"Forced" the play standard tuning...

Yep, it happened. ;)

I was working out a tune on Saturday, mostly to find a nice growly, slightly overdriven bass setting for my POD and Squier P-Bass Special for some upcoming tracks, and one thing led to another and I came up with an actual piece, rather than a 'test.'

I'm sure that's happened to lots of people.

But it was time to add some 'flavor' to the thing in the way of some slide, and well, the obvious choice was my lap steel guitar. I've been wanting to get it on a recording (aside from some Aloha Joe spots we did), and so I took it out, put it through the POD with lots of creamy distortion, and...just not right.

So the old standby, the Strat, in standard, with a medicine bottle, and that started to happen. Funny thing though, even though I haven't played standard tuned 'slide' for almost a year, having been focused only on lap steel styles, it was instantly famliar. Not only that, but everything felt so 'light.' I've gotten used to the bullet bar and the flat bar on the lap steel, and here was this light little glass bottle on my finger, and it was pretty amazing actually. Not that I was playing or recording anything amazing, but it just felt so easy to play, like my hand was used to the movement, and I was hearing - and doing - all these things I would never have done before on a regular slide track - like 2-3 notes on a single pluck (just moving the slide up and down), instead of 1-2 notes per pluck, and just having the whole 'up and down the string' concept really strong.

It was just a really weird, fun sorta thing; like playing a really familiar instrument, and then your hands not playing it like they used to.

Just thought I'd share that :)