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I’d like to share my thoughts about steel guitars and string changing. I’ve found over the years that If you play your guitar (It doesn’t matter what brand) 1 hour a day you should change your strings between 10 to 14 days. If you play more often than that you should change every week. If you didn’t play a note on your guitar for three weeks you’d still need to change them. Just tuning to 440 and doing nothing stretches the life and flexibility out of the strings after a few weeks.

Professional Guitarists all over the world will agree that the most they can hope for is a weeks worth of use, out of a set of strings, because of the bends they make. This pales in comparison to the bending and constant stretching that pedal steels do. If you are breaking strings or having tuning problems, chances are you’re not changing often enough.

I know that it is expensive so if you can’t afford to change as often as you need, try changing the plain gauges each week & the wound strings every two weeks. Changing strings compares to changing the oil in your car. You wouldn’t go 15000 miles per change and expect your engine to sound and perform right. Steel guitars are machines as well as a music producing source.

I know all the cliche’s, “you don’t like the sound of new strings” or “I don’t change them until they break”! Modern manufactured steels have become state of the art. Strings are still being made the way they were 40 yrs. ago. They can’t take the constant stretching from the pedals over a long period, and still keep their sustain and tuning. When I lived in Detroit I kept strings on forever until they either broke or started to have that awful zinging sound. I’ve been there…done that.

In the studio I change every 3 to 7 days. Guitarists change generally every day. Acoustic guitarists change for every 3 hr session. Sometimes they get a good set that lasts all day. That’s how important strings are to the tuning and tonality of the instruments you hear on records.

It’s important to have a well tuned instrument. I’ve seen all the posts about “How we should tune” but nothing about the strings that we are trying to tune.

Here are the gauges I recommend for the E9th:

F#—-013 Eb—-015 G#—-011 or 012 E—–014 B—–018 or 017 G#—-020 or 021 plain (I don’t know of anyone in Nashville using a wound string here. If there is he would be the exception to the rule!) F#—-024 or 026 Wound E—–030 D—–034 B—–036 or 038

Any combination of these gauges have all been tried by the pro’s and proven to be equally balanced for the best tone possible.

Sometimes it might seem that there are as many ways of tuning a pedal steel as there are pedal steel players. But if you strip the personal touches and enhancements from the guitars of the most players, you’ll find a common denominator of 3 pedals and 3 knee levers. In most instructional material, the pedals are called A, B and C, and the knee levers are called D, E and F.

This basic arrangement provides multiple inversions of all of the major and minor chords, all of the fundamental country and blues licks, and a healthy assortment of jazz chords. I’ve been playing for over 20 years, and I’m sure that there are a lot of positions and licks in the basic 3+3 setup that I still don’t know.

Most steel players don’t strum chords, but they understand where the notes of the chord can be found on their instrument. The close intervals in the tuning make it necessary to skip strings to get the simple triad harmonies. For example, the open position includes all the notes of an E major chord on strings 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 10.

A long time ago, steel players used pedals to simply change tunings. They would play a passage in an E tuning, for example, and then press the pedals to play the next passage in an A tuning. This technique is still useful in blues and old-timey music, where a more primitive sound is desired.

Modern pedal steel playing includes the use of pedals while the strings are sounding and the bar is in motion. For example, the modern player player may pick strings in the I (no pedals) position, then slide up three frets, activating the VI (pedal A + knee F) position during the slide for a smooth transition up to the next inversion of the triad.

Another modern steel technique involves playing complete melodies using pedals instead of moving the bar. If you look carefully at the tuning chart, you can see that almost two full octaves of the E major and A major scales are available at the nut of the guitar. These scales are of course movable up the neck with the bar. The scale “licks” available using pedals at the I and IV positions are a large part of the modern country sound.

I hope this little article has served to demystify the E9th tuning a bit. It’s intimidating at first - all those strings, all those pedals and levers - but the theory behind it is really fairly simple. Where a guitarist uses fingers to play notes on different frets, the steel player uses pedals to bring those notes to the barred fret.

As with any instrument, there’s the familiar routine: learn your scales, learn your chords, Practice! If you’re a good guitarist, chances are you could be a good steel player. It’s easier than it looks, and steel players are always in greater demand than lead guitarists. A word of caution, though - once you start making “that sound”, you may never look back. This may just be the world’s most pleasurable addiction…

Let’s face it; it is your first time painting on canvas and you do not know what to do. I bet there are lots of questions in your mind, wondering what you should do.One thing for sure, you do not want your painting to look like a blotch of paint. You also do not want your painting to look like a big mistake. Who wants that? Yes, no one does. So, what should you do? Well, I have a good idea. Why not, you read on and find out more because I can offer you tips on canvas painting.

You have come to the right place if you want to find out more about canvas painting. This article offers you tips you need to know about canvas painting. This article also gives you tips on what you should not do in order to avoid certain mistakes made by most beginners. So, why not you get ahead and start reading. These are the tips that I can provide you with so that you can start canvas painting without a doubt.

The first and most important thing that you should have before you start painting is that; you need to have a canvas. A canvas can be bought from an art shop or even a large bookstore. There are may canvases available but as beginners, suggest that you stick to cotton canvases. However, do look out for cotton canvases that are quite thick. This is important as thin cotton canvases may not be able to support the ‘weight’ of the many layers of paint. You should also get an easel.

