My brother was my hero:

He would tell me stories about his time playing in bands and how it felt great when the people in the crowd would start dancing. It was a sign you had won them over and the night is going to go well. My band, “Alias Smith and Jones,” played a gig the other night and when some couples started to dance to what we were playing, I felt my brother strongly. So strong, I barely kept it together.

My brother passed away almost two years ago and he was my inspiration for playing the guitar. I remember watching him go to gigs, loading his gear all dressed up (this was the 80’s mind you. It’s not a coincidence that I wanted to do the same. Took me a little bit longer get on stage but when I did, he was my biggest fan. I would call him after every gig and we would talk about it and dissect it like a professional football player goes over game tape. We now had this in common and it was no longer him telling me stories but us both going back and forth. I relished having those conversations with him. Now that has been taken away from me and I struggle coping with his death.

Healing since my brothers death

The conversations still occur but now it’s a one way deal, but I talk with him everyday. I swear I could feel him last night and for a brief instance we were sharing that moment when the couples were dancing. Like I said, it took everything I had to not break down but once i composed myself, I smiled and relished in the time we had to talk about playing guitar and being in a band. Life will never be the same and I’m not sure how to heal or how to cope but I will. Billy Bob Thornton said it best when he said that you never really get over a siblings death, your “half happy and half sad” at anytime. But a he said, if that’s the burden of honoring him, I gladly take it. on.

My brother was and always will be my inspiration and everytime I see someone dance to live music, I think of him; Love my big brother and I’m grateful he got to see me play and I miss him dearly.

OK. so we are on our first Alaskan tour and all is going well but the songs that I play Mandolin on just doesn’t seem right. Intonation is off; either me or the guys in my band were off but it was noticeable.

Dave, our bass player and lead singer keeps looking over to me with the look of “are you in the right key”. I stop in the middle of the song and do a quick check and yes, I’m in tune.. Finish the song and I pick up my guitar and all is well, it only seems to be with the mando. I’m actually getting worried that there is something physically wrong with the instrument and it will need to be repaired.

Tensions run high

After a couple of shows, the tensions are running high. I’m getting the looks of frustration and annoyance because of this issue. I literally showed my tuner to the guys and said “look, it’s showing in tune.” Perplexed, we decide it might be the venue we are at; they can definitely distort the sound. The problem is, we are now facing this problem over the course of multiple shows. All The venues can’t be bad right?

We are warming up, getting the sound check taken care of and the intonation issue shows it’s ugly head once again. What the actual?!?!??!? We are checking the mix, all the tunings and we can’t figure it out. I’m ready to scrap the mando songs until this is figured out but we can’t; they are some of our most popular songs so not an option.

“What is you tuner set to?”

That’s what our other guitarist asked me and at first I’m like, huh? What he was wondering was if I had my tuner set to 440. DUH! holy crap, it was set to 441. How about that? I set to 440, retune and the great tuning fiasco was finally resolved. It is crazy how just that one notch up can create such a discord in the music.

Goes to show how important our ears are to a musician and when you know your music in every way, a little change is noticeable. Needless to say, I double and triple check to make sure my tuners are always set to 440.

Lesson learned!