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Not being able to play my beloved guitars for three weeks


Lars68

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I've been tied up in bed now for three weeks soon, due to a badly herniated disc. I'm missing my beloved guitars and my efforts to learn to play and sing better. It's been painful just to move in bed. I'm on some kind of morphine based pills right now, so at least the pain is passable, but no guitars.

 

Not being able to play, I have turned to my second favorite hobby, headphones. What a true life safer that has been! Listening to well recorded acoustic music on really good headphones is fantastic. Any other headphone fans out there?

 

I listen through a dedicated headphone amplifier on my bedside table hooked up to a Pono audio player with all my music collected over 35 years loaded on to it as lossless FLAC-files. I have some more expensive, and on paper, technically better headphones, but nothing beats these.

 

http://gradolabs.com/headphones/prestige-series/item/5-sr325e

 

By the way, this is the last recording I made before ending up horizontally. If you are reading this, Sal. I will get back to trying to improve it as you so kindly pointed out backchannel, as soon as I can walk and sit up straight again. I can't wait!!

 

https://soundcloud.com/lars1968/where-the-wheat-grows-to-the

It's me trying to do something inspired by the feel of old folk songs.

 

Lars

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Sorry to hear of your plight,Lars.I have this image of you lying in bed writing a heartfelt, Swedish morphine blues in E7. Your creative juices seem to be fighting back hard- lycka till!

 

Tack! [biggrin]

 

No, can't concentrate, or stay awake long enough on these pills to write. Hard also to read any books for very long. So heaphones are my best friends right now!

 

Lars

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Feel better man!

 

So ... any feeling of those headphones over ... say... Bose quiet comfort? Those are blue tooth - I have those. Use em on the planes...

 

The Grado headphones are open backed, meaning you can hear the world around you, and the world can, at least partially, hear what you are listening to. The open backs give a much more natural and wider sound, compared to normal closed back headphones, where the sound is more "in your head". So if you are in a noisy area with people around you, the Grados are out of the question. For plane travel etc, your Bose QC are among the best you can find. However, for more serious listening at home in bed or in your favorite armchair, the Grados are way superior (at least I think so). Also, blue tooth technology has still a ways to go to beat a good old fashioned wire. Wireless will get there, but not just yet. Noice cancelation technology also usually means giving up some sound quality, but is of course totally worth it in certain situations.

 

Headphones for listening at home is actually a much cheaper, and under-appreciated, way to get the music to sound its best compared to regular floor or tabletop speakers, which are way, way more costly for an equal musical experience.

 

As you might be able to tell, I´m likeing my headphones! [biggrin]

 

Lars

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£250 !

For earphones !

 

When your back is sorted get your head looked at

 

That is a very normal comment whenever a friend ask me "what did you pay for that Gibson of yours" [biggrin]

 

If a J-15 is the entry level into the Gibson guitar hobby, this old thing is still after at least 35 years on the market, the equivalent entry into the headphone hobby. Amazingly good little things. Yours for under $20. No Gibson can match that. Most people don´t know how good these tiny little plastic things from the 80´s really are.

 

https://www.ebay.com/p/Koss-Porta-Pro-Headband-Headphones-Black-Silver/114539023?iid=222801017690

 

Then when you aspire to get further into the hobby, you can buy these (or a decent used car...) Such a purchase would indeed qualify a person to get his/her head checked, at least twice, once for each earcup of the headphones [biggrin]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Audeze-LCD-4-Audiophile-High-End-Hifi-Headphones/182900164196?hash=item2a95b30664:g:JpoAAOSwevlaCxG9

 

Lars

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Not good to hear this, Lars - a bad back can make you 80 in a minute or 2.

 

I know from an injury taken while trying to remove a big cabinet in a rehearsing-room as a young man.

For decades that damage kept coming back when least expected and sometimes it had me paralyzed for days.

So glad to say it's over and has been for more than 15 years.

Remember not bein' able to move and counting to 10 before getting out of bed. Slow walking or lying still like a stone were best. Truly miserable.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Headphone-fan - count me in, I'm a can-addict. Got a pair of open back Beyerdynamic 990 PRO and they open a dream each time I get inside.

Only way to check guitars on the web btw. , , , and tests/performances from fx this Board.

 

For headphone-hunters my advice is to be aware of the difference between closed and open-cups.

First invites you into a concert-hall or even a tight musical chamber, where the open phones kind of breath sonically through the ribs,

which makes the music ease out in a very natural and 'healthy' way.

