I’m travelling from a couple weeks and I didn’t want to lose out on my guitar practice time, and I couldn’t bring my guitar. I came up with this device that recreates just the top 5 frets and allows me to practice chord changes on the go!
It’s plywood, with defocused scores to give me a place to glue in the wire frets, and then leather glued around the back to both smooth it out and give me a “handle”.
The spikes at the end allow me to loosen the strings during travel, and then tighten them up when it’s time to practice. The string itself is a high E string so it’s got mostly the right feel (though on a real guitar the strings get fatter, trying to bend a low E around the curves was not happening!)
That is absolutely brilliant! You are so clever! I can see how that would be great for anyone who wants to “practice” playing but either can’t carry their guitars (like students on a bus, etc.) or because of where they are, they would disturb others if they made noise.
Besides being practical and very helpful to you…this really makes me laugh. What we won’t go through to accommodate ourselves in every way possible. Kudos to you for thinking it up!
Good eyes! It’s actually a Ukrainian recreation showing the first few months of the war. My friends run a medieval armour and clothing company and when Kyiv was first attacked they couldn’t get to their workshop, so they designed and got these printed to make money for the war effort!
It would have to actually sound like something you wanted to hear! I’m certain an electronic version could be created so the lack of a sound box wouldn’t matter…but that’s not my strong suit
Here’s what it sounds like. Y’all have been warned!
Honestly though, my switch to the funky A (rather than 3 fingers in a row on 2-3-4, it’s 3-4-2) seems to be going smoothly thanks to this. I’m not tempted to try and play anything and therefore revert to muscle memory - my focus is entirely on forming new muscle memories!
That whole lack of a sound box is really noticeable!