New year, new skill

[arabella]

I'll be doing some wattle and daub when it's warmer
then I can find out if my wattle fence from last year is to proper standard

[Beardy]

I've started to look into building a drone camera platform. Lots of dire warnings about learning to walk before you try to run type stuff, but I'm an in with both feet sort, so who knows.

If I can motivate myself to loss the kilos I'll look at returning to flying again, either gliders or parawings which would be a new skill, but that is quite involved and the lack of scenery in the Angles of the East makes the none powered variety especially challenging. 

[Wascally Weasel]

I like the New Year/New Skill approach.

I’ve set myself the target this year of learning to play guitar. I’ve had a go on and off over the years but never really invested the time in it.  I bought a decent (from my point of view) guitar.  It’s an Ibanez hollow body* and it sounds great and seems to be a lot easier to play than the guitars I’ve struggled with in the past. Got a reasonable practice amp with it too which has lots more exciting sounds than the old dead one I have (reverb and a button which switches the gain on and off and should really be marked as METAL).

Been playing it regularly and learning some very basic stuff – hoping to start lessons next week.


*It wasn’t what I went in for.  Ever since I moved to the Cronx I’ve been looking in the window of the music shop round the corner from me – they had a deal on a basic strat clone and a little box amp which I had been pondering.  I went in just before Christmas to buy it but whilst in there I saw the Ibanez and thought, that looks more like the sort of guitar I want to play. So I got that and a much better amp and ended up spending more than twice what I planned to.  It’s not my worst excess in a music shop (proportionately at least) – I once went into a music shop in Orton to buy a plectrum and came out with a semi-acoustic mandolin.  In fact that’s just one of several instruments I can’t play.  This year I learn to play guitar or admit defeat and sell the lot.

[Wascally Weasel]

Nice one, WW. I too have an Ibanez semi-hollow that sounds lovely and is a joy to play. As for having paid twice as mush as you had intended, my guess is that you got an instrument that was better made and will be easier to play. It would be worth your getting your guitar teacher to check whether the shop set it up properly as many shops don't and many learners get discouraged because, to use an analogy, they are learning to ride a bike that has wheels that haven't been trued and so the brakes pulsate and the mudguards rub each revolution, and the saddle and handlebars are at the wrong height for the new owner.

It's definitely better than any other guitar I have tried to play before and as a consequence I'm playing it a lot more!  It's an AM73. Black.

Actually they run the lessons on site (they have several practice rooms) and the sale comes with a two year maintenance agreement.  They also said if you don't take lessons with us, bring it in after about two months or so and we'll see if it's set up right for you.

[Wowbagger]

This morning I had my first singing lesson with Thora Ker. She had a website the other day but it seems to have died. I paid her for an hour and it went on for 85 minutes. It was great fun. I did a few exercises and sang a Schubert song, "Das Wandern". I have booked another lesson for a fortnight's time.

[PaulF]

Nice one, WW. I too have an Ibanez semi-hollow that sounds lovely and is a joy to play. As for having paid twice as mush as you had intended, my guess is that you got an instrument that was better made and will be easier to play. It would be worth your getting your guitar teacher to check whether the shop set it up properly as many shops don't and many learners get discouraged because, to use an analogy, they are learning to ride a bike that has wheels that haven't been trued and so the brakes pulsate and the mudguards rub each revolution, and the saddle and handlebars are at the wrong height for the new owner.

^This. Nothing more off putting than a badly setup instrument. I'd given up on the mandolin until I found out how to do a setup. Now at least I have an instrument* that's easy to play badly than the struggle it was before to play equally badly .

*To be fair the new one that I bought last week did come properly set up.


And my skill for the year is to learn to read music rather than tablature.


P.S. There's a thread where you can post a picture here