Bummer!

My husband's new Dobro guitar arrived today and once unpacked he rushed upstairs to his 'new' music room with it and for the next 20 minutes Hawaiian/bluesy type sounds reverberated through the house.  Dobro guitars are usually played laying flat on one's lap, and have a decorated metal plate thing on the front and resonators of various shapes inside.  Dobros are quite loud and he's thrilled with it!

 

After lunch he watched a little of the tutorials on video which came as part of the package and then did some research online to decide on fingerpicks, plectrums, slides, strings and capos to buy.  He can be quite anal about these things and has been known to do 70 mile round trips to buy a few 60p plectrums which he'll then spend an hour carefully filing (usually with one of my nail files!) to get the exact angled edge he wants.  If you don't have a guitar player in your family you'll have no idea of how complexly detailed and absorbing it can all be - or maybe that's just my old man.

 

So I'm having a quick look at him from time to time, doing a knowing smirk and he caught me at it and asked what I was grinning at.  You I said, you and this obsessive fascination with sodding plectrums and strings.

 

So, he said, what have you been doing this morning? 

Umm, reading. 

Reading what? 

Umm, 'The Undercover Economist'. 

Right, and what were you reading yesterday? 

Umm,' Freakonomics'. 

And what's the next book you've got lined up? 

Umm, 'Jon Von Neumann on Game Theory'. 

But aren't we out of the stockmarket now?

 

Umm, point taken. 

And as my husband says, keeping on top of the theory makes all the difference - though as he's never going to be Ry Cooder and I'm not going to be Warren Buffet then, like sex, all the good stuff is in the head.  (and I mean that in a strictly Platonic way - I'm a married lady!)