So - New Year's Guitar resolutions, anyone?

[Vic Lewis VL]

Mine are pretty simple - going to give up smoking (yeah, AGAIN!) at midnight on New Year's Eve. It's come down to a choice of pleasures - I can either afford to play guitar, with all the small attendant financial outlayings - new strings, new accessories, etc, etc....or carry on wasting money blowing smoke into the air. What I want to do is play guitar - so the ciggies are going to have to go, once and for all. It's going to be hard - but hell, others have done it (big salute to Roy!) and survived. #1 - quit smoking, get that horrible monkey off my back once and for all.

I got a Zoom MRS8 mixer, middle of last year, courtesy of a very well-known and well-respected GN member - with all the stuff that's happened, in the last year or so, I have had no time whatsoever to sit down, study the manual, play with it and actually do anything. #2 - Make time for music. I seem to have spent the whole of the last year running round after other people - great from a Karma point of view, but useless to me in terms of learning anything new/recording anything/makin time to make music, and time to write.

Resolution #3 - to write and record at least one good song per month, probably via the SSG....

and #4 - to keep on enjoying playing and listening. Music has got to be fun to listen to and play - I hope I can titillate someone's ears next year....

Whatever happens to me, musically, I hope 2012 is a good musical year for YOU - may your guitars ROCK!

All the best,



Vic

[boxboy]

I stumbled on this the other day. It's Woody Guthrie's New Years resolutions for some year, don't recall which:

[Alan Green]

Only one New Year Resolution from here.

I'm going to check the cupboards before I write the shopping list - we have three jars of cranberry sauce now, two of them unopened.

[Nuno]

Basically only one resolution: to play guitar regularly again. I have not played so much this year. I kept learning some basic jazz concepts and also explored some modes for improvisation. Those were my goals for 2011 and those can be my goals for 2012, too. If I were able to increase the time for playing, it would be great!

And keep learning German!

[s1120]

Well nothing major realy. I made a real step foward last year, so manly this year I want to keep at the pace ive been moving foward, and hopfully get to the point where I can get out and play with others.

[TRGuitar]

Ummmmmm ...... nope.

[Vic Lewis VL]

Ummmmmm ...... nope.

LOL - so what've you got your eye on?



Vic

[TRGuitar]

Well, not really anything. I kept the gas at bay by souping up my Fernandes. Not sure if you read the thread. http://www.guitarnoise.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=52138 I really do have too many. Not a resolution cause we already started, but need to continue with drum tracks to put a credible act together with my boy. We got one solid set so far!

[Chris C]

Mine are pretty simple - going to give up smoking (yeah, AGAIN!) at midnight on New Year's Eve. It's come down to a choice of pleasures - I can either afford to play guitar, with all the small attendant financial outlayings - new strings, new accessories, etc, etc....or carry on wasting money blowing smoke into the air. What I want to do is play guitar - so the ciggies are going to have to go, once and for all. It's going to be hard - but hell, others have done it (big salute to Roy!) and survived. #1 - quit smoking, get that horrible monkey off my back once and for all.

All the very best with the resolution Vic.

I'm sure that you know that you'll be better off financially, but it can be an eye-opener to work out by how much. Vicki and I both gave up smoking nearly 30 years ago now. I just worked out that, at today's prices, we have now saved over a quarter of a million dollars. Yes, that's over $250,000. That didn't just pay for an attic full of good music gear, it paid for the attic itself, and more.

Many years ago, my Dad once worked out that he had saved the price of a Jaguar car by not smoking. So he bought one. I'm sure he gave some to charity too, but it's the car that I remember ....


My Resolutions:

1. Learn how to properly use all the bloody gear I've bought.

2. Take at least one song that I've written for the SSG and actually finish it - right up to a half way reasonable recording - even if it takes all year to get there.

3. Get out more (I joined the local bushfire brigade and that's been a step in the right direction! Great bunch of people, but you've got to be quick off the mark if you want a seat in the truck before it leaves the shed.... ).

