3,626 Reply by Roger Guppy

(5 replies, posted in Guitars and accessories)

Thanks Guys,

The Fender electro/acoustic is a JG-26SCE NAT and is a dream to play in spite of some bad reports of Fender acoustics posted on the Forum. Although I did pick up and play a 70's Fender acoustic that someone had brought into my friend Howard's shop for him to try and sell, now that was awful, so bad that Howard reckons he will never sell it and might have to pay someone to take it away.

The green electric is a J&D (Jack and Danny Brothers) ST-1 Strat copy and I usually refer to her as my 'Mean Green Music Machine'. On the next string change I am going to strip her down and replace the volume pot as it is geting a little 'iffy'.

All my family of guitars are Korean.

Roger

Go to forum: Guitars and accessories

3,627 Topic by Roger Guppy

(5 replies, posted in Guitars and accessories)

I now have a new love in my life.

I have put a photo on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/roger_guppy/ and she is the one on the right of her two friends.

I have had a longing for a 12 string for along time, the last time I had one was in the 60's, and I found this in my friends music shop. Not a make I have heard of, a Channel CD-312-N and made in Korea but the action was good (it is now even better after a having it lowered slightly). The tone just great and at only €235 a good buy I think. I paid a little extra to have an electric pick-up installed to make her easier to record with.

So now I am geting used the wider neck, closer strings, trying not to muff my chords and getting larger calouses on my fingers, but I am a happy man.

Roger

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3,628 Reply by Roger Guppy

(4 replies, posted in Songwriting)

Nice one Jeff, no prizes for guessing who this one is about!!

Roger

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3,629 Reply by Roger Guppy

(5 replies, posted in Songwriting)

Nice one Rebel, I enjoyed playing this one although to be honest I played standard open chords but it sounded good.

Roger

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3,630 Reply by Roger Guppy

(9 replies, posted in About Chordie)

Hi Aron,

I have recieved your private e-mail and replied today. Your English is far superior to my command of your language so I hope you understood my reply.

Further to that the 'sticky' at the start of this section does explain why that you cannot post original songs on Chordie.

Roger

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3,631 Reply by Roger Guppy

(9 replies, posted in About Chordie)

Hi there Aron,

Welcome to Chordie. I have read your post several times and I am still unsure of what you are asking. If you want a chart of chord diagrams then click on the 'Resources' and you will see there is a large chord chart available which you can print out as a permanent reference.

If I have misunderstood your question please post again but be a little more specific.

Take care,

Roger

Go to forum: About Chordie

3,632 Reply by Roger Guppy

(25 replies, posted in Guitars and accessories)

Lieven,

What Russell has said is exactly right and to answer your question to me.

I use, what is now quite an old, Korg tuning device as it has a meter and not a digital disply and I must admit that I normaly have to make minor adjustments to the B and e strings but it takes only seconds to do. The automatic tuning gadget could tune no better than I can with my Korg and I guess I would still have to make minor adjustments.

The other thing that concens me with the auto tuner in what does it do if the string is too tuned high? Does it tune it low and then bring it up to the correct pitch? Or does it just tune it down to right pitch so that as soon as you start playing it goes out of tune again?

I disagree with your comparision between automatic tuner and a tuning device. A tuning device gives you an accurate reference to work to when tuning your guitar (far easier than carrying a piano with you to tune to lol). The automatic tuner takes away the human element of a skill and is saying that a chip of silicon is better than a human.

In my opinion my brain and skill is better than any automatic tuner and when I have to rely on a contraption like that is the time for me to give up playing.

Roger

Go to forum: Guitars and accessories

3,633 Reply by Roger Guppy

(16 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)

Hi James,

Sorry but I had to laugh my sox of at that as about 2 years ago I did the self same thing only I went down the middle and gave myself a reverse mohican. I dithered for a bit, decided there was nothing else for it, continued and finished the job but I wore a hat for the next 4 weeks.

There is an old adage that that 'great minds think alike', may be it should be 'great mind act alike'. tongue

Roger


PS
If someone mentions 'fools seldom differ' I will ban them from Chordie lol:lol::lol:

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3,634 Reply by Roger Guppy

(4 replies, posted in Songwriting)

Hi enjoipanda,

If you have written a song then the best way to get a title is to take a phrase from the lyrics.

