Are you taking the Crafter or the Yamaha?
I took the Crafter.
Photo is required @JacoDeJongh
That is a beautiful guitar 
Was hoping you took the Yamaha 
@JacoDeJongh she is on her way. The courier guy came to take her away from me today 
Sjoe, nice guitar @JacoDeJongh
Had piano lessons as a child but didn’t take it far enough - unfortunately. Haven’t played in years.
I stick to singing as a hobby - sing choir once a week (and whatever performances we have). 3 hours practice - but my time to get away from everything, forgetting work and other worries and just losing oneself in the music (and camaraderie of my fellow choristers).
I have to tell you this story. I have it on good authority from someone who was there, but I’m probably making some of it up. This was during that first load-shedding back when it all started. The Libertas choir were practicing one evening when the power went out. Now to explain what follows next, you have to understand more or less the racial make-up of this choir. It is mostly cape “coloureds”, with a few whities, and one Zimbabwean. So as the power went out, of course one of the coloureds insisted that the Zimbabwean should smile so they might know where he is.
Well, thanks for those kind words, even though I have to tell you that I feel quite inadequate whenever I go for my weekly lesson. My sight-reading is somewhat terrible, it is something I am seeking to remedy at the moment.
I think the one thing I can say about playing the piano, is that there is almost no end to how far you can go. You can start as a kid, and typically by the time you’re done with school you’d be around the grade 8 level (I only got halfway there), but even then, you can continue for decades to come, until you’re too old to read the sheet music, and there will still be more to learn.
The downside: your instrument is typically heavier than you are, so you’re always dependent on whatever is available, and they are all a little different. You go on a week-long visit to Europe, only to find some fool vandalised the public piano at the station, and the nice Kawai grand at the airport needs a tune (no that is not me, but it is the same piano) 
In that sense, a guitar is so much nicer. You can take it with you. And people who play the guitar are considered “cool”
On that topic…
My one friend has a small Nose flute. That thing is partable (half the size of a harmonica)
Just don’t play on it just after you had a cold 
Nice Jaco!
So back from training some of the Microsoft partners together with Microsoft since they deployed VMware stack for AVS Cloud.
This is my Yamaha, rebuild, restored and upgraded after a few years:
Groetnis
Let me share some pics of my guitar. It is a 1980 Lys and is the predecessor of Seagull guitars.
It was made by a Canadian luthier Norman Butcher who sold his business to Robert Godin who rebranded the Lys as Seagull.
Here is a video showing a Lys being played:
I only play guitar, but wish that I had learned to play piano as a child. My two boys, Rhys (13) and Ewan (9) are now both taking piano lessons and enjoy playing piano.
2 Likes
Received her in perfect condition yesterday, thank you.
The Crafter is a medium sized Grand auditorium style electric acoustic guitar. A nice overall versatile guitar with a balanced low, mid and high pitch tones that makes her great for strumming, but better for finger style playing. If I decode the serial number correctly, she was manufactured in 1990. The strings starts buzzing, telling me she needs to be restrung. I will pick up a set of light guage phosphor bronze strings for her this week in Pretoria.
She’s a welcome addition to my still small but growing collection consisting of the following…
A Classical Yamaha that my dad bought the year I was born, so it’s at least 50 years old. It’s in need of some minor repairs. If anyone know who I can trust with this task, please let me know.
I also bought myself a new Washburn dreadnought electric acoustic in 2007. It has a much warmer and deeper tones than the Crafter and its perfect for strumming. I will also pick up a set of medium gauge phosphors for him…
My wife and kids have been nagging me for so so long to start playing again and the excitement of this new addition being on its way had me tuning and playing the Washburn since last week. Yesterday when the Crafter arrived they all had a great time listening to me playing both, pointing out the differences in sound and playing styles.
Thanks Louis!!!
EDIT: Still on my wishlist.
Round back Ovation style by Ovation…
Jumbo style guitar by Tanglewood or Takamine…
3 Likes
Its a nice looking guitar. I like it.
1 Like
One of the best luthiers in Cape Town is Foster van der Merwe. (http://fosterguitarworks.com/) He builds custom guitars and does work for very big names in the music industry. He recently setup my Lys and got rid of a fret buzz that I had on this guitar - it cost me R750 for the setup.
1 Like
Awesome, thanks so much.
I started mountain biking recently.
Very lekker hobby, just very expensive, especially if you have any ambitions of doing a stage race.
2 Likes
Ja nee sjoe, I’ve had a look at some of the prices of MTBs and it seems easy to rack up 1000s of Rands.
I have thought about getting an electric bicycle for commuting a couple of times - use it to do some exercise but can also reach the office without breaking out in a sweat (yes, I still go to an office and I love it, damnit!) but you pretty much need to spend a couple of R10,000 for something decent.
I see what you did there…
If you get into the super highend it could go into the 100 000s of rands.
The MSRP on a Specialized S Works Epic is R215 000