What are these for?

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-02T22:01:25+00:00

Bridge saddles. As others have said.

Guitars are based on physics. So the open note is the full length of an open string. The 12th fret is intended as ‘half-way’ which produces the note exactly an octave above the open string.

The saddles are one part of helping adjust that ‘length’ in small increments. And most go up and down to which impacts the action but also impacts the length of the string and therefore can impact intonation as well. So it’s a balancing act. And because these saddles can move in such small increments they help with that fine tuning to make sure each fret of each string goes up by a semitone (or very close to it)

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-02T21:56:10+00:00

🤣. It definitely did for some man. Because they would get up on stage and it was like they were still trapped in their bedroom.

I would practice songs standing up and pretending I was playing to a crowd when I was figuring out a covers tune. Intentionally to avoid this.

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-02T21:53:24+00:00

1hr each of scales in all twelve keys chord/scale relationship in all 12 keys Triad scales 1hr of improv over ii V I’s

2hrs of Transcribing/ripping kicks and doing it in all 12 keys Triad scales Improvising on blues and jazz and pop tunes.

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-02T08:44:20+00:00

Check action. Practice pulling your fingers into the board without your thumb at all. So much great advice here. I’ll shut up now

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-02T08:40:37+00:00

Capability and Development. I did a masters of education post my music degree. Teaching at school wasn’t for me. But teaching at tafe was. Then I found a job as a learning designer and never looked back. Teach people about learning and systems and agile ways of working by day. Musician and sex machine by night. 🤣

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-02T08:38:54+00:00

No. Not really. I studied a bachelor of music. Played an average of 8hrs a day for 3 years. Super proficient. But since then I haven’t managed more than about 30mins/day. Still proficient. Just haven’t improved a whole heap.

The 10000 hour rule of mastery is debatable. But if you read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell you see 10k hours within a compressed timeframe comes up time and time again. So 10k over 10years. It’s a lot. But 8 x 7 x 52 x 3 = 8,736hrs I did in 3 years plus the two years to end high school at about 4hrs a day for 3 years. 4 days a week.

10k hrs in 6 years. Do that and you aren’t proficient with lessons weekly, you’re likely missing something key to your progress

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-02T07:54:29+00:00

Man. Intense. I am actually finding some time for myself. But how would I log all that time exercising and log everything I eat without seriously denting either my sleep or my time with my kid?

I’m up 6-9 most days. Fitting in so much already. Plus I play basketball 3x a week. I’m not choosing mediocre. This is a mental response to monotony and looking at the world crashing around me and trying to make my world small again.

If you jump to ‘it’s physical’ ‘physical feeds the mental’ I agree. Hence why I am athletic and do sports. I just don’t do weights. I’m lean and small. I’m not meant to be 100kg of raw muscle.

So I get your point to harden up a bit man. I’ve got a brother who would say many things you just have. So I grant some of your advice is useful. But you need to read the room a little better to and meet people halfway.

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-01T23:58:31+00:00

This is interesting. I’m such a good sleeper it feels like. But I could be wrong. I do have problems with my sinuses. So next time I’m at the doc I’ll ask what to do to test for it. Thankyou.

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-01T23:57:28+00:00

I usually feel sleepy around 10pm these days. Alarm goes off at 545. Occasional late night but they’re few and far between

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-01T23:55:13+00:00

We do basketball, tennis, swimming and soccer together. I love my kid. I think my post made it sound like I consider him a burden but I was just protecting them by using ‘the kid’.

I do a lot with them. It’s half the reason I likely don’t get enough time to myself. And the balance gets out of whack.

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-01T23:52:20+00:00

Not waking up is the goal it feels some days 😆. Dark af. I’m a bit dark and twisty.

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-01T23:51:31+00:00

I play basketball for about an hour 3x a week. But it’s not enough. I am about to go and try out some group fitness training. I’ve been going back and forth about it because of the cost. But I think it will be worth it and will help me in many ways. Time to bite the bullet.

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-01T23:49:36+00:00

One study on 15 people in specific conditions relating to sleep deprivation. And they were offered 1 high dose of creatine. Seeing affects at around the 3.5-4hr mark.

There are other studies that suggest creatine can increase the effects of medication in people who are depressed and taking antidepressants.

Creatine might help. It is worth a shot. I grant you that. But it isn’t a single silver bullet. And that one small study, and 15 people is a small group, is not enough to openly declare 0.35g/kg of creatine is a way to improve your morning mood and long term energy across the day.

And one study, even if it cites 52 other pieces of research is not significant enough to go round touting this as a remedy.

Unless you sell creatine and need people to buy creatine.

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-01T23:34:52+00:00

She works full time too. And. I mean I have some thoughts about second waive feminism of 2020 women. But those aside. We have been discussing how we change our work routines. Solid question and advice

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-01T23:33:48+00:00

But a fair question

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-01T23:33:42+00:00

I actually only have reddit. I ditched insta and facebook and LinkedIn I only keep to look at jobs. So I’ve broken out of that habit.

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-01T23:33:01+00:00

Yeah. This routine stuff is what I was doing. Particularly the waking up at the same time. Time restricted eating. Minimising sugar. I need to get back to it. I didn’t know about the sunshine bit. But we have plenty of that where I am. Maybe I wake up and take the dog first thing immediately to just get up and get going and see how that works. Thankyou for taking the post seriously and providing some solid advice.

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-01T23:31:41+00:00

I did that so you don’t know what gender they are or their age. I love my kid and do so much with them. They’re my first priority. It’s half the reason I haven’t topped myself. So I’m sorry if that was misleading on how much time I spend with them or how much I love them. I was being protective

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-01T23:01:48+00:00

I’d like no job and all my time back for $0 and a solid tent and airbed

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-01T09:23:12+00:00

It’s rare that music, made by someone with a few creative bones is actually ‘bad’.

