Open D tuning

 Set the Tanglewood up for open D or Vestapol tuning (DADF#AD) and it sounds fab!

 

And then a little bit in DADFAD. Just dropped the F# to an F

A bit of slide

 Trying out some slide on the Fender Dreadnought (DG5) in open G tuning (DGDGBD)

Ernie Ball Earthwood medium light strings (got em for free, trying em out), Dunlop 222 brass slide

Its been a while...

And some wooden picks I got last Christmas 

We Three Kings

 We Three Kings, the first Christmas carol in The Guitarist's Way supplement book, played with a pick on the Fender Dread.

Scales X2

 Playing the A scale with a skippy beat, on 2 different guitars.

2019 Valencia hybrid nylon, 2004 Fender DG5 Dreadnought

Starting on the 3rd string (G string), 2nd fret.

Restrung the Fender

 The Fender Dread had Martin Monels on, good strings but they were a bit too heavy (13-56) and the action was a tad high (3.5 mm at the 12th fret)

A friend on the Acoustic Soundboard forum kindly sent me 2 sets of strings, Ernie Ball Earthwood and Newtones customs. I decided to try the Ernie Balls.

Restringing went...ok. Cleaned up the fingerboard with baby oil then went ahead with the re-stringing. But I discovered I'd put the 4th string in the 5th string's tuner, so had to redo that. Then I found that the 2nd string (B) wasn't holding its tuning. The wrapping around the post wasn't secure, so I took it off and re-did it. 

Finally I got it all done and it sounded much better. The strings are very resonant

Couple of guitar pieces

 First two pieces from The Guitarist's Way book 4, Riff and Sounds Irish, the latter played with a pick.

Britches full of Stitches x2

 I dusted off the mandolin (literally) and had a go at this fiddle tune. Not easy, its cramped in there!

Then I tried it on guitar-my first attempt at flatpicking. I have to get used to using a pick and doing the upstroke on the 8th notes. Using a 1.2 mm generic pick. It's certainly louder than fingerstyle that's for sure! And flatpicking on guitar is a lot easier than on mandolin!

Carnival +

 Carnival, a song from The Guitarist's Way but with my own middle section added.

Played on the Fender Dreadnought wearing Martin Monels, mediums

Serenade, in blue

 Played on my blue Tanglewood Discovery which for some reason was quite a bit harder than when played on the classical!

Pastorale, redux

 A piece in The Guitarist's Way book, redone, played on strings 1 and 2 rather than trying to play it all on one string. Also played the repeat.

Then I played it on ukulele

Pastorale

 A simple one line piece in The Guitarist's Way book 3, played in the 7th position.

Three Note Chords

 An exercise in 3 parts in The Guitarist's Way book 3 

Playing in the 7th position

 A piece in The Guitarist's Way book 3 playing in the VII position (fret 7). 

Boogie...

 A fun blues piece in the Guitarist's Way book 3

Reverie

 A little piece I came up with while practising guitar.

Legend

 Legend from The Guitarist's Way book 3.

This was a tough nut to crack. Its not perfect; there are moments when my nail is hitting the adjacent string on the way back down to the correct string, but the string spacing is closer on this Valencia. Sounds tons better than the Jose Ferrer though.

I was exhausted afterwards!

2 Strings Dancing

 A little bit of improv on my Tanglewood uke, using the g string as a drone.

Father Halpin's Topcoat on Lyre harp

 Thought I'd give it a go

New instrument -Lyre harp

 Got this today thanks to my partner. 16 string lyre harp in C, from Temu. Just gave it its first tuning. Quite surprised me how little I had to move the key to tune it. The slightest movement and you're too sharp. Subtle movements needed...

It also surprised me that it appears to have good quality considering how cheap it was (about £35) and was from Temu. The same instruments can be found on Amazon but for quite a bit more money.

A little something

 Just something I came up with while messing about on the Jose Ferrer classical guitar.