Flashes of Panic

I have rediscovered that I can get more mileage from my raw fingers if I select exclusively music which asks the player to “capo up” (that is, put a sort of clamp on the neck of the guitar which holds down all the strings behind a particular fret. This comes in handy for changing key quickly; it also reduces how much force is needed to fret the strings, since the capoed strings are closer to the neck than they would be if they were just held up at the nut. I think they do this often for young kids learning guitar, but since I never took lessons, I’m not sure.)

Fortunately for me, I also discovered www.altcountrytab.com, which showed me that Jesse Malin’s “Riding on the Subway” can be played with a capo. I expect to make myself thoroughly sick of that song by the end of the week.

Side note: I’m playing around with a desktop weblog interface called Ecto.