Wired For Sound

So, my gal's brother is awesome.  He used to play guitar, but hasn't for a few years, since he pranged his electric.  So, he had an amp lying around unused - until now.  He has given it to me as an extended loan - basically, it's mine until he buys a new guitar.

He gave me a Peavy Rage 158.  It's 15 Watts, which is just about right for me - though maybe a little big & loud for my purposes at the moment.  I put it on the Clean channel and it was pretty nice - though I noticed a few things about it, when compared to Robyn's Vox Pathfinder 15R.

• The Vox is quieter when nothing is going on with it - rather, the Peavy has a constant hum, with some constant snap, crackle and pop.  The Vox, by comparison, is dead silent until you strum - you wouldn't even know it's on.
• I notice the difference between my pickups a lot more on the Peavy - does this mean it's more sensitive?  The Rhythm pickup sounds a lot nicer and beefier.  I didn't notice so much on the Vox.
• The Peavy is a lot freaking louder - or seems to be.  Granted, I only had the one experience with the Vox, and I didn't fiddle with the volume, but with the Peavy, I turned it down to about 2 or 3 when I first turned it on, and then down again to between 1 & 2.  It seems to have a lot more muscle than the Vox.

I used it and my electric for practice today - and it was fun.  I think that's what I'll be doing until Thursday night.  I would rather stick with my acoustic, but the strings are deader than Elvis, so I'll stick with the electric until then - and then I'll go out to Long & McQuade and get a bunch of stuff.  Currently, I need:

• Strings for the acoustic (probably 2 sets)
• String replacement tool thing
• Guitar strap for the electric
• Gig bag for the electric

I don't think I'll need strings for the electric for quite some time, at this point.  But, since Robyn is all about the electric, I need a gig bag & strap for it for next time we jam.

As for play - I've started to learn "Sitting At The Dock Of The Bay".  It's a good one for me to learn - it's got a bunch of really hard chord changes, and some chords I can barely play, and it never stops making you change - it's "play-one-bar-then-change-then-play-one-bar-then-change-repeat".  So, it's like doing my 1 minute chord change exercise, but making music at the same time.  Plus, awesome song.

I...  was thinking a few weeks ago that I was starting to plateau.  I don't think that's the case any more.  I just think the stuff I'm learning is an order of magnitude harder now, and it takes me longer to assimilate a lesson and be able to use it effectively.  At least, that's what seems to be going on.  The chord changes are a lot harder, many involve all 4 fingers, and there are less "anchor fingers" at this point.  So, I don't think my progress is actually slowing down, although it does take me longer to complete a stage of Justin's course.  That, and I'm at a really weird place with his stuff - I'm mostly in stage 4, though I can do some stage 6 stuff (like the F chord).