Takamine Triax pickup is on it's way

Taking into consideration a lot of suggestions from a lot of people, I made the decision to order a Takamine Triax (Active/Passive) sound hole pickup from Murphy's Music in Irving, TX.

I had this pick up in a Martin 12-string that I STUPIDLY let get away from me (with nothing today to show for it!!!!)  

The Triax is made for Takamine by L. R. Baggs, and it is pretty much the same as an L. R. Baggs M-80, except it does not have the button to push to activate a small light display which indicates how much battery life the pick up has left.  Don't know why you need to know this, because the pickup goes into passive mode should the battery go out while it is in active mode.

Another neat feature is that in active mode, this pickup also senses the movement of the top of the guitar.  As I said, I have had one before, and liked it a lot.

The Triax is also black, which doesn't stand out (in my opinion) as much as the cream colored Baggs M-80.

Anyway . . . the pickup should be here this Friday, and I hope to have it installed this weekend.

The joy of a sound hole pickup, especially the Triax and the Baggs M-80, is that you do not have to permanently mount the pickup.  It has a quick disconnect, meaning you can permanently mount the endpin jack, and with the help of a couple of interior body clips, keep the cable secure (not rattling inside the guitar) until you need to install the pickup for a gig in which you run the guitar through your amp or PA.  Maybe takes a minute to install if you know what you are doing.

Awesome.

In all honesty, I prefer to carry one guitar to most gigs, especially when I am singing and playing solo.  It's hard enough to watch one guitar, let alone 2 or more.   I think the Triax was the best choice considering all the things I felt were important.

More to come!

God's grace still amazes me . . . ><>

Here comes Lent!

The Christian season of Lent begins next week on Ash Wednesday, March 5th.  I have the honor of preaching at our Ash Wednesday service at 7 PM in our Main Sanctuary at the Downtown Campus.

I have been attending Wednesday morning Bible study these past few weeks, taught by my long-time college and pastoral mentor, Dr. Jesse J. Sowell.   The class is one our short-term Disciple Bible Study's, and is called "Invitation to the Psalms.

This past week, our daily exercise was to pray the Psalms in both the morning and the evening.  I found this to be a great challenge.   Jesse shared that it has been a common practice in many faith traditions to pray the entire Book of Psalms in 30 days.  The Book of Common Prayer has a reading plan to read in support of this, with the Psalms divided, in order, into morning and evening sections.

So . . .  I have made a decision . . . and I could use your prayer support.

I am going to pray the Book of Psalms for 30 days, in both March and April.  This will include the entire season of Lent, and include the 10 days following Easter.

I don't know what to expect, and I hope to be able to share what I experienced.

More to come.

God's grace still  amazes me . . . ><>

Foolish Questions . . .

Another Canote Brothers video.

These guys are really good entertainers.  They seem to be having as much, if not more, fun than the audience.

God's grace still amazes me . . . ><>

Singing with friends takes the blues away . . .

I had the special privilege of singing with my "sometimes" music partner, Larry Dykstra.  Larry joined me this cold drizzly morning for my regular 2nd Monday morning gig singing to the residents at Dancing River in Grapevine, Texas.

Singing with friends . . . for a "wannabe" guitarist/singer such as myself, there is perhaps no better way to spend one's time.

Funny thing, my iPad (on which I have ALL my songs) broke down right as we started, so we just looked at each other and "winged it."  50 minutes of music, corny jokes and stories, we sang our last song to the applause of a great (and very very kind) bunch of folks.

It does my heart good when someone senior-in-age to me shakes my hand and with a smile on their face says, "Thank you so much for coming to sing to us!"

What a joy to sing with a friend, and to know that our music brought a smile to someone's face, and maybe to their heart and life as well.

Perhaps we made their day.  Singing for them sure made my day!

God's grace still amazes me . . . ><>