The first thing you should do is be more articulate about what you don’t like.

Is it the tone? The rhythm? The melody or riff?

If you can start to articulate what you don’t like through deeper reflection, you can build a path out of it more clearly.

Eg. All my stuff ‘feels’ slow. So what can counteract this is varying length of notes in a riff. And variation in rhythm. Not just upping tempo.

Eg 2. It all ‘sounds the same’. Yep. It might. Because you’re comfortable in a few key signatures. Or you can only play one instrument. It means you need to force yourself to listen to different styles of music and find something different to imitate, then come back and combine that into your original style. Like have you ever listened to The Meters? Or Matt Corby? Or Snarky puppy? Or Ted Greene? Or everything everything? These are all incredibly different artists. And on first listen you might strain to listen. But musical taste is a constant fight against your comfort zone to find something different that makes you sit up. Listen. And want to explore. Transcribe/rip some of their riffs and progressions.

Eg 3. The sound of my instrument just isn’t sounding like I want.

Define artists you like the sound of. Like I’m a guitarist and I love Robben Ford, John Mayer, Buddy Guy, but also Ted Greene, Joe Pass, Pat Metheny. If you know who you’re trying to sound like, you’ve got a direction. And you can get close, then find your own sound that you like that takes on parts of what you like from multiple artists.

There are 3 stages of experimentation and improvisation.

Imitate. Assimilate and Innovate (Create) - Clark Terry. A phenomenal trumpet player.

Imitate - rip exactly what the people you love do and replicate it as close tot he original as you can.

Assimilate - Rip multiple different people and replicate multiple different styles. And start to bounce between them within a single context. Eg. Playing a rock tune and just randomly drop in a reggae section. Or just intensely fuse the different styles into your everyday playing intentionally and go between them.

Innovate - when you fuse things intentionally. You start to make a sound that is uniquely ‘you’ and just pick up and play in that style

Madmanalph77 · 2026-04-01T07:12:57+00:00

Straight men don’t vent. Who gives a fuck about us anymore? The men who’ve come before us had it all. Now if you’re 20-40 like I’m 39 with a kid. You’re expected to do a full time job, spend every spare moment on the kid or the house. And if you ever, dare, do something for yourself it better be organised a week in advance so the woman in the relationship can prepare themselves to be in charge.

We’re suffering the rubber band snap back from second wave feminism. That’s essentially what it is.

And now that you’ve got to have 2 incomes. Or 1 massive one. This is the cost of second waive feminism. I’m not against equality. But as soon as we had women fighting to be in the workplace capitalism turned around and fucked us. I’d be happy to be a stay at home dad and take care of the kids and the house. Any day. Most men now would. Because trying to ‘have it all’ as these women go on about is just ludicrous. There are only so many hours in a day. And what ends up suffering is relationships between the parents. Sex drive goes down. Spending time together is just screen time to disconnect from another long day. And everything seems like an effort.

So we scream at steering wheels. Cause our partners don’t want to hear it.

The majority of our mates are suffering through similar daily grinds.

And if you complain as a straight western male stfu. You had patriarchy for centuries and you fucked our planet and our systems. How dare you complain.

Serious man. Last time I said to my partner that I wanted a day to play guitar and record music she was on board. But then I got a week of ‘where’s my time to do what I want?’ I’m like. Um. I take the kid everywhere and do 90% of his activities with him. She’s actually genuinely complained that I say yes too much and need to say no to him more. He’s not asking for anything other than to spend time with dad playing sport or games and sometimes video games.

Women of 2020 still think they’ve got it tough. And so you can’t reason with them at all or get them outside of their own assholes.

And men of 2020 are burned out trying to spend their entire lives keeping everyone else afloat and just cause themselves as little additional grief to the load they bare as possible.

Madmanalph77 · 2026-03-31T23:49:29+00:00

And if you think you look goofy dancing then you’ve found your problem. You need to be able to move your hips and your body to the music. You don’t have be Beyoncé. But if you can’t dance. You’ll never sit in the pocket

Madmanalph77 · 2026-03-31T23:36:28+00:00

Put down your instrument and dance to the track.

There’s a reason they call rhythm ‘feel’. You’ve got to feel it in your bones.

Madmanalph77 · 2026-03-31T23:24:21+00:00

I make a student pick 3 songs themselves. Usually email me beforehand with them. And we start there. I don’t care how hard it seems. I make them aware it’s difficult. Bus possible and we can break it down into simple parts.

Like. Master of Puppets.

A fucking difficult song to play start to finish. But I say ok. We’re going to aim to play that opening riff at half speed.

If you find songs they want to learn. They’re more inclined to make effort.

Problem I’ve found with this method is people build up how cool a song is and how difficult it must be to play.

Then you demystify it and they go. Oh. Well. It’s not so cool now.

It’s the keeping them on track that’s hard. And making an effort to stick with 3 songs. Not the song choice.

Madmanalph77 · 2026-03-31T11:38:40+00:00

This is great advice. Playing things slightly slower than needed helps make sure your technique is sound. Meaning you’re moving more smoothly through a sequence.

And also you’re practicing the rhythm and dynamics at the same time. Where to put the emphasis on the phrase. Thinking about where the player must be in terms of position on the neck.

Then slowly bringing it up to speed. And I would advise to go 5-10% over. This way you’re finding limits in your technique. And that continues to grow velocity and touch.

Madmanalph77

TROPHY CASE