Two things: I’m speaking from my experience as a guitarist who started at 50 and is now 64, and knowing a bit about the science of the ear, predominantly as it reacts to different sounds and sound levels in industrial settings over the long term (provided the ear is well protected from overly loud sounds). Can we still hear the same range of frequencies as we age and what impact does age have on hearing loss?
There is no doubt in the almost fifteen years of regular playing that my ears have become much more seasoned and I can hear nuances in tone now that I could not hear when I started. I believe part of that is due to the fact that I learned to play predominantly by ear and still use my ears to emulate lead guitar in songs I’ve never heard before. I challenge myself to see how close I can get on the first pass and on how many passes it takes me to nail it down. I was doing this well enough to enjoy my own playing from the get-go and eventually I learned the pentatonic scales without ever looking them up. The fingerboard just seemed to make sense to me. I know, I was quite surprised myself as I found this to be a skill that I never knew I had. From there, of course, I had to focus on technique, just like anyone else, so this is what “playing by ear” meant to me. I believe there’s a range to what this phrase means to different players who have this innate ability. No one just walks up to a guitar and plays songs from start to finish without undergoing years of practice. I still have difficulty in hearing the different chords that comprise a song unless it’s something simple like three well-known major chords. It is only after hearing a song numerous times that I can begin to put the chord changes together (again, challenging myself before looking up the tabs which I’ll often have to do to get it absolutely right).
I collect guitars and a lot of the research that goes into that involves A//B-ing guitars either at various guitar shops or listening carefully to well put-together comparisons online. Doing this in person is the better method but if I’m listening through a good set of headphones along with a phone designed with playing music in mind (I’ve found that the Sony Xperia I IV is superior to anything else) I can hear the minute sonic differences between two high-end guitars of the same build quality and materials, say, a Collings D-1 and the Martin D-18 that it’s modeled after. In the case between these two specific guitars, price isn’t of as much significance. The D-18 is the industry benchmark for many guitars made by boutique builders, as is the Marrtin D-28 and the Gibson J-45. Though relatively small, the differences in tone jump out at me. It would be the same if I were comparing the Standard Series Martin D-18 to Martin’s Authentic Series D-18 1937 model. These guitars sound very similar but there are differences that, when combined, make it easy for me to discern which is which. But I’ve been A/B-ing guitars for years and distinctly recall not being able to hear these differences fifteen years ago.
If I had to quantify how far my ears have developed relative to whan I was beginning to play, I would say the difference is around two times better in recognizing differences in tone and sustain, but not in overall hearing like volume. I’ve become somewhat of an audiophile and, if I can help it, will only listen to music through high-quality equipment, including headphones and earbuds. As much as my “well seasoned” ears have become a gift, it has also come at a financial cost in what guitars I know gravitate to and the expense of the equipment I use to listen to and play music.
In terms of the deterioration of hearing as it relates to age, we all know that age can have a tremendous impact on our hearing but, in speaking from experience, if we spend our lives keeping the longevity of our hearing in mind and are sure to always wear protection when the situation calls for it, we can mitigate against hearing loss to a great extent. My hearing was tested many times over the course of my career and I have experienced an almost insignificant loss. But the converse is just as true and people who are either unaware or think that their hearing isn’t something important enough in any given moment to take adequate measures will suffer the consequences. My father and his father before him have and had significant problems with their hearing because they are and were lifetime rifle hunters who practiced regularly without hearing protection. Much less was known about hearing and hearing protection back then. I grew up hunting and shooting high powered rifles from youth on, but they made sure that I wore ample hearing protection. I have also been into sports like motocross which can be extremely loud, but I wore protective foam earbuds under my helmet.
In my teens and early twenties, I saw my share of concerts but I would get nowhere near the stage and could be found in the “cheap seats” which were well past the seating and out into the grass at least 75 yards from the amplifiers. All of these things have paid off and, while I have some fairly serious random health problems, my hearing isn’t among them. Because of my career in engineering, design, and construction, I had to take annual hearing safety courses and they made an impact. Without that background, my hearing would likely not be what it is today, in my mid-60’s.
