Hi.

I'm in Cape Town. Milnerton Area.

OK
Hope I managed. Not easy on a mobile.

SO....

I sent Keira Knightley a message regarding this guitar. I hope she (and anyone else) will chip in with advice.
My dad picked it up on a garbage dump somewhere in the 90s. Someone must have tried to fit it with pickups as it had holes made for all the hardware. My dad filled it up but you can still see the spots.
Now I'd like to finish the job. From pictures on the web I place the guitar from around 1967. I tried looking on the inside for a date and found it but it is a bit unclear to make out.

Can anyone suggest who one might see in Cape Town to advice on what pickups to go for, etc. Someone who might have a special jazz guitar interest. I'd probably need them to let me hear some samples of different instruments as my experience in this field is 0. No use I do my own research cause I don't know enough to tell what aspect of what I might hear should be atributed to the wood type, pickup, amp or player!

I saw a 1 min youtube clip of a guy demonstrating the sound of Hofner vs. Dimarzio something 194 vs. (I think it was) Gibson '57 humbuckers. I quite liked the Hofner sound, but then on further investigation realized the clip wasn't that helpful in that their are several pickups that could be meant by the sparingly-worded description on the clip of 'Hofner by Schaller'. I really don't know where to start...

How possible is it to find some of these less common pickup types over here? And does anyone around here happen to sit on some spare parts that might interest me?

I'll have the job done professionally. Much as I'd like th try my hand at it and have the satisfaction of saying, I did it myself - as a first timer I don't want to run the risk of ruining the instrument.

I want some advice on this guitar, but let's first see if I can manage to post a pic. Photobucket (if that's still the root to go) does not give me the options I'd expect.

lindsmuse wrote: OK so it's 'Breaking Bad' at the moment. Any others? I don't think you can top this.

+1

Can't wait to see series five.

All and all I must have watched the first four series around six times through from beginning to end.

VERY thought provoking.

?
I don't know

If I should be glad if I learn at last how to use a computer for more than just clicking on buttons

if he's alive

If his stuff is available for purchase anyware

If I should lay off

But if anyone has ever heard of the guy it would surprise me for sure

Remember I come from Bloem where we think Lesley Ray Dowling is an exotic brand of tea...
?

I dumped a couple of thousand mp3's from a friends pc onto mine and found among it

Rupert Mellor - Pay Day Blues
Rupert Mellor - Some Time Ago

and my favourite

Rupert Mellor - Your Songs

Will try to figure out how to upload them...

My brother was a real child of the eighties and into SCC big time. I was only a pip squeek (his 80's term) back then and not into guitar. After he passed away I inherited his tape collection and when I gave a listen to them when we were already into 2000, I distinctly recall thinking to myself; what guitar-playing! what song-writing! (and I wasn't even all that into guitars back then.

I used t have a couple of pedals but I kept being anoyed by the inevitable side-effects of each. Tone-colouration, noise, clutter, added costs of patch cables, etc. (and I used to have good quality gear). I got rid of all but figured I'd probably keep my delay, since it's the one thing no-one can do without, right?

I always played by myself but oneday I jammed a bit with some other musicians and was really almost shocked that when I was playing with them I didn't feel like I needed a delay either?! My playing sounded neat enough under the bit of cover the overlapping of the different instruments offered. My conclusion: a delay should only be considered as a way of creating an effect (duh!) that is superfluous to the core content of a song which is the music.

(I always aproach songwriting in an abstract musical way, anyway, i.e. as notes on paper with a limited regard for execution).

Just as some effects are only added to a master mix in the studio, it may be beneficial to add something like delay only later on during final rehearsals (when learning a new song)?

I know this belongs under general music but I still can't read any topics there (because it's blocked by the webmaster at my workplace's).

I'd appreciate some opinions about the big competitions (the first cones that come up if one google 'songwriting competition). Based on a quick overview, what would anyone of you think are the different pros and cons of each?

Has anyone had any experience with them?

Thanks

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: What? No fighting about which is better, Bosendorfer, Steinway or Yamaha?

Ah, but what else are they going to talk about? As an instrument, the piano isn't conducive to mods or accessory purchases beyond a new piano stool. I'm also pretty sure that the majority of members don't have 5 (10, 15...) of the things at home either. ?

As far as classical music goes, I'm one of the stiff ones (for instance when it comes to those cross-over okes) but it's not something I care to discuss, but there is some sad truth in what you say, Alan (even if it made me smile).
I'm passionate about my instrument and its music but I can't even finance a single one of the kind of piano I would really like to own (nor probably would be able to, ever) leave alone 15! This is not the sad part though - it's just that these mostly youngish forumites have opinions of inverse size in proportion to the depth of their knowledge, whereas on this forum some folks seem to know stuff in such technical detail it sometimes astound me.

(Enough soft-soaping, already!)

ALW is one of those guys I love to hate or rather hate to love.
While I think he's at least as much of a clever businessman as he is good at music and he undeniably ripped off some other composers ('I Don't No How To Love Him' from Evita is clearly too much like the second mvmt from Mendelssohn's Violin Concert for comfort), he has some talent.
It has been said also, and I agree, a pronounced sence of the theatrical is evident in his work.
I rescently gave another listen to his show, Sunset Boulevard, and just realized how much better (musically speaking)and worthy of success IMO is than Phantom (which is beginning to bore me to tears just from keeping appearing around every proverbial corner (on every bill-board in every major city in the world and concequently getting way too much airtime from whence its tedious tunes bombard unsuspecting listener - moi in spite of a concerted effort to avoid).
It (Sunset Blvd.) is REALLY atmospheric in a nostalgic by-gone heyday of Holiwood kind of sense complete with luuush orchestrations and kinda gritty storyline.
If you're new to his work, don't let Phantom put you of completely, is what I'm trying to say.

I just read a new member intoduction and it striked me again how possitive the feed-back on tjis forum generally is and I had to add my bit.
I rescently thought - what the heck, I am a pianist first of all (most of the time I feel like I can contribute little here and just learn, learn, learn); let's join a piano forum.

GOOD GRIEF

Most of what you get for topics round there is:

Who plays the fastest trills
Who plays the most difficult piece
Who was the greatest composer
Who is the greatest pianist
Who memorised the most music the quickest
Who got the biggest repertoire
Who is the bestest fan of the bestest musicians
Whose taste in music is more exalted
Who can be the nastiest to the most other people on the forum

They won't see a lot of me, that's for sure.

You guitar guys are the best...

(Not that I want to dis them too badly, but I just thought what's up!)

In the classical music genre these terms are understood more alomg these lines (which may make for an alternative viewpoint):
To be insanely good, technically is taken for granted (a minimum requirement to be a professional performer). This can be aquired through a fairly minimal percentage of physical aptitude (having the right size hands and good coordination for instance) on top of which you simply have to work your butt off. Within most people's grasp...
Genius (my prefered term for "talent") comes into play when someone performs a piece in such a way that it leaves no doubt that it took a special kind of person to come up with such a musical rendition, i.e. brilliant/novel/touching/moving, interpretation-wise. That's the thing that can hardly be tought and which suggests a gift. Afterall the world had only known ONE Mozart, ONE Chopin and ONE (feel free to add any appropriate names).

I will take it up with this bloke as a first recourse - but in the meantime I'm getting educated in the darker arts of web navigation. Thanks!

IO wonder what serves as his inspiration through those I-buds in the one picture...?

Ja, I plan to take it up with the guy - I just felt like releaving some of my frustration through a bit of banter.
I can't even open the post - GAS list for 2012. Now what word in there might have made his bad list for what reasons, I wonder?