A new book

I'm still working on songs in the Shipton book, but I've got another book that's been sitting around for a few weeks that I've started playing from: You can teach yourself fingerpicking guitar by Tommy Flint.

Fingerpicking, if you don't know, is when you play the individual strings with individual fingers. No pick. No strumming. I've got a few songs like this already, but this is a whole book of them.

The very beginning of the book is way too beginner-oriented, even for me! But I've flipped through the book and the stuff near the end is way more advanced than I've done so far, so I figure it'll be a nice one to work through.

At the moment, I'm struggling with the fact that the introductory material appears to have been written before the dawn of time. It's not so much inaccurate in any technical way; it's just culturally way out of date.

The broad expanse

The other day we went over to our friends AVF and JI's house to make sure that AVF wasn't sleeping in the carport. (Long story; see AVF's blog!)

I was immediately distracted by AVF's classical guitar. I've certainly messed around with them before, but I hadn't held one in quite a while.

I tuned it up and was immediately reminded of the differences: nylon strings, smaller body than my own dreadnaughts, wider fretboard. The last took some adjustment. I felt like I had to stretch even further for some chords.

What surprised me was the sense of liberation I had. I think I must be at a phase where I'm fighting not to run into strings I shoudn't. The wider fretboard made me feel so much more "on target".

And with such light and friendly strings.

Bliss...especially since there was major puppy bonding...and we found that AVF was not sleeping in the carport that night.