The aging guitarist....

[donlyn]

The aging guitarist....


rlliink,

From your signature,
"Please don't take me too seriously, I don't."

While I like to use joking and/or 'punny' references, I take my music seriously. And I find that you have a lot of good insights, especially into the 'life' portion of your music journey.

That said, I enjoy your posts. A lot.

As for the aging guitarist part, I am a practicing septuagenarian, and learning things is still a large part of my life. Been playing since the 60s and find music, even when just practicing music and/or playing for myself, to be very therapeutic. So is reading a good book, especially history or historical fiction.

Be well and play well,

Don
.

[J Patrick]

Originally Posted by Murphy Slaw

I just keep reminding myself that I'm younger than Sam Bush...

Sam is a force of nature. I first saw Sam in 1979 at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. This year, 45 years later he’ll be playing there again….and killing it like he always does. And yeah he has a couple of years on me too

[Horsehockey]

Originally Posted by FretMuse

You might want to consider this Eastman, or try to find one ... I just bought a right-hand. It's 12-fret, wide neck, 24.9" scale.

https://reverb.com/item/79296962-eas...coustic-guitar

Lefty's, in Scituate, Massachusetts, has a couple of Collings, an 01 and an 02, I think.

Thank you very much for the leads FretMuse. I appreciate it.

[Bookstorecowboy]

I can relate. Some things that can help:
1. Soak the forearms in hot water for a while before playing.
2. Reduce the pressure. Most guitarists probably use 3-4x more pressure than is really needed.
3. Remember the audience doesn't usually even like fast playing or care about it. The people who applaud it are either other guitarists or look at it the way ordinary people look at gymnastics.
4. Singing for most audiences is mostly about feeling, not vocal power or range. It's similar to speed -- that's mostly showing off for other players or trying to dazzle people who don't care about music one way or the other.

[Don W]

I am 71 now and have had many surgeries. Carpel tunnel surgery went really well and all of the tingling and weakness is gone... but recently had emergency heart surgery - bypass x5. Getting back to playing now after a couple of months. Memory is a little impaired and the fingers tremble a little but everything is improving. I have more patience now and am grateful to be playing my finger style pieces again and grateful to the awesome doctors here in Mass. that saved my life...they were even careful not to mess up my fretting hand after I told them I was a guitarist. Like someone said, Better to be playing a guitar than a harp.

[ScottyMac]

Wow...read through all these posts with empathy. It all sounds so familiar. I started playing in 1968 at 14, and now I'm almost 70. I have watched various iconic players such as Mark Knopler to see how they have changed. From my perspective, they have altered their style somewhat to accommodate the slowing fingers, slowing mind, etc, and I like what they're doing.

Some of what I've done to accommodate decreasing abilities...

Leaned more toward flat picking as opposed to my traditional finger style.

Make sure all my guitars are set up with close action.

Started playing more electric a couple years ago...easier to fret

Being more satisfied playing simpler chord progressions, and playing them more cleanly.

I play about two hours a day...not necessarily to get better, but to not get worse.

And even with hearing loss, trying to appreciate the tonal differences between guitars.

Like so many here, I don't want to give this up. It is just about the only interest that has stayed with me all of my life. Peel this piece of wood out of my hands only after they are dead and cold. And with that happy note...

[MCDEMO1]

Everyone keep a positive attitude about your playing as much as possible. After reading about what some of you have been through physically I consider myself lucky and thankful for my health which although not perfect is better than average !

I turned 72 last week and have had more than my share of good guitars since 1970, but never spent enough time developing a practice regimen to increase skills. I continued noodling late at night after working to help relax and have found that to be an enjoyable exercise to this day.

Retired last year and it was not planned, so it has been a little difficult to adjust. Thought I would play a lot more, but it is amazing how many things turn up to take up what was to be free time.

I have had benign tremors for probably 20 years now and they have become worse in the last couple, so I have started to sell off some of my collected instruments and trying to determine which ones to keep has been an interesting process. Hedging towards smaller bodies, shorter scale, and wide string spacing at nut and saddle with lighter gauge strings instead of D's and Jumbos with mediums.

