem is low muscle tone so he is very clumsy with his hands and slow. The muscles don't wish to comply with movement very well. I have tried exercises with him since he was about 5 and that got him up to ability to print semi legable printing. He will never handwrite and even printing is very hard for him still. I have thought of putting a tensor bandage on him as it might give a bit more support and cut the achyness a little. He has fiddled with his foster respite brothers fretless base and liked it. He was nagging the heck out of me for one of those. Fantastic guitards but not easy for most people to learn so I've been told.(I've seen one and heard one but never tried it myself)

My son seems to like the Beatles and reciently he's taken to AC/DC which is better than what he has been into at points(he likes some sort of R&B which these days sounds suspiciously like Rap... I tell him it has a silent c in it. Not all rap is bad but quite a bit is about as yucky to me as most opera)

I was btw starting to teach him how to play part of the baseline from Smoke on the Water before we moved. My old roommate had a guitar so he'd let my son borrow it sometimes. My old roommate couldn't read music though and went by ear.(amusingly that roommate at one point was a roadie for Chilliwack and Boston I think)

[ellyssian.livejournal.com]

Bass takes a bit more finger strength (generally), and if the action is lower it tends to buzz badly. The scale length is longer, so stretching can be tougher. The advantages are the string spacing is wider, so it's generally easier - I know a lot who say they play bass because of "fat fingers" and just find it easier to hit one note at a time.

Chords are generally off the bass player list of requirements - although the more virtuoso bass guys will certainly play them.

Fretless isn't a bad idea - it takes less force to sound the note, so it might appeal for that reason. Fretless guitars are available, but generally very rare and expensive.

I'd have to see him play, but if he says he's happy with a fretless bass, that might be the best bet.

You can get one with "fret" lines, so positioning isn't a matter of guesswork. That's probably the only thing I could even remotely think of that would make learning a fretless more difficult - faced with a blank neck with no sense of what note is where other than what your ear tells you.