 

Get well soon, Sweden. Hope you experience some mind-expansion in this phase - musically as generally speaking.

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Was pulling your leg about the earphones

 

Did it help you’re back?

 

 

 

As em7 says , it’s a nightmare that doesn’t seem to end

But it does , mid thirties were my low point after 15 odd years of working wrongly

 

Going to the toilet is akin to an Everest summit attempt

 

 

One of the very few benifitsbof gettIng older is the change in the goo between your vertebrae , lessens the chance of the disaster you’re going through

 

But it’s always there ...

some folks get a much much worse cross to carry

 

 

Have a search on Spotify for Colter wall

Something tells me you’d like him Lars

 

 

Better than bringing grapes to the bedside isn’t it

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Sympathies, Lars. Been there myself 30 years ago. Had surgery back then by a great sports orthopod, and I was back to running within a few months. However, I still do 15 minutes of back and core exercises every morning, since the memory of that pain is still very real.

 

I spent the better part of a summer lying in bed reading in unbelievable pain before surgery finally did the trick.

 

There is hope, as bleak as it may seem at times.

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Thanks all for making things a little more fun around here! This forum is great!

 

Em7, I have tried the Beyers and they are on my list of desirable headphones. I tend to buy mostly used, but the Beyers don't come up for sale on the used market much around here. Any other ones you particularly like? I just bought a pair of used Audioquest NightOwls closed headphones. Really, really nice. Not neutral, but very laid back and easy on the ears.

 

BBG, yes I know you were only pulling my leg, no worries. Did nothing for the back, though. Trying pulling both at once! I'm gonna check out Colter Wall (using the Grado headphones). Thanks for the tip!

 

This is my second run in with emergency room, not being able to move, kind of a herniated disc problems. I had it for the first time fifteen years ago, and I remember the doctor saying that when you are fifty you won't have to worry about this kind of problems anymore, because the spongy stuff between the discs will have hardened enough not to bulge out anymore. I turn fifty in about two weeks, so if I am to take the doctor's words literally, all my pain will either magically disappear in a couple of days, or I'm physically much younger than my birth certificate indicates [thumbup]

 

Now a quick return to headphones for a while, and a short sales pitch. Since most of you are Americans, and also know who Sal is, you might want to check out this not so generally well known but very cool company, working out of Brooklyn, where I believe Sal tends to do most of his entertaining?

http://stories.maker.me/grado-headphones-handmade-in-brooklyn-since-1953/

They make some very odd looking, but very, very good headphones. The company does not care about what is trendy one bit, does no advertising whatsoever, operates behind a bascially unknown street door in Brooklyn. Some of their headphones look like toys, because very little money has gone in to flashy designs and they have looked the same forever. The money is put where the sound is.

 

For those of you who would like to try out a pair of good headphones that won't break the bank, have a look at these Grados.

http://www.gradolabs.com/headphones/prestige-series/item/1-sr80e

These are a better value than the ones I linked in my first post, and about 95% as good. They work great out of a phone, PC, or iPad etc.

They make the music I like really come alive.

 

Lars

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Sorry to hear you’ve been laid up, Lars, but I’m glad you’re able to bring music into your head nonetheless.

And you might have a nice surprise in store when you are able to get back to your guitar; I’ve found many times over the years that there’s nothing like a forced haitus to show you, upon return, that all that practice was perculating. You will bounce back, better than ever.

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Sorry to hear you’ve been laid up, Lars, but I’m glad you’re able to bring music into your head nonetheless.

And you might have a nice surprise in store when you are able to get back to your guitar; I’ve found many times over the years that there’s nothing like a forced haitus to show you, upon return, that all that practice was perculating. You will bounce back, better than ever.

 

Nothing makes a guitar sound sweeter than a leave of absence

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Hang in Lars.Are you watching any of the Australian Open Tennis.I know you used to play.

Go The Professor!....Mr Chung

 

YES! I watch some in the mornings. Most of it happens in the middle of the night for me. I´m a huge fan of Federer!

Not so sure it will be wise for me to play more myself, though. Even when I have recovered, which I am determined to make happen, all the bending and sideways twisting of the torso in tennis, is not an optimal form of exercise in my case anymore.

 

Thanks for all the support. This really is a wonderful forum. I mostly stayed away when I first got ill. Didn´t like reading about guitars and not being able to play, but there is community here as well and that matters too!

 

Lars

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