I’m going to use this question about the dhole, a wonderful but little known animal that inhabits parts of Asia but is 75% absent from its original habitat, to make a point that no one seems to want to hear. The first thing I noticed in this National Geographic story are the words used to define the story category: “Photo Ark”. To me, that’s a great way to think about endangered species, particularly the ones that have little to no chance of recovering from their current status and made the Endangered Species list decades ago. To send out the message that Nat Geo is compiIing a photographic ark obviously means something. I have posted a couple of screenshots so you can read the basics on the dhole and see what they look like. Like most caniids, I am drawn to their handsome, wolf-like features. Though wildly different upon initial inspection, the dhole has similar features to all sorts of wild dogs found all over the world. I must admit that while I have at least a general understanding of most canids, sort of a “working knowledge”, other than the name “Dhole”, I knew very little about them as a species.
Of course, the second thing that struck me was just how few of them remain, 4,500 to 10,500 individuals. This is roughly half the number of African Wolf Dogs which, as the name suggests, can be found in South Africa and just a handful of countries to the north. It’s historic range was throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. Dozens of creatures are down to similar numbers, numbers that have been holding onto existence using tooth and claw and every bit of their instinct to thrive when conditions are stacked heavily against them. How would we view our own chances if there were just 20,000 of us remaining following what could have only been apocalyptic events to bring our kind to the knife’s edge of being? With this and other posts, I’m trying my darndest to wrap some “shock and awe” perspective around what’s happening to the planet. It is abundantly clear that even with biological scares like (in recent history) HIV, Influenza, COVID, Ebola, Bird Flu, Hantavirus, West Nile, and on, that we’ve become numb to the potential for something as big to come along as the Black Plague (aka Black Death, 1346 – 1353) which killed 25 to 50 million people in just seven years. Granted, times have changed, but COVID should be a reminder of how we had to enlist the help from doctors and scientists from all over the world to bring to bear their collective knowledge to come up with a solution while the clock was ticking on something which quite easily could have been much worse. This clearly reflects the extents to which we will go to save ourselves but, even then, nothing seems to shake us as we look to others to save our lives.
Credit Wikipedia
Credit Wikipedia
If that same effort, say, over a six year period, were put into saving threatened and endangered species, I believe we could have turned things around for some of the most ecologically important species. It’s amazing what we can do when pressed hard for results.
In the mid-60’s, my grandmother took me the one of the larger zoos back East and even as a child of preschool age, I was imprinted by seeing what were clearly wild animals stuck in cages and steel and concrete mini-habitats. I went some thirty years before I took a chance because my girlfriend at the time had never been to a zoo and had a strong desire to visit one. I really liked this girl and thought I could set my feelings aside for one day. I know that most people don’t feel the same way I do on many fronts. Besides, I was just a young child during that first ill-fated foray. Who was I to stop her from having an experience that millions of others enjoy every year?! The Denver Zoo was known for having a very good wolf exhibit and I had been fascinated by wolves for my entire life, reading numerous books and catching every documentary I could find on the subject. I thought I could “tough it out” for one day at one of the most progressive zoos in the country. But almost from the get-go as we were buying tickets, I began to get “cold feet”. I had lied to myself in an effort to make someone else happy. I managed to fake my way through the other exhibits (as I did not wish to have a negative impact on her experience) until we got to the wolf enclosure and, as much as I wanted to spend a few moments admiring them, I began to shed some uncontrolled tears while doing my best to quell my reaction and keep her from seeing it (I must be a decent actor because she didn’t notice).
