Quote:
Originally Posted by ChuckS
Hey Bill,
It looks really nice and sounds interesting. Maybe you should set up an AGF get together so our local group can hear it.
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Sounds like a good idea. But I should probably get to the point of actually having something resembling music come out of this thing first!
Actually, even with just an hour or so spent with it so far, I've made some progress. So far I've just been working on getting a clean sound out of it, getting a nice strong tone, working on intonation, and working on playing some simple melody lines with appropriate chordal accompaniment.
The hardest thing for me so far seems to be getting a good sound out of melody lines played on the first string - intonation (and being able to change notes precisely) is a big part of this, but also I just need to get a stronger sound. And I need to get much better at doing vibrato.
Also, muting and otherwise controlling noise from the slide/string contact is a huge thing on these things it seems. It is going to take a bit of work to have that all start to come naturally.
Also, I need to figure out how to get more different chords out of this thing given that everything is played with the slide. Initially it feels sort of like all one can do is sort of play bar chords or partial bar chords, but I'm seeing there is much more that one can do than that. I need to get a better feel for how to effectively play melody lines with appropriate chordal accompaniment (including more than just major chords) and such.
I think what I really need to do to start finding my way around the instrument is find (or create) an actual piece to work on. There is some tablature out there on the web for Weissenborns, and what I've always found on guitar and banjo in the past is that learning other people's arrangements really helps in the early stages of finding one's way around the neck and figuring out fingerings.