South London Steelies March 2014

[Nick Bidmade]

The next meeting of the South London Steelies 'The Bar Tenders' will be Sunday 16 March. Hope for a good turn-out.
Six of us met yesterday and did rare damage to 'Love Me Tender' (trickier than first thought!) and 'I Fall to Pieces'. The 'Golden Thumbpick Award' this month has to go to Henry B for demonstrating that strict adherence to lessons learned from Jeff Newman's 'Right Hand Alpha' course pays dividends - some really good, fast and acccurate picking!
However, a special 'Silver Hex Nut Tuner' award to Shaun for bringing along his new (to him) Sho-Bud twin neck Pro 111 AND for having a bash on the C6 neck. That's three Sho-Buds in the group.
Mentioned in despatches Nick with his lovely Rains, and both Davids - David C is making progress having decided to learn slide with no previous musical or instrumental experience, and David A showing some nice C6 moves on his E9 3+5 Rittenberry - a fantastic sounding (and looking) guitar.
Next month we are going to reprise 'Together Again', this time with 2 guitars on the go, one playing melody and the other fills/turnarounds, rather than playing'solos' as previously. This will give us the opportunity of playing as though behind a vocalist. We also have a back catalogue of backing tracks to choose from.
I forgot my camera, so no pics this month but will try and post some next month.
Nick

[Will C]

Beginning to sound like this is the place to be...

Way to go, guys! This can only prosper.

[judgebouche]

Hi gents

Was good to get back to this after missing the last few.

I have some pics but need to resize them as they are too big to upload, which include a few shots of the business sides of Shaun’s and Nick’s Sho-buds.

Henry’s now ‘alpha’ right-hand proves that there’s a lot of mileage in working at the hard stuff rather than distracting ourselves with new toys or gizmos. That said, I need to get my act together and buy a volume pedal and amp at the very least...

What I like about the group is that we have a list of tunes but no single source for learning it; we all go off and learn from different places then turn up and play (or attempt to) quite differently, which is great.

I’m aware that I’m very much thinking ‘chords’ rather than melody, but I think that’s a hangover from the guitar (and a lack of practice). It was interesting to be asked about those jazzy chords as they were a quick win for me and a way to get easy arpeggios and approximate the sound of a C6th neck– but what I can’t do is play a simple melody cleanly like most of you. D’oh!

As we’ve expanded to include a lapsteel, I will bring the square-neck dobro in March (tuned GBDGBD) which y’all are welcome to try.

[judgebouche]

Shaun's Pro III

[judgebouche]

Nick B - Sho Bud underside

Rittenberry underside

[judgebouche]

Hi Guys

These are all I can salvage having rendered a couple of pics useless with my technical tinkering.

As you can see though, Shaun's Pro iii is a beaut!

[jonshack]

Lovely Sho Bud Shaun!

I'm going to get there on the 16th but it will be later on and without my gear unfortunately. If someone can let me play musical chairs I'd be very grateful to sit in for a bit.

[Nick Bidmade]

Hi Jon - you'd be most welcome to sit in on my Sho-Bud - probably the right height for you with 2" lifts!

[Shaun]

Thanks Jon,

your welcome to sit a my steel too.

[jonshack]

Much appreciated!!