Yesterday was a look after my grandson day. A take him to the dentist for his check up too. So we popped around the charity shops before his dental check up appointment for a quick ‘scout out for some hopeful God-sends’.

First up. Walked in the door and saw a 1960s Eko dreadnought acoustic. Very similar to the one I own already from the 1970s. Arrived home and immediately stripped out the machine heads after removing the really rusty strings. Dust and grime heavily involved too. So ordered Lemon Oil, String Oil, and Guitar Body cleaning spray off Amazon. Also, some Ernie Ball strings and some new machine heads. But! The machine heads already on it are original (rare) vintage. Five are original. One is a poor ‘painted to look similar’ replacement. Also one of the original five has a bent metal tuner peg.

So I looked at whether there were any out there. Only one set from the USA which, with postage, are about $85 or around £64. That is three times the cost as to what I paid for the whole charity shop guitar.

I have been thinking of the GarageBand recordings today. The little add on sounds played with human endeavour and not by a key pressed on the Midi Akai keyboard system. Born from recent purchase of odd buys on a whim. Fir example. In another charity shop yesterday I found an alto trumpet. I think that’s what it is. I thought it was a French Horn initially. I wish. Battered in the bell, but surprisingly rich sound on playing a deep note. And also battered and bruised on some of the pipes too. Needs a full on clean up with Brasso. You may hear it on a future recording playing a few elongated or stabbed out notes as a background atmospheric accompaniment to a song that has the need for that inclusion. Like an Eleanor Rigby type vibe.

Here is my original Eko Dreadnought guitar played into a Shure SM58 1970s made in the USA microphone. Microphone plugged into an interface connector and then into the Apple Mac Mini M2 home recording system. Played into GarageBand.

This morning I was looking in the attic to find the little harmonica (harp) my Nan gave me a while ago. Not sure when. Found it, looked it up (a Victory) and still not sure if it is considered a decent enough sound to use other than a bit of practicing on it. It has a sound coming out of it that is pleasant. Not as rich as the Chromatic Hohner I bought a few years back. I tried playing harp a year or so ago. Absolutely useless. No breath control at all.

After I bought the Chromatic harp, I found a great guy here on WP who has an amazing site. Kept in touch since. If he agrees, I can provide a link to his site.

Ol’ Shep agreed. Thank you kindly Shep. So here’s his blog site link below. Well worth a visit.

https://harmonicariffraff.blog/blog/

And his Bandcamp site. Shep has a new single out. Great harp player with a great sense of humour and so well worth a look and a listen to both blog reads and his toons. Here’s two of his toons.

Links below.

https://olshep.bandcamp.com/track/locomotive-weave

https://olshep.bandcamp.com/track/ruffled-feathers?from=fanpub_fnb_trk

All these vintage bought instruments that are unused and unloved souls? I remembered the vintage recorder I bought a few weeks ago down in Devon, England. Again, school days memories. I have five recorders now. Some penny whistles too.

So it will be possibly nice to attempt to play some real instruments to the songs. And not rely on GarageBand alternatives. Or it may be a disaster of inability to actually play these offerings.

All are Vintage and a bit battered though. Those of you who know my blogs……..1972 VeeDub Bus, many vintage fountain pens, old 1980s Pentax LX SLR film camera. All……glorious Vintage!