My Way

 Here's my daily practice regimen:

1. Chord change warm-up: going through various chord changes, playing clean chords and trying to make clean changes. 10 min.

2. Single, double and triple pick scales. 10 min.

3. Practice songs w/vocals. 30 min.

4. Work on new stuff. 30+ min.

I don't work on a timer or anything, so the times may change. I like to do multiple things so that I'm always working towards something. If you put that stuff into a habit, it'll become a habit. Working on new stuff is important to devote time to, even if you might not have any ideas. It's probably the time where you'd be most exploratory with your guitar. 

Steps 1 and 2 are mostly warmup and dexterity practices, and if I don't get a chance to play every day, then both of those steps usually get a little longer. 

Step 3 so far consists of the songs that I'm currently doing, but that's already changing as I find other songs to play. Since I'm doing a mix of originals and covers, the covers change all the time. Eventually I'll have a final 30 minute set locked down, and an hour set if ever needed, consisting of other songs that might not have made that 30 minute set cut.

Gigging Plans

 When I first got the D-15M, my plan was to use it at home for recording and keep it nice and safe. I think it might have been about an hour after I got it that I decided that I was going to play gigs with it. That wasn't really on my radar. I had thought it would be fun to do something like that after seeing some of my buddies doing it. I like the freedom of it. The idea of just me and my guitar up there sounds pretty dang exciting, I gotta say. As a drummer who has been relegated to the back of the stage all these years, it'll be nice to get out there and up front.

I picked up an LR Baggs M80 active pickup for the guitar, and it sounds great. It's not one of those piezo pickups that work off string vibration and produce this weird, alien, choked sound. No, the M80 sounds REAL. The guitar sounds like an amplified D-15M. The M80 has a humbucker that is somehow flopped under itself, with the bottom half hanging a bit freely to pickup body vibration while the other half picks up the strings magnetically, like an electric guitar. All-in-all, a pretty dope situation, and the sound makes all the difference. It can go active or passive with a switch, so no worries at shows if the battery goes.

I also picked up a case for the guitar. It came with a soft case, which is actually very nice and extremely well made, but still isn't as strong or resilient as a hard case. Plus the fact that it's easier to control humidity with a hard case over a soft one. As the sudden owner of a solid front/back/sides guitar that's quite sensitive to humidity, that's important to know.

Regarding the gigs themselves, I'll be doing a mix of originals and covers, but the covers will all be a little on the not-so-often-played side. Ultimately it'll be all originals with one or two covers, but until then I'll just keep grinding. 

Since I got this guitar, not only has my playing time increased, but so has my writing. I'm finding it very easy to write stuff, whether on the fly or working off some new thing I've learned. 

I was talking to my Mom about it this afternoon, and she was asking how things were going. She noticed that I seem to be doing better overall since I got the guitar, and she's right. We also talked about what an important tool it is, and how valuable it has become. She understands that stuff, and always has. She's been one of my biggest supporters my whole life. 

After All This Time

 I'm a drummer. Been one for many, many years. 54 to be exact. For the last 30 or so years, I've been playing guitar, if you count what I was doing "playing". I'd like to think of it more as faking it. I never learned more than the standard power chord, and never played anything remotely like a lead, although I did spend a handful of minutes learning how to make an E chord and an A chord.

Drumming in punk rock requires speed, stamina and strength. At 61 years old I find those three things slowing down. And considering I wouldn't be anybody's first pick if they were looking for a drummer, that makes it difficult to find people to play with. 

I needed to figure out a new situation. If I couldn't get it out through my drums, which was becoming less and less, then I needed to be able to express myself another way. 

One day my buddy Bill and I were out to lunch and happened to walk by a music store, where there was a guitar in the window that looked appealing. I didn't know anything about the brand, and the shop was closed so I'd have to come back to try it, so I planned that.

