shinksma
What? I get a title?
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2014
- Messages
- 5,424
My evil plan is coming together very nicely...
My wife and I play in a band. I sing and play guitar/mandolin/banjo/bass, and she sings (backing harmonies, mostly) and plays various percussion instruments like Bodhran, Cajon, cabasa, and so on.
Backstory: We have another percussionist in the band, and he is a founding member. He travels with his wife, and occasionally can't make a gig because he is in the south of France or Ireland or whatever. That is how my wife got involved in percussion - we noticed she had a flair for it, so we roped her into being a back-up percussionist. But this means my wife doesn't get to play as much interesting stuff if our main guy is playing - she gets relegated to light cabasa mostly, and becomes primarily just a backing vocalist. Now that will possibly change over the next year or two, as he is shifting into a more travel-abroad lifestyle, and my wife may end up being the core percussionist.
However, Mrs shinksma would still like to do "something else" at times. At an informal band practice on the weekend she picked up my mandolin while we were all playing guitars and did a little light strumming on the open strings. Since we were playing in G (I think), it worked well enough to sound good. This sparked something.
So the next night I had her play a little with the mandolin, fretting a note here and there, to see if she liked it enough the next day. She still seemed interested. So last night I got her to run a few notes up and down on one of the strings (technically, one of the string courses), and then did the same on an electric guitar. The intent was to see what she found easier/more natural. The mando can be a bit difficult due to the tightness of the spacing and the firmness of the strings, but it is a smaller instrument, and she is smaller than me. It turns out she was indeed more comfortable on the guitar.
So now I'm going to teach her some basics on guitar. She'll use one of my shorter scale PRSi to start, probably the SE ZM, because her hands are smaller than mine (and I have smallish hands for a guy). We did a quick compare with a 25" scale guitar (Vela) and the 24.5" ZM, and the ZM seemed to work better. Maybe just placebo effect. :shrug:
I know this will be a long-ish road, but hopefully I can help her learn this new instrument enough so that within a year or so she can strum along with the rest of us...
Now I can say I am buying guitars for the both of us. Bwa ha. Bwa ha ha! Bwa ha ha ha ha h-choke, splutter.
Um, sorry. Yes, my evil plan is coming together.
My wife and I play in a band. I sing and play guitar/mandolin/banjo/bass, and she sings (backing harmonies, mostly) and plays various percussion instruments like Bodhran, Cajon, cabasa, and so on.
Backstory: We have another percussionist in the band, and he is a founding member. He travels with his wife, and occasionally can't make a gig because he is in the south of France or Ireland or whatever. That is how my wife got involved in percussion - we noticed she had a flair for it, so we roped her into being a back-up percussionist. But this means my wife doesn't get to play as much interesting stuff if our main guy is playing - she gets relegated to light cabasa mostly, and becomes primarily just a backing vocalist. Now that will possibly change over the next year or two, as he is shifting into a more travel-abroad lifestyle, and my wife may end up being the core percussionist.
However, Mrs shinksma would still like to do "something else" at times. At an informal band practice on the weekend she picked up my mandolin while we were all playing guitars and did a little light strumming on the open strings. Since we were playing in G (I think), it worked well enough to sound good. This sparked something.
So the next night I had her play a little with the mandolin, fretting a note here and there, to see if she liked it enough the next day. She still seemed interested. So last night I got her to run a few notes up and down on one of the strings (technically, one of the string courses), and then did the same on an electric guitar. The intent was to see what she found easier/more natural. The mando can be a bit difficult due to the tightness of the spacing and the firmness of the strings, but it is a smaller instrument, and she is smaller than me. It turns out she was indeed more comfortable on the guitar.
So now I'm going to teach her some basics on guitar. She'll use one of my shorter scale PRSi to start, probably the SE ZM, because her hands are smaller than mine (and I have smallish hands for a guy). We did a quick compare with a 25" scale guitar (Vela) and the 24.5" ZM, and the ZM seemed to work better. Maybe just placebo effect. :shrug:
I know this will be a long-ish road, but hopefully I can help her learn this new instrument enough so that within a year or so she can strum along with the rest of us...
Now I can say I am buying guitars for the both of us. Bwa ha. Bwa ha ha! Bwa ha ha ha ha h-choke, splutter.
Um, sorry. Yes, my evil plan is coming together.
