Played my first acoustic “show” in prolly 10yrs on Sunday :o

[draelyc]

In quotes because it was just a little “coffee house” style thing Mrs. Draelyc and I did at our church, as a fundraiser and also as a kind of “farewell” to the parish, as I’m about to start a new job at a new church on Dec. 1. So it was a pretty friendly “captive audience” type situation. Good thing, too, because “rusty” doesn’t even begin to describe me, after five years of not playing out (since I went back to school in 2014 to change careers), and even longer since I did the acoustic solo/duet thing. Fortunately as well, my wife is a credentialed music therapist, so she’s *good*. I ain’t ashamed to ride coattails, lol!

Overall, it went surprisingly well ... and I definitely remembered how much I love performing and playing out. Definitely gotta get back to it after I settle in at this new job.

So, I made a few string/string-gauge threads leading up to this, because I was nervous about being able to play a whole show, with the ongoing wrist pain I’ve had to deal with for years and that has led me to go to lighter gauges strings on my electrics, even just for playing at home. I ended up using a set of John Pearse #640 medium light customs, based on a recommendation from here, for the show — 12,16,23,32,42,55. I left the action on the treble side just under 4/64”, but shimmed the bass side of the bridge to bring it up to 6/64”. At home, that setup felt pretty balanced. At the show, I was able to play a number of solos without too much trouble (other than nerves!) and, better still, without pain.

When the adrenaline kicked in, I kinda missed having something beefier for the lower strings, though. Gonna have to experiment and see what my hand can take. I use a hybrid 9-46 set on my electrics; gonna see how a 12-56 set feels —without the shims under the bridge, natch.

Tl;dr: I played in public for the first time in forever. Was nervous and rusty but loved it. Also, string gauges.

[draelyc]

Welp, put some 12-56s on last night — the previous JP set was COMPLETELY dead after the show, thanks to my Alien-style corrosive sweat. :-/ I think the bluegrass gauges will be keepers, at least for a while. Feels the most balanced of everything I’ve tried lately, and also feels the most like a “bigger” version of the electric gauges I use, so that makes switching back & forth between electric and acoustic easier. We’ll see.

[lpa53]

Good for you getting back at playing out! Do give It a go after you settle at your new place. We all only have so much time left to us and need to number our days.

I'm planning on trying a 12-56 set of coated
strings soon to stop premature deadness and to beef up my bass a bit.

[draelyc]

Thanks, lpa53! Much appreciate the encouragement. It takes a lot (for me) to overcome the inertia, but having gotten a reminder of how much I love it, I think that's going to help immensely.