A bit later I was talking with my Mom on the phone and she asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I told her she didn't have to get me anything, but she insisted. I told her about the guitar I saw, said I was thinking of trying it, and if I were to buy it, maybe she could chip in on it a little bit. She asked me if that was the guitar I wanted. I stopped a minute and thought about how to answer that. I said, "no, that's a different guitar." She asked me how much it was, I told her I didn't know as I hadn't even looked ever, and she told me to find out how much it was and called her back. So I did.

I started off the phone call shaking my head no and telling her it was not possible. The guitar is too expensive. She asked how much. I told her. She told me to buy it. 

So here we are. I've owned the guitar for six months now. It's a new 2024 Martin D-15M:

Mahogany front back and sides.

I'm a big guy, 6' 4", so a dreadnought guitar isn't very large to me. I know lots of people who don't like them as the body is so big, but I love it. Fits me perfectly with room to spare. I have long arms, so I tend to play more from the backside of the guitar as opposed to draping my arm over the body. 

The Martin D-15M is made at the factory in Pennsylvania, and is a solid wood mahogany guitar. The 15-series guitars come in a nice range, with a 000-15M, 000-15SM and 00-15M. This is the biggest, boomiest, hard-hittinest of the bunch. 

Mahogany isn't as bright and glittery as your standard spruce top guitar. They have a different tone; mellower, less overtones and a stronger fundamental tone, warmer.  

Why this guitar?

Back in the 2000's I worked at a music store in San Francisco. It was a big one that carried lots of guitars. At the time I had been playing drums for many years, and bass and guitar were starting to happen for me more often. In 2004 I bought my first real guitar, which is a Gibson SG. It's great, and was a real workhorse for me for recordings and stuff. I hadn't planned on buying it. I had just been working one day, when I took a little time to clean and tune a few guitars. As I was doing it, this guitar sung to me in a way none of the others did. Within 24 hours I had it at home. A few months later it happened again, only on this go around with a Gibson EB3 bass.

A couple years later, the same thing happened, but this time with a D-15. I was tuning some acoustics, and I liked the D-18, and after that I grabbed the D-15. It sung to me like no other guitar ever has, but the problem was it was twice the price of the SG, and I was still paying on the EB3. I tried to make it work, but the guitar got away before I could get the money up. It felt very much like a missed opportunity, and I kinda put it in my head that that was the guitar of my dreams. Crazy part was, it became that. Over the years I did some studio recordings on drums and as an engineer where D-15 and 000-15 guitars would show up, and I always enjoyed them. Each one I tried was great, and had that same great tone the first one I played had. It gave me hope that I could eventually find the dream guitar.

The guitar came about six months ago. It arrived in perfect condition, as it was new, but looked like it had already had a setup. Either way, it plays perfectly. It looks, sounds and feels just like the guitar I remembered, and I love the tone. I wouldn't say that tone is necessarily for everyone, although most would agree it sounds fantastic. So far I've only had the chance to play it with one other guitarist who played a Taylor electro/acoustic something or other. So that's not a very good comparison, but I'd say that the D-15M was more than capable of keeping up and even getting loud when it needed to. It has this great natural compression that makes it sound like it's got an invisible gain stage in there somewhere. Chunkity-chunk, if I may get so technical.

My ability on the guitar in the last six months has improved dramatically. That's not only me saying that, but my guitar teacher Bill as well. I'm very happy with how things are going, and I wish I would have started sooner. I just don't think I was ready in my head back then. But now I find it very easy to put a few hours in a day and leave the other stuff in the background. Playing guitar, whether it's working out chords or learning new scales, or in the case of the other day, trying leads, has a world of possibilities. 

So let's see: I know most of the cowboy chords, know major, blues and lydian scales, can play various strum patterns [thanks drumming!], have clean chord transitions, and have no problem playing and singing. My plan since the day I took it out of the case was to be gigging by this summer. I still think that's a possibility. As of today I think I have about 8 songs in my regular rotation, and I'm adding more as I go. By then I should have enough to start eliminating weak songs and still be able to play a decent set.

This blog will be about my progress. I doubt anybody will ever see this. If you come across it, leave a message. I'm going to go play now.