Lesson Eleven Tuesday 19th March

In the day before my lesson lucky for me my new guitar had arrived. This time it was a blue one. 

New Guitar

The Old Classical Guitar

Not really my favoured colour but it was the only one they had in at such a short time scale. Regardless of the colour I was relieved that I would not have to take the classical version that I had. 

I did not have a chance to have a strum of it but I could tell even to my much untrained ear that it would need tuning, which I was very reluctant to do.

I went to my lesson and before revealing my new guitar explained to him all about what had happened. He had a look at the instrument and to start tuning it. This took a fair while as apparently the fret board was too straight and this was making some strings stick to the frets themselves and make a buzzing sound when you play them.

He explained to me that the board sort of needs to curve slightly away from the strings so that when they are tuned and are tight the tension will always make sure that the strings are still away from the frets. 

Allen Key Slot for adjusting Fret Board

There is an Allen key slot to adjust this curve just inside the sound box of the guitar. The teacher started to adjust and tune as best as he could to this (let’s be honest) cheap musical instrument. While he struggled with my new guitar he gave me his one to practise on.

The teachers guitar as you could imagine is very good but sadly as I went through my exercise it was not my old cheap guitar that was making it sound bad just my poor ability.

I played “Half the World Away” which I do think may be improving. I went through the R.E.M song “Everybody Hurts” which was slow and needs a lot of improving on when it comes to playing in G.

After tormenting the teacher’s guitar he announces that he had done his best. He showed me that it was in tune but there may well be a buzzing sound on some strings but they would still ring true (just sound a bit crap that’s all) he thought as the guitar settles down it would be fine.

It did not matter really as once I had a go of it none of the strings rang true and that was nothing to do with the instrument. My next exercise was going through the Green Day song. 

This one still eludes me I had to go through practising changing from G to D and back. The teacher added another part to this song.

Cord B7 x = don't use this string

This is at a very different tempo and since trying to practise it I cannot get right and with yet another cord to learn which is B7.

Another lesson finished and I am sure there was some improvement but I will wait for trying to tune a guitar for a while though. It’s just proving to be too much hassle for me and my poor teacher.