However I suspect it is actually an instrumental piece you have written so perhaps something like "Sunset", "Happiness" or maybe "Sunset on the Sand".

Roger

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3,635 Reply by Roger Guppy

(6 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)

Helena,

I really wish you had not posted that!!

I shall now NEVER be able to watch one of my all time favourite films without busting my gut at that scene lol

Roger

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3,636 Reply by Roger Guppy

(25 replies, posted in Guitars and accessories)

I am in agreement with Russell on this one. Learning to tune your guitar is one of the first basic lessons and should naturaly be the first thing to do before you start playing. When I learnt to play tuning consisted of guessing the low E then pressing that on the 5th fret for your A and so on, until we discovered pitch pipes (and they were nortoriously out of tune). Electronic tuners have now made the job so easy.

Anyway if you are going to have a machine to do your tuning, what is next? A machine to play the guitar for you perhaps lol

I guess you could say that personally I am not in favour of these devices.

Roger

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3,637 Reply by Roger Guppy

(28 replies, posted in Acoustic)

Well for my two penny worth,

I reckon that my memory can only hold a finite amount so if I can remember how to play my guitar and remember how to sing I can use a sheet of paper for the chords and lyrics. That way I will not fill my memory with stuff that is not neccessary and leave room for more important things.

Seriously why worry, a lot of artists when they are performing will have an Autocue in front of them so they do not forget and most of the semi-pro musicians that I know will have their songbook at their gig. OK there are exceptional people who have incredible memories and do not need a memory aid but if you do need one, as I certainly do, then you have to accept it.

Roger

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3,638 Reply by Roger Guppy

(10 replies, posted in Guitars and accessories)

Hi specialkins,

Most buskers around here use a portable mini-disc player for backing tracks. It can be run off its own batteries and fed through an amp, it is easier to select which track you want to play than a tape player and they are not so susceptible to jumping through vibration like a CD player.

Roger

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3,639 Reply by Roger Guppy

(10 replies, posted in Songwriting)

Hi Ark and Russell,

I have listened to both recordings of this fine instumental and the addition of the percussion certainly adds the finishing touches to it. Great work from both of you.

Roger

Go to forum: Songwriting

3,640 Reply by Roger Guppy

(5 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)

Great story longboarder,

I think you now have the basis for your first song on the forum,

An apple a day keeps the doctor away,
Unless it is fed to a horse,
Its teeth missed the apple and sank into my thumb,
Left the wife and kids laughing and me feeling dumb.

lol lol lol

Roger

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3,641 Reply by Roger Guppy

(18 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)

bud_wiser wrote:

I actually got a rather sniffy email from Youtube telling me that my cover of Brown Eyed Girl was in contravention of copyright laws and they removed it. I can only assume that Van the Man's lawyers are a bit sharper than some of the other artists I've covered. Maybe they have more time on their hands these days since he mellowed a bit. Either way, I thought it was a wee bit harsh....but fair enough. Video was removed and I lived to tell the tale. I'll keep putting music on there and remove it by exception rather than as the rule.

Hey Mark I can only think that perhaps your version was better than the original and they got frightened.

Roger

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3,642 Reply by Roger Guppy

(8 replies, posted in Songwriting)

Hi slaya,

Welcome to songwriting. A fine start for a song, an unusual theme for one and I like it. I do hope you are going now to spend some more time to finish it as I would like to see the completed song.

Be warned however I will then probably start pestering you to record it so we can see how you  perform it lol.

Well done,

Roger

Go to forum: Songwriting

3,643 Reply by Roger Guppy

(21 replies, posted in Acoustic)

Hi vhagopian,

What you are doing with all this practice, practice, practice is training your finger muscles and tendons  to immediately go to a certain position each time you think to play a different chord and it does take time for this to become automatic.

I have been playing a number of years (my first guitar used dinosaur gut for strings lol) but I still come across a song with a chord I do not normally use and have to spend time learning it. OK, it comes easier with experience but it is never instantaneous.

So keep at it, everyone's progress is different, but the rewards make the effort worthwhile.

Roger

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3,644 Reply by Roger Guppy

(12 replies, posted in Songwriting)

Hi daddycool,

Nice little song about a rather cute but potentially a very destructive creature. Well done.