What got to me the most was due to simply knowing too much about wolves to see them in captivity. They are an iconic symbol of everything that is pure and wild. The alpha male was probably around six years old and 120 pounds of sheer and magnificent masculine beauty. Predominantly light grey and white (grey wolves, aka, timberwolves come in a variety of colors from various shades of grey to reddish brown to all white, and all black) he was what most people think of when they hear the word “timberwolf”. It was just my girlfriend and I at the exhibit and he and I locked eyes as I watched him pace back and forth on a 6″ deep x 12″ wide groove the wolves had cut by pacing along the fence line at the front 30-feet of the enclosure. These are animals that have home ranges of up to 500 square miles and regularly travel between 20 and 50 miles in a single day. Talk about pent up energy which leads to stress, anxiety, and depression. His angst was palpable as was, I’m certain, my own. Today, some thirty years later, I can still sense his pieycing, highly intelligent eyes looking straight into my soul. I distinctly recall marveling at his masterfully efficient gait as he paced. I honestly believe he could feel my sadness and empathy for his situation. I require a lot of personal space to be comfortable and mile upon mile of open space in order to recreate and live happily. As much as I wanted to stay and observe both he and his incredible pack, we were there for just ten or fifteen minutes. When we were done at the zoo, we spent the evening having dinner and talking about a new class my girlfriend was about to start teaching. She was a chemistry professor at a Christian college in Denver. I do not remember what it was that ended the relationship other than the fact that I’d soon be moving to Durango but we weren’t together long enough for her to hear of my aversion to zoos. She had had a good time and that was all that I had cared about. The someday for telling her my genuine feelings never came. My current and by any and all means, final wife, and I feel almost exactly the same about wild things and wild places and our mutual love of nature is one of our primary connections. We prefer dogs to kids.
It has been another thirty-plus years and I’ve not been to another zoo, not even to take my daughter when she was young but all too impressionable. She’s twenty-six now and I don’t believes she’s gone to one of her own volition. She is her father’s daughter. The same goes for aquatic theme parks, though her mother once took her to the grand opening of a Sea World, near San Antonio. While knowing of my feelings on the subject, she took our then seven year-old daughter without informinng me of her plans (taking her out of state without informing the other parent was a clear breech of our parenting plan). Suffice it to say, it had the desired impact on me. What some people will do in the name of pure vindictiveness.
Between zoos and many of the conservation programs which work with them, we have literally researched many important species to death (or, followed them as they made their debut onto the threatened or endangered species lists) with just five to thirty years remaining on their respective clocks. Make no mistake, I am all for research and education, but when it comes to the treatment of the creatures involved, there must be limits.
I want to be clear. I am certainly not opposed to conservation programs. That would be nothing short of just plain stupid. They need to continue but without a reliance on zoos. Almost like the separation of church and state, they should continue on parallel path with more aggressive conservation efforts put in place to expedite the issues around key species that are almost gone and putting a real end to poaching and outright slaughter, and habitat loss as it relates to prioritized species. As an example, the American Wild Horse and the African Wild Dog. rhinos, highland gorillas, the Big Cats, wolves, elephants, and, of course, the dhole. These are but a few of the species that can still be salvaged but action needs to take place in the present, not after we’ve researched these animals for yet another ten years. I’m sorry, but they may no longer be here to study. Education and study efforts should be ongoing but targeting the next wave of species that are clearly in trouble, mostly having to do with loss of habitat. Establish new programs surrounding the next wave of creatures that will one day soon require intervention. I see it as a two-pronged approach. Long-term research and education on creatures not yet in their 11th hour, and short-term aggressive conservation measures to provide absolutely necessary aid to species in dire need of our help. In the end, we cannot save every species but we can still save many. We just don’t have the kind of conservatiion programs in place to ramp things up as it becomes necessary to save the most endangered species today. And last but not least, these programs must be afforded “teeth” so that when it becomes necessary to fight for the animals they’re trying to protect they are able to react with more than just words.
For the sake of discussion, let’s say that my childhood reaction to zoos and what I think of them is valid. I realize that zoos have enabled us to study many species that would otherwise be diffucult to study in the field, but for how long and at what cost? After so many decades -long studies have aready gathered the necessary information surrounding the long-term survival of many keystone animals, I believe we’ve got to put an end to zoos. We are long past the point of diminishing returns. If we take all of what I’ve said above as fact, we need to take an urgent look at this huge and amorphous issue and put some definition around it. To take a sound, pragmatic approach to mitigating the vast expanse of damage we’ve already done. We need to set worldwide protocols and place definitive timelines (deadlines) around the species that are at the highest risk but could still be saved. And. we need to be able to fire back when fired upon!
