Channeling My Inner Clapton – Winter 2020

Articles, Personal

Well, it’s winter and we still find ourselves right in the middle of the coronavirus crisis. Thank God that at least the elections are over! Daily life has changed for all of us and I, like most, have more free time on our hands… at least when we are not washing them for 20 seconds.

My progress on learning to play guitar continues, albeit slower than I would like. What I have learned is that I need to practice with more consistency. My barre chords are much better (even B chords), power chords continue to challenge me as my little finger fails to cooperate, but I am starting to show some minor ability in playing lead.

Scales are another matter. I can barely play a few, but the connection between scales and playing lead/riffs remains a mystery to me. I can’t seem to connect the dots. Since I have a natural affinity for chords over individual notes … I need to devote more time to this. Ultimately, I just want to play arpeggios and sound like The Byrds.

Because I am making progress, and because I find that I am developing muscle memory … I know that there must be hope for me. All I need do is to apply my minimal talents with more regularity. I’d also very much like to play with someone, and I found someone, and then this f’ing virus hit. Oh, well. There is always tomorrow. 

While my guitar buying has seemingly been largely satisfied (I have picked up a few), I have gathered more secondary pedals (noise gate, compressor, fuzz, auto wah) and one more amp (Spark by Positive Grid) that had been on order since last December.

A couple of guitars have been given upgrades. I put P90 pickups in an Epiphone Les Paul and they sound awesome. I have a beautiful PRS SE Singlecut that now sports a set of Seymour Duncan Seth Lover pickups and locking tuners. I added pickup covers to my already upgraded Epiphone G-400 Pro ‘66 Reissue (SG).

I’ve also been building a small inventory of tools so that I can start to do some basic guitar maintenance on my own (string changing, polishing frets, pickup heights, etc.). My new luthier, who I love, has moved me to 11 ga. strings and I actually prefer them to my former lighter gauge choices. 

Mostly I live for those ah ha moments …

  • The tweak of an amp or a guitar knob that yields a desired tone.
  • Finding that barre chords are often more useful in chord transitions. 
  • Combining some pedals can be awesome!
  • A good guitar setup makes any instrument play 100% better.
  • I gravitate to Seymour Duncan. Even their designed pickups sound great!
  • String stretching is an art form. I’m getting better at it.
  • Performing minor adjustments and maintenance is not something to be feared.
  • My hope is that, once you buy used, stuff no longer depreciates … much.
  • At my talent level, paying for a truly great guitar, is a total waste of money. Lipstick on a pig.
  • I finally grasped the CAGED system. No small feat for me.
  • The right 15 watt amp can still blow the doors off my house. 
  • I could not figure out the 5-way switch on my two-pickup Schecter. Now I do.
  • Tiny clip-on headstock tuners struggle with low E. Full-size clip-ons and pedal tuners don’t.
  • YouTube is a gift from God as is Ultimate Guitar Tabs.
  • Have multiple guitar apps. Some are better, in certain cases, than others.
  • While I prefer 24.75” scales, 25.5” ain’t that much different.
  • Single-ply toilet paper lasts 10x as long as double-ply. The math shouldn’t work but …
  • My MIM Fender Strat, that I once put shortly up for sale, is now a favorite. 

In fact, of all my guitars (I do have some that I love more than others) there is only one that … I don’t care for. It’s a nice guitar but it has never felt right. I’m upgrading the tuners on this one now. That being said, I have hated other guitars only to have them “come around”. Every, and I mean every, guitar sounds different.

I also picked up a beautiful Schecter case with a low-end guitar that fits my higher -end Schecter … perfectly. That lower cost guitar is the only one that I have with active pickups and, even without the $150 case, I got a good deal. I paid too much for that other Schecter but, with the case, just right. Small victories.

I’d like to dump a couple of guitars and two amps but I’ve never been much for yard sales. I’d much rather donate them or give them to someone that I know who would appreciate them, than to try to sell them. I don’t really care about the money, but money ain’t all bad either.

Then there are my acoustics. I have three. Acoustics are actually much harder to play than electrics due to their fretboards. At least they are for me. I have their action set as low as possible. Two are acoustic electrics.

The little acoustic amp that I bought … not good. If you are going to plug them into a regular amp, you will definitely want a sound hole cover to control feedback, which helps, but still not so good. However, they do sound much better on my Spark.

I did pick up a Seymour Duncan sound hole pickup, bypassing the onboard electronics, and it works awesome. Best $30 I have spent! The built-in electronics include tuners so they are not entirely wasted.

Well, that does it for this series. It’s pretty rare for me to show my personal side and now I must get back to business. Thank you!

Craig M. Jamieson

Craig M. Jamieson

Managing Member at Adaptive Business Services
Craig M. Jamieson is a lifelong B2B salesperson, manager, owner, and a networking enthusiast. Adaptive Business Services provides solutions related to the sales professional. We are a Nimble CRM Solution Partner. Craig also conducts training and workshops primarily in social selling and communication skills. Craig is also the author of "The Small Business' Guide to Social CRM", now available on Amazon!
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