[Iain Churches[_2_]]

"roughplanet" wrote in message

Iain, I have just purchased a new jazz guitar as my arthritis makes
playing classical guitar, with its wide neck & fingering too difficult
these days.

That's what makes music such a great hobby. It is also very very
therapeutic. What kind of music do you play, Ruff? I can manage
only one chord on the guitar E minor. Ya can't get too far with that:-)

I also managed to get a nice Laney tube amp to accompany it, and, would
you believe, it has the same tubes as my TT SET amp, vis 12AX7's for
drivers & EL84's for finals. What a coup!

Brilliant. What make is the guitar:-)

From the recording point of view, Guild and Martin sound very good,
but my favourite acoustic has to be the Olson, as played by James
Taylor.

The guitar was a sample from a well respected Chinese manufacturer
(Electa) who, because it was their first offering, really put a great deal
of effort into it. I am amazed at how well the Chinese can build ANYTHING
if they REALLY want to.

Yes of course they can! Their marketing strategy is to get cheap
goods on sale, at an irresistable price, to get them noticed, and then
by pushing up the quality, secure sales in the higher brackets.

The neck & fingerboard are as good
as those on my old Gibson 355. I really don't know how they do it, either
for the price or even at all!

Careful scrutiny:-) Chinese tube amps used to be copies of 1950s
and 1960s American and British designs. Due to the poor (money saving)
transformers and components generally, the level of performace and
reliability in particular was not too good. Oddly enough, their chassis
(which cost a lot to fabricate elsewhere, are good, that is, of course
if you like the Chinese cosmeticstyle.

Bringing budget priced tube amps onto the market was something
of a double-edged sword. The cheap amp gave people who might
not have otherwise bought a CJ or similar, the opportunity to get
the "glowing musical experience" The down-side is that these cheapo
amps were prone to failure often within weeks. This gave people
the idea that tube amps are inherently unreliable:-(

This axe sounds wonderful; exactly like the guitars Jim Hall plays & I
bought a few books on scales; Eb, Bb, etc. together with some scores, and
as you suggested, hope that there's not too many of those bloody sharps in
any of the tunes:-).

Chords, keys and scales a fascinating and essential part of music.
The chap with whom I shared the Merlot the other evening has a PhD
and teaches music theory. I approach it from the other end - the
practical side:-)

E maj and A maj seem to be the favourite keys for guitarists. I used to
play in a quartet with a guitarist who could play in any key - he used
a capo:-)


Cheers
Iain