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.

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!

Land of the Silver Birch/The Hurdy Gurdy

 A couple of guitar pieces from the third Guitarist's Way book. One on the steel string, the other on the Valencia nylon string guitar.

2 guitar pieces and a new technique

The first two pieces from the third Guitarists Way book. 

Blue Lake and Rocky Shore. 

Rocky Shore sounds similar to the previous piece but employs a technique called Tambora where the strings are struck with the thumb, near the bridge.

Polish Dance

 Another piece from The Guitarist's Way, book 2. Played on the Fender Dreadnought

Spanish Dance

 A piece in The Guitarists Way book one, played on my trusty Fender acoustic.

Chords practice

Practising the progression from Knocking on Heaven's Door - G D and C.

First on the Fender Dread, then on the Tanglewood Super Folk

Need to get the muscle memory in for clean chord changes.

Czerny etude

 Going through the Carol Barratt book again. Got the Czerny etude, op.599 no. 11 down

 And a bit of piano fun, 

plus guitar...

5 chord progression

 Another of Marty Schwartz's tutorials, using D, Em, G, A and Asus2.

Once I'd got the chords down reasonably cleanly I decided to try playing them fingerstyle.

Guitar practise

 Back to guitar after some time away from it, now I have sore fingers, again...

Re-string x 2

 The strings on my Fender acoustic were too light, it was affecting tuning, so I decided to get some medium weight strings for it (Martin Monels, 13-56). My partner ordered them for me and as a surprise she got a second set, for my Tanglewood, which has had the same strings since it was bought, back in 2011!

So today I finished stringing them up. Unfortunately I lost one of the Tanglewood's original bridge pins, so I alternated with some black pins I got from Wish.

Acoustic fun

 Played some blues and chords today on the Fender DG5 

Some 12 bar blues:

E7, A7 and B7, which is a tricky chord but I'm getting there.

And a nice little bluesy chord progression.

A major 7th, Eminor,(repeat both), C minor and D7

X02120, 022000, X02120, 022000, X32310, XX0212

Riff at the dusty end

Just noodling up the neck on the Fender dread.

Slide guitar

My Dunlop brass slide next to my Fender acoustic,

and a video

Bit of fingerstyle guitar

I've not even touched a guitar in months, but tonight I got the urge. The Fender DG5 is in open G and I started playing slide but I need a decent brass slide. I'm using a bit of copper pipe joiner but its surface isn't flat, so I stopped that and did a bit of fingerstyle instead.

Little blues lick

Playing in open G on my Fender DG5 with a bit of slide. Immense fun!

https://t.co/HCBjyQ3GMF

Open D7 on Fender acoustic

I wanted to have a go at slide guitar again so I picked up my trusty old Fender DG5 and tuned it to open D7 (DADF#AC)
Sounds lush.

Comparing my guitars.

Was noodling away up the neck on my Tanglewood Discovery and I thought I'd try the same piece on all 3 guitars. It wasn't really do-able on my classical because the neck meets the body at the 12th fret. I could do it but it was a stretch. Much easier on my 2 steel strings here (Tanglewood Discovery/Fender DG5). I've long thought that the Fender, being a Dreadnought, is too big to play, but really it isnt! And tho the Discovery is smaller, with a shorter scale (called a Super Folk) the nut width and string spacing is the same.

Of the two, I still think that the Fender (now 14 years old) is the best guitar I've played!

New strings for Tilly

I've had a pack of strings in my guitar bag for a while now, and today I decided it was time my Fender acoustic got a re-string.
They are D'addario Phosphor Bronze Extra Lights (.010 to .047) and what a difference they made!
Warmer sound and lighter on the fingers. Being a big, long scale Dreadnought the guitar has a high tension, so putting lights on seemed to be an ideal solution. Now it plays as easily as my Tanglewood!

My two acoustics

Fender and Tanglewood go head to head. Its quite hard to choose between them-the blonde Fender DG5 (2004) has a bigger, deeper sound due to it being a Dreadnought style guitar but it's a bit too big to handle comfortably, and always hurts my fingers. The blue Tanglewood Discovery (2011) however is smaller, easier to handle but has a narrower neck less suited to fingerstyle I suppose. Both sound fabulous though and the Tanglewood played straight out of the box, whereas the Fender needed a set up, having a very high action from the outset.