This is extremely difficult for me to even say, but in looking at wildlife conservation as a whole, there simply isn’t enough time remaining relative to current funding levels and tactics to save every species on the endangered species list. It’s already too late for certain species. We need to take a much more pragmatic view based on what is truly possible. What could be accomplished if we went at this global problem much more aggressively and if we did all the right things from this point forward and started today?! We won’t know until we engage the problem head-on, in a highly structured manner, and provide hard push-back to anyone or anything that gets in the way.
In the meantime, we can look for the most proactive wildlife programs currently operating and find out what we can do to help expedite things in real time with an emphasis on the word “NOW”! When it comes to species that have been on the endangered species list for decades, there simply isn’t enough time remaining for what amounts to political diplomacy.
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t’s time to get serious about wildlife conservation and start to think differently about our place in this world. To take into consideration the full measure of our actions and how they have impacted wild things and wild places over the history of mankind. I’m talking about a complete overhaul in the way we think about our species in relation to how we perceive creatures other than ourselves.
The brown bear (of which the grizzly is a subspecies) needs protection throughout the northern hemisphere, but the grizzly is, perhaps, the most studied and decades of progress have already been made on its behalf. From the work we’ve done and the changes we have made for them, and others such the wolf, we have provided a template for managing other large predators all over the world. It’s really not that different. In terms of the grizzly, legislation has been passed on both state and federal levels and a tremendous amount of research was needed before such legislation had a chance of being reviewed. We cannot allow ourselves to backslide even an inch and need to continue to vigorously advocate for grizzlies so they remain plentiful enough overall and in local populations to support a healthy gene pool. The single most important factor in their survival is, as it has always been, habitat preservation (which includes restrictions on human encroachment).
To take it a proactive step further, how about “habitat creation”? This is something that is happening on local levels every time someone or some family has the inclination and wherewithal to deed lands over to outfits such as the Nature Conservancy. But it needs to happen at state and federal levels, as well. As taxpayers and conservationists, wouldn’t we be willing to fund the buying-back of millions of acres of no longer productive western ranchlands? Historical ranching in semi-arid to arid landscapes is dying a slow death as more and more of the nation’s beef is grown in states like Florida and Georgia. Then you have corporate ranching which occurs when several adjoining family owned and operated ranches are consolidated and economies of scale reduce costs as compared to the smaller family run ranches of the past. But, and perhaps surprisingly, the companies now operating these ranches are largely opposed to seeing more bears and wolves reintroduced to areas proximal to their lands. These are deep-pocketed organizations which should be accountable to their investors, which more than likely are inclined to support such programs that are on the front lines of wildlife advocacy. I believe this is a case where corporate execs are telling their shareholders one thing but doing another, all in the name of maximizing their bottom line which, in turn, makes everyone happy. If it costs one dime to help in restoring bear and wolf habitat and supporting additional reintroduction efforts, you’ll have to pry open their hands with a crowbar to get at it.
When the dust settles, the remaining ranchers can be slow to embrace change and I can certainly understand why. Every red-blooded American kid wishes they’d grown up on a ranch somewhere out West. But running cows isn’t the only means by which ranches make money. On many mid-to-large ranches, the primary source of income is royalties from oil and natural gas leases, contracts made between the oil and gas producers and ranchers which allow for drilling and subsequent oil and gas production taking place on private ranchlands throughout the Western US. But there remain areas of land that are home neither to cattle nor to pump jacks. These are the areas of land that I’m referring to as a prime candidate for placing some portion of these lands into conservation agreements which provide for additional wildlife habitat. Aside from offers to buy in dollars, there are incentives built into creating land trusts to help motivate land owners to strike deals with land conservancies, in some cases going so far as to afford these families the opportunity to remain on to work their lands or are at least grant them special access for things like hunting, camping, and fishing. The period of time that these provisions are set in place can be significant and the transfer of ownership can be handled in such a way that it feels as though nothing has changed. One of the oldest philosophies in the history of man is that, on occasion, the few (in this case owners of vast quantities of land) must be compelled to make sacrifices for the good of the many. I can’t think of a more honorable thing to do than to share a portion of your land holdings so that wildlife has a far greater chance of survival than it would otherwise have had. In my book, that’s about as good as good gets.
