I have purchased my first digital piano recently. The Roland FP-4 is an excellent keyboard. Full set of 88 weighted keys, in a compact body, that Apple iPod white color, and built in speakers is exactly what I wanted.

In particular, the weighted feel (or the action) is quite nice on the Roland and more of what I wanted, even though it is in a higher price range than a number of other keyboards.

One thing I have to say is that any of the advanced features on the piano do not have an intuitive interface to use them (recording and playback, etc).

The music rest is neat on the white Roland as well. It is a clear fibreglass back with white metal base for the music to sit on.

Post a Comment ... (0 Comments)

I am a huge Damien Rice fan, but I recently listened to some music by David Ford that is very similar and sounds awesome. If you like Damien, you will definitely like this guy.

He is coming out with a new album called Songs From the Road. You can check out some of his music on YouTube as well. I have embedded one of his videos below.

I haven't gone through all the songs yet, just the ones I can find online. I will definitely be picking up this album though.

Here is the music video. Notice he plays all 4 parts. Apparently they recorded it on the first take for all 4 parts.

Here is the embedded player for the playlist I found on YouTube.

Post a Comment ... (0 Comments)

I unfortunately broke a piece of the tailpiece off on my mandolin the other day. I was restringing it and was putting on some old strings (they hadn't been used) I purchased a few years ago. I don't know if that was the problem or not, but one the little pegs in the tailpiece that the eye of the string holds onto snapped off.

I didn't know what to do, so I phoned around to a number of places in Calgary and no one wanted to deal with it. Replacement tailpieces were selling upwards of $100 on eBay so that didn't look very good either.

I ended up phoning Long & McQuade here in Calgary (Calgary Long & McQuade) and they said to bring it by and they would take a look. Anyhow, I walked in and they have a replacement tailpiece of the exact same shape and size for $20. I couldn't believe my luck. It was the same size as my original so I could use my Kentucky tailpiece cover on it as well. It wasn't even stored in the back. It was a plastic wrapped item on a display shelf.

I own a Kentucky KM200S teardrop style mandolin. I purchased it back around 1995 or so. It is a pretty nice little instrument so I want to keep it in good repair.

Replacing A Mandolin Tailpiece

Replacing it is really simple:

1. Remove the cover of the tailpiece.
2. Remove any strings connected to the tailpiece. Either remove them from the Mandolin completely or loosen them enough that you can slip the string eyelets off of the tailpiece pins.
3. Remove the screw for the knob you connect your strap to.
4. Remove the 3 screws holding the tailpiece onto the bottom of the mandolin.
5. Hold the new tailpiece in place where the old one was. The angle of the mandolin tailpiece might not quite be right, so bend it a little so that it is touching flat on the bottom side of the mandolin and the on the top.
6. My old tailpiece had a piece of felt along the edge that the strings dug into, but the new one didn't have this. I removed the felt and superglued it onto the new tailpiece.
7. Replace the 3 screws to hold the taipiece on.
8. Replace the strap knob and screw.
9. String up your guitar and put your tailpiece cover back on.

Overall, it was super simple, only cost me $20, took half and hour of work including the restringing, and I was able to keep on my original tailpiece cover.

Post a Comment ... (1 Comments)