Identifying and questions re: Tokai Love Rock

Tokai Forum

Help Support Tokai Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
michaeld said:
But it appears to be a much nicer guitar than I deserve, and I hope I can ultimately do it justice by finally learning how to play it.

Most of my guitars are better than I deserve, to be brutally honest, & I play in a band.

:-?

It's good to know that you're playing something that will always challenge you, however long you live. Or is that just me?

:eek:
 
There was once a musical instrument that I totally mastered:

the great and glorious kazoo.
http://www.kazoos.com/pub/index.htm

Oh, you should have heard me play (I was like six, but I RULED the kazoo).

Sadly, the guitar is a far, far more difficult lady to please. And of course, she only looks beautiful hanging on your arm when she's truly pleased with how you play her.
 
The best advice I can give is to develop your ear for pitch.
Once you can hear a note or a tune and pick the key life on the guitar becomes so much easier...that and knowing how to tune your guitar properly.
When you have a decent ear for pitch you can play along with recorded music and start teaching yourself to play.
I never took formal lessons til after i had been "playing" for 5 years..up til that point i developed an ear for pitch and taught myself to play "what I thought they were playing" from records.
Sure...50% of the time I was playing the correct notes but usually in the wrong position(octave) on the neck.
When I DID try to take some formal lessons the teacher told me that there was nothing that he could teach me and we became good friends and would just get together and jam and trade ideas.
So technically I've never had formal lessons....I'm a very lazy and slow music reader and have always played by ear...even when I was supposed to be reading a chart :p
 
Ozeshin,

Thanks for that bit of advice from personal experience.

I think everyone probably learns differently. Some learn best the way you did; others need a teacher.

I'll have to figure out what I need.

I'm just going to start somewhere (and that somewhere is practicing chords and doing chord transitions for now), and then add a teacher, or a class, or a DVD series, as I feel the need and have the opportunity.

I might be able to find a music teacher locally (don't even know where to look for one), but the music stores and advertised professional teachers are located 25 miles away. So I'll be looking to stumble into someone local.

But in the meantime, I might as well practice SOMETHING.
 
Ozeshin said:
The best advice I can give is to develop your ear for pitch.
Once you can hear a note or a tune and pick the key life on the guitar becomes so much easier...that and knowing how to tune your guitar properly.
When you have a decent ear for pitch you can play along with recorded music and start teaching yourself to play.

I thought I'd better make this separate, so it didn't get lost with the other stuff I wrote.

I am thinking about buying one of those electronic gizmos that plug into your guitar and tell you when you're too high/low, and when your string is "tuned."

I would ultimately like to get to Ozeshin's "ear," but in the meantime, would one of these electronic tuners be a good idea?
 
Usually if you can sing reasonably well that helps.
Most people with a little high school choir experience will have a reasonably good ear for pitch without really knowing it.
Being able to hear a melody played on a piano and then knowing the first note to sing is an example of good pitch.
So if you can sing a song in the correct key you're halfway there :D
And yes...I DO own a tuner..usually to settle arguments :p
 
AlanN said:
Absolutely. Decent ones cost pennies these days, you have no excuse! :)

I'll go ahead and order one, then. From the way they were described, it sounded pretty good. And "pennies" is obviously good, too.

Ozeshin said:
Usually if you can sing reasonably well that helps.
Most people with a little high school choir experience will have a reasonably good ear for pitch without really knowing it.

And I actually CAN sing rather well, I've often been told. In fact, it's frankly the fact that I sing well that makes me want to take advantage of a natural gift by learning to play an instrument like guitar (and if it weren't guitar, it would be keyboards).

So, given Ozeshin's view, I ought to at some point be able to tune by ear rather than by "digital cheating."

By the way, I didn't mention it, but I stumbled into an amplifier for myself. My girlfiend got me one when she gave me the guitar, but somehow I seem to have lost it over the years (and four moves).

It's a "Kustom KGA10" unit. I was talking to a guy in my church who plays guitar, and he asked me if I had an amplifier. And I was like, no.

So he sold me this one - which he said he'd only used a couple of times - for $20 USD. He said his parents had bought him a real nice one almost immediately after he bought this unit - and he'd just put the Kustom aside. And he'd just stumbled over it while looking for something else in the garage the day before.

So we're both happy.
 
It's a "Kustom KGA10" unit.
That'll do the job nicely for the time being.
For me,personally,singing and playing(lead)guitar go hand in hand and I tend to play my solos the way I would sing them...and I sing the way I would play a lead solo.
I've always done one or the other throughout my playing career...I've either been a lead guitarist OR a singer/frontman.
It's only been the last couple of years that I've been doing both and i don't know why i didn't do it sooner...I'm currently forming a three piece where I'll be doing both guitar AND vocal duties.
I you have a passion for singing then you'll pick up the guitar side of things pretty quickly I feel.
I hope it all goes well for you...welcome to our dysfunctional family and don't be a stranger. :D
 
Ozeshin,

Have to say the obvious first: I'm glad you're a "dysfunctional family," as otherwise you would have chased a guy like me off right quick.

Whenever skilled people are willing to patiently help/assist/explain things to novices, you're a good bunch.

If people like you didn't want to waste your time with beginners, it wouldn't really say anything bad about you. But when you ARE willing to do so, it says a lot of good things about you (you personally and others like you).

I want to therefore thank you for your time and generosity in answering questions. Right decent of you all.

I have no reason to say this other than "it seems." But it seems that it will be difficult to concentrate on playing - and concentrating on singing - at the same time. I may find out that I can easily do both at the same time, but it SEEMS like that would be tough to master.

Right now, it takes pretty much all of my concentration to make sure I'm putting my fingers on the strings and frets they're supposed to be on!
 
Michaeld, your Tokai is an ALS 60, not an 80. 100% guaranteed.

Nothing wrong with that though. Play it and love it like I love mine :D
 
Back
Top