Because we as a species are only by default the caretakers of the planet, there have been few (if any) times in our history where long-term planning focused on any species other than our own. We simply plowed ahead without regard for wildlife with one ad-hoc building project on top of another. The result of this kind of thinking has been a “no thinking at all” paradigm in favor of the expansion of man at the expense of everything else. A “Manifest Destiny” approach to first “conquering” and then populating the earth. Why? Because it’s there.
PAfter eons of putting ourselves first (at least early on it was about survival and not hubris and greed), we need to learn how to “share”…remember, that thing they tried so hard to instill in us in kindergarten?! To truly put away trivial matters and materialism and become far better versions of ourselves. Take responsibility for the things we’ve done in the name of advancing only ourselves. Because you personally didn’t clearcut vast parts of the Pacific Northwest doesn’t mean that you didn’t use the resultant lumber or, simply because what comes out of your vehicle’s tailpipe is relatively “clean” doesn’t mean that the electricity you use to fuel it didn’t come from a coal fired electric power plant somewhere in the middle of nowhere, or worse, from the power plants located on native American tribal lands in the “Great American West”. In the end, true understanding and knowledge can only come after ”peeling the onion” until you’ve gone through all the layers and reached the core. As has been echoed throughout our generations, things aren’t always as they seem.
In terms of wildlife conservation, one of the things we need to do next is to find other viable ways to increase existing habitat, more ways to repurpose or create additional wild spaces while making absolutely certain that existing habitat remains unfettered with. Many animals need vast, unadulterated spaces in which to thrive, the grizzly and the wolf are good examples. Let’s learn from the good we’ve done for certain species in certain areas of the country and apply those same philosophies everywhere, while we still can. Let’s say “No” to human encroachment and the “checker-boarding” of what is still open space in Africa. Animals can’t read signs or understand the meaning of fences. Let’s learn to see things through their eyes. The Africa that most of us conjure when we hear the word is already gone. Dozens of species will reach extinction in the next twenty to thirty years, losing numerous species each year along the way.
When you look upon living amongst these threatened predators, view it as if it were an honor. If you’re not built that way, having enough space to suit your need to dominate less fortunate people is an entitlement which exists only in your mind, Things are good only as long they are designed so you and yours come first. Eradicating these animals is no longer an option, as we’ve at least come that far as a society. There are serious fines and even jail time in store for those convicted of killing a member of any endangered species. In places where bears and wolves once roamed with only the competition from each other to keep their numbers in-line, along with other limitations imposed by the natural world, itself. Ma Nature was doing just fine on her own before she received unwanted help from us. I strongly believe that if you live in areas where you’re likely to cross paths with these animals as their populations have come back to sustainable levels, and you just can’t abide the idea, then move to a more “civilized” place. After all, they are still the places where the majority of people choose to live. Or, you can continue to be different because you never wanted to be a part of the “masses” in the first place. You wanted to be freer, to have more space in which to live and raise a family. I spent much of my life moving to more and more remote settings in Colorado because of my chosen mountain lifestyle, each time shedding a part of Colorado which had become too populated to satisfy my need to live where wilderness and wild things were nearby. This choice was often at the expense of being better compensated for my work. I made these concessions knowingly and, in looking back, I have never regretted any move I chose to make in exchanging what was fast becoming just another part of the “concrete world” for wide open country. The wilder the place the more vested I became in remaining.
On the subject of wildlife conservation, the time to “choose sides” was thirty years ago so that those of us who truly care would have had more time to convince those of you who don’t. What we have instead is a world where few care enough to try and make a difference, and a mass of unmoving apathy…like an elephant sitting atop a mouse.
The time has come to save more than the wolf and grizzly. In the long and arduous process of saving wild things and wild places, we might just be able to save ourselves.
A Fender Telecaster is a great choice regardless of where you’re at on your guitar journey.
