Melissa Unplugged

Vaughn McMillan

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ABQ NM
Earlier this year when our state was under lockdown orders, a group of our neighborhood friends started having Friday Night Happy Hour meetings via Zoom. After a few of those, we decided to have a socially distant get-together in person. My bandmate Mike lives on the corner of a cul-de-sac, so we all met there on a Friday evening in April. My bandmate Jeff brought along his acoustic bass, so Mike grabbed a couple of acoustic guitars and we had an impromptu concert for our friends. (Our drummer Donnie was not there, or he would have played a bucket or something.) We all had a great time until right after we finished this song - the second one of the night - when an irate (and drunk) neighbor came over and started trying to pick a fight with one of our friends because he mistakenly thought someone was touching his SUV.

This song is one that we play at every gig, but I'd never tried doing it on a acoustic guitar. I was not only playing an unfamiliar guitar, but everything was in a different location on the neck because Mike keeps his guitars tuned differently than I'm used to, so I had to use a capo to compensate for the key change. Also, virtually all of the things I usually play on this song with an electric guitar are really tough to play on an acoustic, so I was just kind of winging it. Those are my excuses and I'm stickin' with them, lol. :D One of our friends recorded it with her phone, and Mike just put it up on YouTube yesterday.

 
Way cool! If there were any imperfections in your playing, they didn't show.

#2 son gave me a set of Elixir stings for my birthday. I haven't quite gotten used to the new sound just yet. But it's probably just me. I get a lot of mileage out of a set of strings.

I'll likely listen to that you tube more than once.

Thanks for posting.

Alan
 
Vaughn doing any venues now? Headed that way in middle of March for family memorial gathering. Would love to hear you playing.
David
We have tentative dates booked from May through the end of the year, but nothing sooner. And that's all dependent on the governor letting the bars open back up.
 
but everything was in a different location on the neck because Mike keeps his guitars tuned differently than I'm used to, so I had to use a capo to compensate for the key change..
We had a singer that wanted us all tuned a half step down. I have to admit, you wouldn't think it makes that big of a difference, but it really seemed to affect how the bass sounded and threw me off even though I should have just played everything the 'same'. Coming out a half step low just didn't sound right to me.
 
We had a singer that wanted us all tuned a half step down. I have to admit, you wouldn't think it makes that big of a difference, but it really seemed to affect how the bass sounded and threw me off even though I should have just played everything the 'same'. Coming out a half step low just didn't sound right to me.
Mike (guitar) and Jeff (bass) keep their instruments tuned to E flat, but for the majority of our songs Mike uses a capo to bring his guitar back up to E. (Jeff just plays everything a fret higher, but loses the advantage of open strings.) I bring one guitar tuned to E flat but the others are tuned to E. Fractal made some major tweaks a few firmware revisions ago, and their "virtual capo" works really well. I could conceivably start leaving my E flat guitar at home, but where's the fun in that, lol? :D
 
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