GAS

[billroper]

That's Guitar Acquisition Syndrome, for the uninitiated.

After auditioning guitars over the weekend, I concluded (and daisy_knotwise concurred) that getting a Taylor spruce-top with the Expression system electronics so that I could go in direct as well as via mic and get two different sounds to blend would be the best thing for recording. So I headed back to Guitar Works today and played a number of guitars, one of which has come home with me.

Gretchen no longer has to worry about "not having gotten me enough for Christmas". :)

Comments

Re: songbook!

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

I applaud the notion of a Nate Bucklin songbook, and I would buy one to support the principle even if the implementation was not what I hoped for. You're a much better songwriter than you get credit for; more people should know your songs, and more people should cover your songs. (And more people should hear you performing your songs yourself, but that's getting away from the topic. And I personally wish I could hear you more often, but that's even farther off the topic.)

As a practical matter, lyrics alone would not help me very much in learning your songs. If I have a recording, I can easily transcribe the lyrics, if I don't simply memorize them in the process of becoming familiar enough with the song to try to learn it. You enunciate clearly and you don't lose the vocal track in the mix, so unlike a few filkers and a lot of pop artists, printed lyrics aren't necessary to find the words. As others have mentioned, chords are much more important. I am very poor at hearing the chords in a recording, so if I don't have chords and I decide to learn the song, I tend to make up my own. Since your songs have much more complex and subtle chord patterns than what I'd make up on my own, having the real chords is necessary for getting anywhere close to your version. If I were more of a musician, I would be clamoring for sheet music as well, but my ability to read music is limited enough that I can't get the feel of a song from the sheet music. I pretty much need a recording, and if I have one, I can get by without the sheet music, although having the sheet music might help me to learn the right tune. (I have a tendency to learn something close to but not quite the tune of a song, and then I practice my version and get it fixed in my mind and it's very hard to get it right.)