I was so busy with a demanding engineering career and a number of other lifelong interests, I literally chose to wait for retirement before tackling something as immersive and time consuming as learning how to play guitar. But I’ve never done anything partway and knew that if I were going to play guitar, I would be pleased only if I became a bonafide guitarist, a player who would ultimately rank in the upper ten percent of amateur players. So, for my first guitar, I wanted something that could take me as far as I could go. There are obviously a lot of guitars that have the goods for such an endeavor, but I was drawn to the Telecaster in the same way the desert needs rain in order to thrive. I liked everything from the shape of the guitar which makes it comfortable whether standing or sitting and I fell in love with it’s lustrous and robust maple neck (it’s got ’52 specs). I also noticed right away how lightweight they were and this would make my aging back happy. The simplicity of the design was also appealing with not a lot to go wrong. I would be playing blues, country, and Southern rock so a Tele was ideal for the three genres.
About a week after I formally retired, I brought my wife along and spent the entire day messing around with all sorts of guitars. I hadn’t noticed it when we walked into the final store, a Guitar Center, because this particular Telecaster was obscured by a man-sized ad talking about the 50th anniversary of the Telecaster. In all, there would be twelve different Tele’s, one for each month of 2011. These were known as the “Telebration Series”. I knew immediately that the reclaimed redwood version was it and I needn’t shop further. At under seven pounds, it was wonderfully light, and the oil finish they’d used really made the woodgrain pop. I bought a nice twenty watt amp and everything else I would need to get started.
After setting everything up, it was quite late and I went to bed only to rise at 5:30 the following morning. I skipped breakfast and went right to work with the guitar. I played for sixteen hours that first weekend, my fingers painfully bloody and I knew right then and there that I was hooked.
I’ve come a long way since that initial purchase and now consider myself to be an advanced guitarist. I just turned sixty-four and have yet to slow down with the amount that I’ve always played…right around fifteen hours a week. I have nine other very fine electrics and eleven acoustics, but the redwood Tele will always be my favorite. It suits me now in the same way it did in the beginning, fifteen years ago.
So, yes, a Telecaster is THE right choice for a beginning guitarist or the expert axe-man. I can’t think of anything that could possibly make it a better guitar than it already is. In all those years, the only modification that I made was to swap out the ’52 pickups for some hotter Porter T-90’s. The thing just rips!
I recently acquired this 2011 Taylor GS-6 from a private seller in Idaho who rarely played it. The guitar is in mint or near-new condition. The build specs are shown among the linked photographs.
It has a beautiful sitka spruce top with abundant siking found throughout. The back and sides of the GS model are comprised of highly figured (in this case, flamed) maple. The flames, or “tiger stripes”, are relatively wide and well defined and the two piece back is bookmatched perfectly, making for an extremely elegant looking guitar.
While not as common as rosewood or mahogany, maple is considered to be an exceptional tone-wood. Though, as a general rule, it is a bit brighter sounding with “janglier” highs and lows (bass notes) having less depth. However, these are general rules governing the dozens of different tone-woods which can be used in the construction of an acoustic guitar. Like the various species of rosewood (cocobolo, Indian, the famed Brazilian, et al) woods that have a stiffer, denser composition tend to yield more cross-sectional strength per sample weight and this is what tends to make a guitar with a wider tonal spectrum with high highs and low lows. Maple is known for its broad and flavorful midrange. But the tonal characteristics of a given guitar are more complicated than when looking from a “materials only” perspective. Internal bracing technique, the overall size and shape of the guitar, and even the type of finish used are all contributors to the tone of any specific guitar. When ordering a custom build, many players choose old-fashioned hide glue over a more modern adhesive type.
I had never even played a maple back and sides guitar but have had it as “an itch to scratch” for many years. I had read what few reviews and listened to as many video clips as I could find on the GS-6 and determined that this make and model (a rather large guitar) wasn’t thought of as too bright. Different from what I was accustomed to, yes, but in only the best of ways. I probably have twenty hours of play time on the guitar and could not be more pleased with the tone or the playability. I can see it as having a place in my collection for many years to come. In terms of raw sex appeal, the GS-6 is one drop-dead-gorgeous guitar, the kind of guitar that says “pick me up” every time you walk by!
For more photos of the newest addition to my collection, click on the link inserted at the beginning. Located at Lonesome Dove, Texas, on the escarpment leading up to Texas’s famed Hill Country and the world renowned mecca for roots, blues, folk, country, and blues-blues rock music, Austin.
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