Tone Deaf Tuesday

[davismanLV]

I thought perfect pitch was throwing a banjo down a well without touching the sides

Jerry.... you've been missed. This is my favorite thing EVER!!

 

[davismanLV]

What is this dial tone you speak of?

Honestly, I know a couple of people.... not sure who, that have land lines. I'm not sure why. I gave up my landline in LA when I left over 17 years ago!! Why would I need one? I know someone (probably frono) will tell me why I do.....

 

[mushroom]

What is this dial tone you speak of?

Not quite a dial tone story but the veer is already here so…..

I used to take newly employed graduates through telephone exchanges as part of their orientation. One of the floors had a sort of museum where some of the old step by step and crossbar stuff was set up but not powered… well mostly. There was a little bit powered up with some dodgy wiring to a little switch. Once the grads were standing next to an certain old mechanical selector, the switch would get flipped, things would rather noisily buzz and click in the rack and the grads would jump and squeak. The the old timers would laugh.

Ahh the simple things….

 

[Midnight Toker]

Honestly, I know a couple of people.... not sure who, that have land lines. I'm not sure why. I gave up my landline in LA when I left over 17 years ago!! Why would I need one? I know someone (probably frono) will tell me why I do.....

my 86 yr old mother has the same # I grew up with. Her "emergency" flip phone is about to go to the 3G graveyard. Not sure what to do. She looks at my old ass Iphone like it's from another world. I'm not a "keeping up w/ the jones'" guy. I go on ebay and buy a 4 yr old phone that's Verizon ready (my company's service) for under $50, have the secretary put my work phone number on it....and that's all I've ever had. Haven't paid a phone bill in 16 years. Just a $30-50 phone upgrade every 5-7 yrs.

 

[fronobulax]

Honestly, I know a couple of people.... not sure who, that have land lines. I'm not sure why. I gave up my landline in LA when I left over 17 years ago!! Why would I need one? I know someone (probably frono) will tell me why I do.....

I've been five years without a landline and don't miss it much. For the decade or so before that I justified my landline because it used copper wire. If you plugged in a primitive dial phone you had phone service whether the power was on or off. The most likely cause of an outage was a downed telephone wire and that happened less often than a power problem.

That changed when Verizon replaced copper with fiber and added a backup box with 24 D cell batteries as a hedge against power failures of less than 8 hours.

An old technology landline isn't really a choice for many folks in the USA anymore as phone companies replace or eliminate copper lines. A landline that is associated with a place, and not a person, can make sense for some applications - alarm systems and home monitoring systems come immediately to mind - but the reliability of power and internet are still a factor. If you don't have an application that requires a landline the only case I can make for one is for calls when the caller can accomplish their purpose by speaking to anyone who answers. I just pass Mrs. Fro. my phone when that happens

 

[Nuuska]

.... when the caller can accomplish their purpose by speaking to anyone who answers. I just pass Mrs. Fro. my phone when that happens

Are you punishing her for something - or is the caller going to be sorry forever that he/she called

 

[walrus]

Got rid of my landline several years ago. Only scammers and wrong numbers. At $50/month, no thanks!

walrus

 

[JerryR]

Jerry.... you've been missed. This is my favorite thing EVER!!

Depending on musical preference you can substitute other 'musical ' instruments. I.e. accordian

 

[Midnight Toker]

Went to an old friend's house for dinner last night to go over some ideas for a forward he's asked me to write for a box set he's putting out later this year. (he's a world class jazz/fusion bassist) And out of the blue, he gave me this.....





I knew exactly what it was as soon as I saw the grill and tubes in the back. I'd seen this thing countless times before.

(Top right, tuner facing his tech who was always on the ready lurking behind his rig. )



I hear people have made neat little guitar amps out of these things as well!

 

[Bill Ashton]

Way back...there was an older firefighter at the station who often proposed that the "best" siren for trucks was actually tuned to the tone "A."
We all nodded and rolled our eyes, until one day he shows up with one of those Conn "Stroblers" as he called it, gotten from the junior high school music teacher across the street. OK, we're all game, there were three styles of mechanical sirens among the trucks, several electronic. So setting the machine up we cut loose with each siren separately and recorded the tone at its highest pitch. Long story short, a very old mechanical siren on our dept-built forest fire truck came in at "A." ...the siren came originally from our (1926) Ahrens Fox pumper, the vehicle the gent drove periodically until it was auctioned in 1966. Now there is a VERE!