Saw Jorma Kaukonen a couple of nights ago in NH and at 83 he is an amazing player and singer. To my ears he has developed a little bit of a Joseph Spence type mumble between verses while singing but his voice is still strong and clear.

Similar to Leo Kottke with his Muiderman guitar, Jorma seems to really like his newer Flammang. Both those guys could play anything and make it sound good, but those newer guitars really sound great in their hands and you can see the appreciation of the instruments in their faces as they play, at least it appeared so to me when attending their recent shows.

[donlyn]

Originally Posted by MCDEMO1

Everyone keep a positive attitude about your playing as much as possible. After reading about what some of you have been through physically I consider myself lucky and thankful for my health which although not perfect is better than average !

* *

. . . Thought I would play a lot more, but it is amazing how many things turn up to take up what was to be free time.

* *

Amen, guitar brother.

I have a couple more years on starship earth than you, and am semi-retired.
I like to work a bit; mostly to keep me going and on my feet.
And for a few dollars more. Doesn't hurt, of course.

But the part that gets to me is,
"Thought I would play a lot more, but it is amazing how many things turn up to take up what was to be free time."

And that so many others think you have plenty of free time and can't really understand or adjust to how busy things get.

So true.
Oh well; it is what it is.

Need more nap time, I think.

Be well and play well,

Don
.

[Silly Moustache]

Originally Posted by Bookstorecowboy

I can relate. Some things that can help:
1. Soak the forearms in hot water for a while before playing.
2. Reduce the pressure. Most guitarists probably use 3-4x more pressure than is really needed.
3. Remember the audience doesn't usually even like fast playing or care about it. The people who applaud it are either other guitarists or look at it the way ordinary people look at gymnastics.
4. Singing for most audiences is mostly about feeling, not vocal power or range. It's similar to speed -- that's mostly showing off for other players or trying to dazzle people who don't care about music one way or the other.

Mr Bookstorecowboy, You are SO right! I agree with every word!

Item 1. about "old" (or younger) hands - warming up:



Item 2. I realised some time ago from watching folk like Tim O'Brien, and Eli West etc.' that much of the skill of playing faster or more accurately, is to learn to fret as lightly as possible whilst putting the "energy" into the strings with the picking hand - I "know" this, but I'm still working on it!

Item 3 : I often wonder who the audiences for the Molly Tuttles and Billy Strings are - whilst I admire their dexterity, and talents -I wouldn't go to see them.

Audiences are prolly wannabe hot guitarists and their long suffering other halves - and I'm not putting them down! As an ex bluegrasser, I know that some of our stuff simply didn't appeal to others, that's why after 1979, I became the frontman/singer, even when playing dobro or mando.

Item 4: Here's something I put on my Y/T channel some time ago :

Thanks for your posting, and I hope it helps others.

[radiokid]

Fingers work well but ears don’t. I’m afraid the joy of a fine instrument is gone for good. Headphones work great for electric but not for acoustic for some reason. I’m going to do one more sweep of the acoustics rack at my local store and see if there is anything that will restore that thrill but I’m skeptical.

[raysachs]

I'm now within a month of turning 65. I start Medicare on May 1st. By some measures that makes me old, but at the very least I'm aging. The good news is I just started playing AGAIN about seven years ago. I played a lot in my 20s and I was good enough to have a blast, but not good enough to worry much about losing all of that excellence. And then I played barely at all for the next 30 (kids, career, other interests, etc) - thought I was done for good. But at age almost 58 I somehow started playing again. It took me a few months to get back to as good as I'd been as a kid and everything since then has been gravy. I have a bit less dexterity than I did then, but I've learned an incredible amount and what I'd lost in dexterity, I've made up for in taste.

