Attention Bay area residents and AdTech attendees: your favorite bald guitar player (excluding Satch) is going to be appearing at PartnerWeekly’s party at Ad:Tech! Go here for details or to RSVP.

I’m playing guitar and singing for “Hick Revenue.” Should be a good time – we’re going to dress up like rednecks (not a stretch) and play southern rock. Boo-ya! Bring on the hoes!*

Will publish a set list as soon as I confirm that it isn’t top secret.

*That was a farming reference.

While rehearsing a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that our rhythm player’s chords were sounding slightly out of tune on a couple of songs. He plays in open G a lot (loves them Stones) and it was only on the songs in which he was tuned to open G. He checked his tuning and intonation and they were both fine. WTF? I realized the problem and wrote him the note below. (Background: he’s a very solid player with teenie tiny little baby hands. He uses 9 gauge strings – pretty light for chording.)

“Just got lost in thought here at work, and when I found myself returned to awareness I realized that I was thinking about your open tuning intonation situation. Had a few thoughts for you to consider. Your right hand attack is nice and strong – you really don’t want to compromise that, as it makes your rhythm work (particularly on the open g stuff) sound great. Problem is though that your are forcing your strings out of tune by hitting them too hard – acoustically speaking too hard. You also don’t want to use a lighter pick, as that will sound flimsy and shitty. What to do?

(FYI I had this exact same problem in college and just after. Wound up putting 13 gauge flatwounds on my guitar. It is impossible to hit those too hard. It strengthened my left hand and taught me how to lighten up my right hand. I’m not suggesting you do that, though. It hurts a lot.)

Thinking about it, I notice that the intonation on your Les Paul (standard tuning) is near perfect. I attribute this to the fact that you’re playing a lot more arpeggios, etc., on the Les than the SG. The SG, by virtue of open tuning, just gets the poop whacked out of it. Also, as far as I can tell it is just the 3rd of the chord going out of tune – which in that tuning is located on your ‘B’ string, if I’m not mistaken. That said, here are a few ideas:

1. Intentionally tune the “b” string and high e 5-10 cents flat. This will always make your thirds sounds a bit flat (once pitch levels out after your initial attack) but guess what? Uh….we’re playing blues rock. 3rds are supposed to be a bit flat. (We disqualified this idea as using duct tape to fix a cat – solution does not match the problem. Why cats are “the problem” is another post…)

2. Develop a hybrid set of strings just for you. Grip and hand strength problems are naturally going to be the worst near your fingertips, which is furthest from the “fulcrum” or your grip’s strong point (lowest knuckle on index finger.) So, instead of doing the super slinky 9′s: 9 11 16 24 32 42, what if you swapped out the bottom three to 10 13 20? Would be a bit of a brighter sound but that would probably sound pretty cool.

3. Put 10s or 11s on the guitar and drop your tuning another half step. The reduced string tension will offset the increase in string gauge, making the notes easier to fret.

4. Tune the B string up to D or down to G. (I’m not sure how this will sound).  (Disqualified as not stylistically appropriate).

5. Take an additional 16 gauge G string, put it where the B string goes, tune it down to G. Take your B string, put it where the E string goes, tune it normal. (Also disqualified as not stylistically appropriate.)

Just a few thoughts. I think I like the notion of 2 the best as it retains the harmonic integrity of your sound (which is great btw) and solves the vibrational issue of the current string gauge.”

He finally decided upon #2. (My favorite idea, by the way.)

If you’re having any of these problems, here are some things to consider:

- You might be hitting them too hard, which starts them sharp.

- You might be fretting too hard, which bends the string slightly sharp.

- Check your tuning and intonation. (Duh. )

Welcome to the new (improved) BaldGuitarDude.com! Glad you joined us. As you’ve probably noticed, I haven’t been updating the site much lately have not done a freakin’ thing with this site for months. Well, dear reader, let me be the first to tell you that’s a-gonna change! I’ve done a lot of reflecting on where I failed and discovered there are actually some pretty good life and business lessons to be learned. I’m done being half assed with this site. I mean, for Christ’s sake, I make my living on the internet and somehow couldn’t manage to find time to update this thing regularly. So, for real this time, I’m completely determined to prove to myself that a web-based guy can successfully run a website. Check it out:

BGD’s launch – epic fail

The first thing I did wrong on my initial launch of BGD was trying to pull friends and readers over from my multitude of FB rants on very sensitive topics. This site turned into an us-vs-them political blog, which (while entertaining) didn’t really have a hell of a lot to do with anything other than “what is Joe pissed off about today?”….which is no way to run a blog. The MSM is absolutely saturated with political “pundits” and commentators – I was just polluting the space and not bringing anything unique (at all) to the table. Lesson #1: Define your niche and be an expert in it.

Motivation

In addition to the fact that I was in way over my head with the political stuff, I found myself unmotivated after a few short weeks. Why? Because I was writing about things that pissed me off. While some people are great at rants (Mark Levin comes to mind), I found myself avoiding posting because every time I started writing my blood pressure spiked. Not a good way to motivate myself. Lesson #2: Do something you enjoy.

Investing in BGD

Because of the fact that my good buddy John at 9Seeds set BGD up for me with a $10 domain and cheap-ass hosting package, I had very little reason to be concerned about whether or not I did anything with it. I didn’t have any skin in the game – and I just let the site languish. How do I fix that, you ask? Simple.

I pumped enough money into the project that I now care about it. So…. I spent a couple hundred bucks working with Dave over at Twisted Illustration. He’s a great guy, very smart, very professional, and he designed that awesome cartoon for me that you see above! I’ve also spent a few hours learning (very basic) WP stuff myself instead of pulling a favor from a friend. So now I have the $ and time invested in BGD to actually give a shit. Lesson #3: If you aren’t invested in success, you won’t succeed.

The Future

This takes us to today. I have a rad new site logo, I’ve tweaked the site a bit, and I’m pumped up and motivated for this thing to succeed. How will it succeed? I have no idea. What is my goal for the site? I’m unsure of that, too. Where will it be in a year? No clue. Lesson #4 is “write your plan down on paper,” which admittedly I haven’t done yet.

So for now I’m going to use BGD for my industry rants and musical learnings. Not going to ditch the old political posts, but those certainly won’t be an emphasis any longer. I may do the odd guitar lesson now and again and I’ll certainly continue recording tunes and posting them here.

So help me get BGD re-started right – leave a comment below with a song request. I’ll record it solo acoustic and post it here for my own embarrassment. I can’t wait to see your ideas!!!