 

[dreadnut]

Wow, awesome rig.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

There's a player at mandolincafe.com who says he uses a Snark just to get it close, then takes it the rest of the way by ear because Snarks aren't accurate enough for him.

There was an article a few years ago in Fretboard that interviewed people who had played with Gary Davis over the years. One of them said that during a concert intermission he took Gary's guitar and tuned it for him. After the break they went back onstage. Gary picked up his guitar, played a few chords, and untuned it back to where he'd had it.

Me: If I'm not out of tune, I'm not playing.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Honestly, I know a couple of people.... not sure who, that have land lines. I'm not sure why. I gave up my landline in LA when I left over 17 years ago!! Why would I need one? I know someone (probably frono) will tell me why I do.....

I have a landline. What for? To make phone calls. (Ask me a hard one!)

 

[West R Lee]

Well sure, most of us can tune the other 5 strings to an E or A.
What I am talking about is I find it funny that my ear can't first tune the E or an A based on memory or experience.
I think it has a lot to do with what Frono mentions above.

I wouldn't worry too much about it, Tommy Emmanuel talks in depth in videos about his need for tuners and constant tuning. He also says he won't practice without a metronome. I'd have thought TE could keep time without one, but he's a stickler. I've seen some JT videos on tuning and he too is a bit anal, and likes his B string a tad flat, as do I.

West

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

my 86 yr old mother has the same # I grew up with. Her "emergency" flip phone is about to go to the 3G graveyard. Not sure what to do. She looks at my old ass Iphone like it's from another world. I'm not a "keeping up w/ the jones'" guy. I go on ebay and buy a 4 yr old phone that's Verizon ready (my company's service) for under $50, have the secretary put my work phone number on it....and that's all I've ever had. Haven't paid a phone bill in 16 years. Just a $30-50 phone upgrade every 5-7 yrs.

When my mom was in her eighties, legally blind, with familial tremor and onset dementia she kept telling me she wanted a cell phone. I kept trying to talk her out of it.

Then my sister came to visit from out of state, and while they were together, my mom asked her to take her to get one.

So my sister did — then left me to deal with the infernal contraption, iincluding but not limited to:

- helping her program it (over and over and over).
- retrieving it when she dropped it in taxis and friends' cars.
- Putting it on a lanyard to she wouldn't drop it in cars (when she remembered to use the lanyard).
- Reminding her which convenient auto-dial numbers were for whom.
- Taking her to the U.S. Cellular office whenever she had a complaint.

But don't get me started. . . .

 

[Midnight Toker]

When my mom was in her eighties, legally blind, with familial tremor and onset dementia she kept telling me she wanted a cell phone. I kept trying to talk her out of it.

Then my sister came to visit from out of state, and while they were together, my mom asked her to take her to get one.

So my sister did — then left me to deal with the infernal contraption, iincluding but not limited to:

- helping her program it (over and over and over).
- retrieving it when she dropped it in taxis and friends' cars.
- Putting it on a lanyard to she wouldn't drop it in cars (when she remembered to use the lanyard).
- Reminding her which convenient auto-dial numbers were for whom.
- Taking her to the U.S. Cellular office whenever she had a complaint.

But don't get me started. . . .

Trust me, there is no difference between the legally blind w/ familial tremor and onset dimentia and anyone else in their 80's when it comes to attempting to operate, much less understand, today's current smart phones/gadgets. This road started 35+ yrs ago with programming their VCR's! It's been nonstop since. I've already mentioned in another thread my biweekly nightmare of getting her perfectly fine fully operational printer...to operate. 10 post it notes w/ step by step instructions apparently haven't done the trick.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Trust me, there is no difference between the legally blind w/ familial tremor and onset dimentia and anyone else in their 80's when it comes to attempting to operate, much less understand, today's current smart phones/gadgets. This road started 35+ yrs ago with programming their VCR's! It's been nonstop since. I've already mentioned in another thread my biweekly nightmare of getting her perfectly fine fully operational printer...to operate. 10 post it notes w/ step by step instructions apparently haven't done the trick.

No doubt! Hers was a flipper, not a smarty. She never programmed a VCR, either. (Neither have I. No reason to. Didn't have a TV till I got married.)

Our printer is lame — an inkjet that needs contant massaging. I'd rather have a laser printer like I've had at my offices. Just tell 'em to print and presto, they print. So I'm with your mom on this one — except that I don't have a kid to call!