I'm not particularly good - I'll never be much better than I am, but I'm doing age appropriate stuff. As a kid, I was kind of an electric guitar lead playing gunslinger. I was the worst singer on earth, maybe 10th worst on my best day. I used to dive out of windows to avoid my own voice. And I wasn't a particularly good rhythm player either. Now I play waaaaay more acoustic than electric, I've become a decent rhythm player, I play songs and dang if I haven't gotten to a point where I actually enjoy singing them too. I'll never be confused for a good singer, but I'm not awful anymore - I've gotten comfortable with it. I mostly strum and pick out individual notes of the chords, so it sounds like a combination of strumming and fingerpicking, but I tried fingerpicking, got semi-OK at it, but it's not for me, so now i play everything with a pick.

I occasionally record songs and I'll still play some lead guitar (electric or acoustic, depending on the material) on it and that's still probably my strength, but I don't do it that much. I mostly just play songs and sing them. I like the way cowboy chords ring out on an acoustic guitar, so that's mostly what I play now. It's stuff I'll probably be able to do as long as my hands work at all. None of it takes a great amount of skill, but I love it as much as I've ever loved playing. So I do it every day, usually for a couple of hours.

So, yeah, I'm an aging guitarist and I hope I have a lot more aging to do and a lot more guitar playing, within my significant limits. Show me a guitarist who isn't aging and I'll show you one who's already dead. That'll come soon enough, but until then I'll play to the best of my limited ability until fingers start falling off. And maybe then I'll learn slide.

-Ray

[tinnitus]

Loud music, firearms, fireworks, aircraft carriers, motorcycles, etc. have always been exciting for me and I have the bilateral audio profiles to prove it. Right smack dab in the SFR (Spousal Frequency Range) of course.

As the reality of hearing loss reared its ugly head 10 years ago (and my stubborn denial eventually diminished), I fully anticipated that stepping away from my decades-long passion for performing live electric rock/blues with bar bands (only 40+ years at that point) would leave a tragic, empty hole in my life.

Instead, I feel fortunate and grateful today for an inner peace that I didn't expect. Turns out I don't miss the bar band life at all (mountains of gear, 'complicated' bandmates and a continual diet of grudging compromise).

Several months ago, I (finally) found a compatible and competent acoustic duo partner who's just as happy as I am to play open mics. We like the same tunes (mostly 1970s fare but not all), polishing up 3-4 at a time to perform in three local venues every week. All the excitement of playing out without all the fuss.

[jjbigfly]

Originally Posted by Bookstorecowboy

I can relate. Some things that can help:
1. Soak the forearms in hot water for a while before playing.
2. Reduce the pressure. Most guitarists probably use 3-4x more pressure than is really needed.
3. Remember the audience doesn't usually even like fast playing or care about it. The people who applaud it are either other guitarists or look at it the way ordinary people look at gymnastics.
4. Singing for most audiences is mostly about feeling, not vocal power or range. It's similar to speed -- that's mostly showing off for other players or trying to dazzle people who don't care about music one way or the other.

Number 3 and 4 should be gospel…..and I have been working on #2.

[rstaight]

I turned 65 in February and retired at the end of March. I have turned in to a melon with all of the honey do list. But that is a different story.

In my younger I was into dirt bikes heavy with a group of friends. It was every weekend. From crashes and slamming into trees my hands took a beating.

The last several years my lead playing ability is know were close to what it once was. Hands are always stiff. Aspercreme and Voltaren have become my friends.

But I keep on playing what I can and I still enjoy it.

[Bluenose]

Originally Posted by Bookstorecowboy

I can relate. Some things that can help:
1. Soak the forearms in hot water for a while before playing.
2. Reduce the pressure. Most guitarists probably use 3-4x more pressure than is really needed.
3. Remember the audience doesn't usually even like fast playing or care about it. The people who applaud it are either other guitarists or look at it the way ordinary people look at gymnastics.
4. Singing for most audiences is mostly about feeling, not vocal power or range. It's similar to speed -- that's mostly showing off for other players or trying to dazzle people who don't care about music one way or the other.

I agree in part but lets not get carried away. I've never been a fast picker so at 70 I'm working on fiddle tunes and some Tony Rice things and trying to get them up to a decent speed. If you don't think people appreciate fast picking you've haven't been to Bluegrass concert lately.