There are also many types of paints available. From water colours, to oil paints to acrylic paints. Most people think that beginners should use water colours to start painting but wait. That is not true. My suggestion and honest opinion is that beginners should start painting using acrylic paints. Acrylic paints are easier to handle. Another thing that you should have is a palette. Other than holding your paints, it also avoids one from using too much paint, thus wasting them.

There are many brushes available at the stationery store. Some are sold individually while some are sold in packets. A brush that is considered good quality is a brush that is soft. A fine tip brush is not necessarily good. The size of the brush depends on the area you want to paint on. A good quality brush is usually made of horse’s tail.

However, these brushes are difficult to find and can be quiet costly. Another tip that I can give you is that you should get an easel to hold your canvas.

So what do you do if there’s spillage of paint on your floor? Well, don’t forget to get a bottle of turpentine. By wetting your cloth using turpentine, you can easily remove the paint stains on the floor. Trust me, you will create a lot of mess painting your first ever masterpiece.

Now, get out there and start canvas painting. You should let your emotions do the painting. Once you get the feel of it, you will enjoy canvas painting. Remember; do not be too hard on yourself. It may be difficult at first but don’t worry. Just get the creative juices flowing.

The only real difference between modern wedding photo albums and versions from fifty years ago is that they would have contained monochrome images; technology has started to give us alternatives though! Probably the same etiquette that dictated how the bride’s mother was shown in the album will be used today so you can expect to see her as the first photo in her wedding dress. After this photo there are usually a few images of them somewhere close by that provides a beautiful backdrop to really show them off.

The wedding party has at least one photo in the most modern wedding photo album just like the pictures a generation ago because the party makes a beautiful picture with their matching dresses and sleek tuxedoes. The whole group is made up of friends and family of the bride and groom; there is probably a very similar picture in their parent’s album. The bride should then, by tradition, have some pictures taken of her and her attendants for the day.

The family of the groom poses for a picture that ends up in the album, and there is another one of the bride with her family. Wedding photo albums should also have a mention as they need to be as elaborate as the ceremony otherwise they will not do justice to the care which is taken over the photographs. Wedding photo albums are normally elaborate to complement the ceremony itself with elaborate covers that tend to be in white.

Wedding albums are normally a combination of white with silver trim which are the traditional colors associated with weddings with the images arranged in a way to capture attention. However, almost all wedding photographers now use digital cameras so they can supply traditional photos on paper in addition to those that can be stored on a compact disc or a digital versatile disc (DVD). Every bride and groom should have their photos placed on a disc as they are less likely to be damaged and can be taken anywhere and displayed on large screens if required.

If guests want to have a copy, they can have all the images and not just their favorite few; these can be stored in presentation boxes for later viewing as a digital wedding photo album. There are a number of benefits to this because not only can the images be viewed as normal but also printed out in the traditional manner at home or at a regular photo printing store. Modern technology has improved upon the albums from long ago with the addition of pictures available on the latest digital photo frames

Foot tattoos are very sexy! They are great feminine, cute and very popular tattoo designs right now. If you are considering a foot tattoo then you should go for it. However, if you are like many you might be stuck trying to find the right design for your foot tattoo. You might also worry about the cost or the pain level of getting a tattoo on the top of your foot. Well, this article will answer all of those questions and give you a great boost in getting your foot tattoo.

Great Things About Foot Tattoos - Foot tattoo are a great tattoo to get. First of all are very sexy and seem well suited for female tattoo designs. The intricate design of flowers with vines, butterflies, and fairies all work well on the top of the foot. Another nice benefit about foot tattoos is they can easily be covered up by just wearing shoes which is helpful for work. Yet they can also easily be shown off with a great pair of high heels that reveal the top of the foot or even a cute pair of sandals on your day at the beach. Feet are a very sexy part on a women’s body and accentuating them with some beautiful feminine body art just makes them even more so.

Popular Themes For Foot Tattoos - There are many popular themes that work very well for a foot tattoo design. You have to first really consider what you want for yourself. Ideally every tattoo you get would be about expressing yourself through the tattoo. Therefore picking a tattoo on the spur of the moment is not a good combination. Instead if you can think ahead and come up with a design that speaks to you in an important way then go for it. Some of the more common designs include butterflies, fairies, stars and angels.

Cost and Pain Level - Typically foot tattoos can be higher on the pain scale then getting a tattoo in other body areas. The lack of fatty tissue on the top of the foot makes the skin very close to the bone for most people. These are often the most painful areas to tattoo on a body. However, keep in mind hundred of thousands of people have gotten a foot tattoo before and they all dealt with the pain and lived to tell about it. In terms of cost it will vary depending on how famous the tattoo artist is, the size of the design and the complexity of it. However, since foot tattoos are typically small the good news is they often won’t cost a lot of money. They can average between $50 to $100.

If you have been thinking about getting a foot tattoo then take a little time and plan the design out first. Then find a professional tattoo artist and have him refine your basic concept. Take your time and don’t fret if you don’t find the design you want right away. Remember that it is all part of the process.