I’ve just discovered it at a place selling my songs:

Dave Keir

Isn’t that cool?

I’m waiting for the first $0.88 to roll in.

I’m still waiting…

        

… was installed at the same time as the aforementioned nut job, above. So far, and after only a quick audition in the store, it is all I expected it to be: like an acoustic guitar with a pick-up on it.

Let me be clear: the sound of an acoustic guitar with a pick-up, of whatever flavour, is not something I expect ever to quicken the pulse. I have not heard any that hasn’t imparted a certain… ah…. grittiness to the sound. Anyway, “loud acoustic guitars” is almost a contradictio in adjecto - it’s not their natural state. Even when carefully mic’d they sound unrealistic if even just because they are loud. Still, it’s a means to an end (to allow me to play place where there is much “ambience”) without having to haul another mic and a PA (been there - done that). So it’s a wee compact acoustic amp which will take a mic for the voice that will do for me.
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…is done.

Just to recap (and to save me the bother of including a hyperlink) I suspected the string slots in the nut of this guitar had been cut so that the bottom and top strings were uncomfortably near the edge of the fingerboard, especially at the first five frets, or so. I had convinced myself this was a lack of quality control at the factory since inspection revealed that the distance from the string to the edge of the fingerboard increased noticeably - without the need to measure it - the higher up the fingerboard one looked. The consequence of this (again to reiterate) is that pull-offs, without real care, will be strangled because the string is pulled off the fingerboard before the intended pull-off is executed.

It’s now fixed and I can play a number of pull-off infested songs with a lot less inhibition. Thanks to Ed at Jimmy Eqypt’s Guitar Repair Shop.

The nut on my newly arrived OM-28V has the same issue which causes me to ponder: either CF Martin & Co have a blind spot when it comes to cutting and QC of nut slots, or - and this would be darkly amusing - it’s a design “feature” to maximise the string spacing - something which all the rage among fingerstylists in some quarters. Anyway, it means another trip to Jimmy’s in Glasgow.

        

From www.dictionary.com:

dil·et·tante
-noun

1. a person who takes up an art, activity, or subject merely for amusement, esp. in a desultory or superficial way; dabbler.

The part-time Independent Musician’s true character? Further investigation reveals:

des·ul·to·ry
-adjective

1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful.

I would have to face the fact that, taking all of my efforts through the years into a account, my musical life has lacked a certain “constancy” and could justifiably be described as “fitful”.

Well, If I give up the day job (and all that it provides for) and oblige my “dependants” to embrace the consequences and devote all my time and effort to the furtherance of my music, do I immediately become a professional musician dedicated to his art - or a selfish and delusional tyrant? Or do I just accept that I’m having one helluva musical “dabble”? Luckily, it’s not for me to assess whether my fitful output is superficial, too.

On reflection, why should I care? I only have to walk into a bar where there is some jazz playing to see musicians who could play the pants off of me and, furthermore, couldn’t care less it’s not a full-time gig - and of whom most would utterly reject a proposal to go “pro”. Dilettantes? Hmm…