Just the Way You Are

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjhCEhWiKXk

The song above is the one Shani is currently working on. It requires some weird tuning that I have never in my guitar-loving life heard of. Luckily, her guitar tutor has; and also luckily, he is happy to (a) let her learn it and (b) tune her guitar for her.

Which leads us to a problem. Once her guitar is tuned for that, she can't play anything else on it. She CAN tune her guitar back to normal, but then, obviously, she can't play Just The Way You Are.

So we came up with a plan.

She has an accoustic guitar, and an electric guitar. The accoustic guitar is a 3/4 size one; it's the one on which she learned to play; and though she still loves it, the electric one is getting more air time at the moment, and that's the one her guitar teacher tuned for her.

So we sat down and she played string for string on her electric guitar while I listened and tuned her accoustic guitar for her; then I tuned her electric guitar back to normal. So now she can practice Just The Way You Are on her accoustic guitar and everything else on her electric guitar.

This still leaves us with the problem that there are songs that need to be practised on the accoustic guitar and now can't be, without losing the special tuning.

However, she's 13 now, and grown enough that she could in fact use a full-size accoustic guitar; and what do you know, there's one of those upstairs. Mine, unused for some 25 years now. That being the case, the strings are so tense that if they snap they'll have her eye out. So, I restrung it last night.

And, inevitably, remembered one of the last times I played it. It was at my Mum's place, and we had had a visit from Uncle Piet and Aunt Bunny; and as he loved music himself, he asked me to play, and I did.
So the last time those strings were played, two people that I loved and have lost were listening to them. My Mum and Uncle Piet are no longer with us. 

Sentimental fool that I am, I couldn't throw the bent strings away afterwards.