Roger

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3,645 Reply by Roger Guppy

(9 replies, posted in Songwriting)

Hi Oldnewbie,

Wonderful song which brought back many happy memories of my childhood, and one in particular.

My maternal grandfather spent hours playing with us kids (he had 10 children and 28 grandchildren). He was at his happiest when we were around and in the bottom drawer of his desk were all his toys for us kids, amongst then some musical instruments, drums, triangle, xylophone, tambourine, trumpet etc. The story goes that one day there were 8 or 9 of us grandkids there and my grandfather had us marching up and down his back yard, he was singing and we were in line behind making 'music' (you can imagine the racket). My grandmother rushes out and shouts "Bill, what are you doing? You will annoy the neighbours" to which he replied "No it is all right I am only keeping the children quiet".

Thank you,

Roger

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3,646 Reply by Roger Guppy

(5 replies, posted in Songwriting)

Thank you Helena, Ark and Oldnewbie,

Helena, there was a certain lady in mind when I started writing this song, but when it started off it was not intended to be the romantic love song that it finished up to be, so my lips are sealed.

Ark, we have to look after out ladies (romanically linked to us or not), they are worth it.

Oldnewbie, I am trying to cut down on the number of chords I use as it can become addictive lol. Please feel free play it to 'the wifey'.

Roger

Go to forum: Songwriting

3,647 Reply by Roger Guppy

(5 replies, posted in Songwriting)

HI Jeff,

Just gave your song a whirl, strumming the verses and fingerpicking the chorus worked just fine for me, the Eb+ was just right in it too. I changed one word in the lyric though - I substituted cat for dog lol. Well done.

Hate to tell you, we had a little rain today but it is still T shirt weather in Portugal.

Roger

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3,648 Topic by Roger Guppy

(5 replies, posted in Songwriting)

This song is dedicated to all the single Chordie ladies to let you know that somewhere out there is a guy who will feel just like this about you.

On a technical note, when I came to record this song I found that I needed to raise it two semi-tones to suit my voice but as there are three fingerpicking tracks I needed the open chords so I used the chords shown but with a capo on the second fret. The chords for the first two lines of the verses are for two bars and all others are one bar. The Em... chord is a single strum that is allowed to fade for that bar.

Recorded on: http://www.myspace.com/rogerguppy


Youby Roger Guppy


Intro:


[Em][Am][D][G]


.


.


verse 1:




[Em]The day I met you [Am]I knew for sure,


[D]That you were the one for [G]me,


[C]I want [D]you forever [G]by my [Em]side,


[C]I no [D]longer want to be [G]free.[G]


.


.


Chorus:



[D]You're beautiful and [C]loving, [G]so full of [Em]life,


[C]You're all a [D]man could [Em]desire,[Em...]


[C]They broke the [D]mould on the [G]day that they made [Em]you,


[C]Take me in your [F]arms and light my [G]fire.[G]


.


.


verse 2:





[Em]Come and take me to be [Am]yours,


[D]Let us share the good and the [G]bad,


[C]Together [D]we can do just [G]anything that we [Em]want,


But [C]alone we'd be un[D]happy and [G]sad.[G]


.


.


Chorus:



[D]You're beautiful and [C]loving, [G]so full of [Em]life,


[C]You're all a [D]man could [Em]desire,[Em...]


[C]They broke the [D]mould on the [G]day that they made [Em]you,


[C]Take me in your [F]arms and light my [G]fire.[G]


.


.


Verse 3:




[Em]Perfection is very [Am]rarely found,


[D]But that word is just right for [G]you,


[C]You're u[D]nique in this [G]imperfect [Em]world,


[C]An an[D]gel, [C]an an[D]gel, [C]an an[D]gel on earth is [G]you.



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3,649 Reply by Roger Guppy

(5 replies, posted in Songwriting)

Hi Jeff,

I am wondering whether your message about the Ebaug chord came after you saw the chord chart. According to my info xx1003 is Eb+ and xx1004 is Gmmaj7 (G minor Major7). It is possible that the chord chart is incorrect and if I can get confirmation I will ask Per to amend the existing chart.

I will play your song and comment on it later.

Take care,

Roger

Go to forum: Songwriting

3,650 Reply by Roger Guppy

(16 replies, posted in Songwriting)

Great news James,

Obviously I will not be able to listen to it over here so please do report on how it was received.

Fantastic and justly deserved,

Roger

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