4. I like Woodie's #18 on the list Don posted too - "Stay Glad". I aim to do a fair bit of that.

5. Don't buy ANY more music gear until I have cast iron reason to do so.

6. Do my part to stimulate the global economy (buying more gear might help....)

Cheers,

Chris

[Cat]

On the personal side: there is no way...EVER...I'm gonna get hitched again! Quel bummér grandiose, mes amis...

But on the GN-related stuff: yeah. Not to dilude myself with what I "think" I know...or can do. Listen to criticism...and even swallow some of it!

Vic...best of luck quitting them things, man. Very BAD juju...revenge of the American Indians in spades, if ya ask me!

And...hey...you're all a pretty nice bunch of fellows!

Cat

[Alan Green]

On the personal side: there is no way...EVER...I'm gonna get hitched again! Quel bummér grandiose, mes amis...

Been there - never again.

I noticed as I was practising yesterday that my solo repertoire contains a lot of what's categorised as "Early Music," Renaissance and Baroque stuff; so I'm going to see if I can't bump that up enough with enough extra material to have an album ready by the end of the year.

[Cat]

Alan...I found some software sounds to run through a midi. ETHNO somebody or other...I'll have to find the CD and see exactly who's it is. All instruments from that period, anyway. I was searching for great bagpipes and came across this thing.

Cat

[rparker]

A couple of years back it was smoking. This year it's weight. My wife's annual holiday vacation ends tomorrow morning, so we figured that'd be the logical time to start. Pizza & apple dumplings tonight. Salad tomorrow.

Music-wise, it's really nothing more than keep improving. I wanted to learn another scale last year, get better at lead or solo playing and get better at recording. I've started that all with gusto and I'm all set up to continue do all of that. Also get more in depth with this whole theory thing. I've got Tom's and David's books settin' and waiting for me to go through them again. I got the Bass book for my son a few years back and I saw someone mention that it's got a really good theory section, so I'll start there.

One quantifiable thing I want to do is to train the ear. I remember an article or two on the GN main site about that. I've got some minor ear repair/maintenance coming up soon, so I'll do it after that. Everything's a bit muffled on one side right now.

[Cat]

Roy...glad to hear you've got a grip on things. Just don't "tomorrow it to death".

It's more than good to see you're concentrating on what your ear clues you in to rather than what you think you hear. I still use my own technique. Just take a slow strum and let it ring. CONCENTRATE...pick out ONE ringing overtone that you can hear but can't quite suss out from where your fingers are. (I do this with chordings when I get stuck writing the way ahead in a tune.) Then try to nail that very same note up somewhere on the fretboard with your FIRST try. DON"T think about it, Roy. Let yer fingers do the walkin'! You will utterly surprise yourself at how you "just seem to know" where to land! If you try to devote any brainpower to sussing it out...you won't find your fingers being "second nature" to anything other than what you consciously look at, then do. Look, although there's plenty of chords out there in Chord World, they are still a finite number...and, one by one, you'll slay each dragon!

(I love this instrument!)

Cat

[cnev]

Let's see what's in store for the New Year:

1) Get through my divorce. This is number two for me, never thought that would happen but it did. This one isn't that stressful we worked out an agreement and in theory this should be over later this month. Wife has been living back in NC for 6 months now so it's seemed like it was over long ago. As for marriage number 3, I'll never say never but I absolutley will say "prenup". I'd never get married again without one.

Now back to music.

I did buy a used JCM 900 Marshall combo amp from a guy in the band. I used it a month ago at practice and I loved the sound compared to my Fender so I splurged and bought it. I wasn't looking for something that big or heavy but I thought the price was decent and the sound was an upgrade.

I guess the two things I want to happen is on a personal level definitely improve on my soloing skills like Roy. I never really practiced it per se and it shows. This year it's time to kick it up a notch.

The other is to finally play out with the band. We had our first practice with the new bass player in Dec. and man we sounded good. We have practice tonight and then we should be practicing regularly to get out there I'm hoping by March but that might be to soon depends on how much practice we can get.