Whenever any previous attempt you've made to get busy and play on a guitar which left your finger tips burning and way too tender afterwards somehow causes you even mild repulsion at the very thought of making the effort to pick the instrument up and try again, chances are very good that the guitar in question is simply not even remotely fit or set up to be used for the intended purpose it was made for. The tragedy is that when any guitar whether it's new or used causes anyone so much discomfort and pain to practice on for any length of time or to play even more than a few songs with, then that person can't help but be turned off thinking that they don't have what it takes. Eventually the guitar in question may become abandoned, discarded, and not much used, if ever again. That kind of guitar usually gets put under a bed, stashed in a closet or may even become Garage Sale Material. It really makes a person wonder, why and how could this happen? Well mass production and greed are two real good reasons so many people eventually become dissillusioned and take up video games or just watching TV instead of doing something creative and satisfying which guitar playing is all of and much more.
Consider the possibilities for you if only your guitar offered no real physical resistance to being played on. Can you imagine having a responsive instrument with a forgiving easy to fret string action without any annoying buzzing allowing you to enjoy a completely natural, and a truly "fun" guitar playing experience?
Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Miles Jones and having worked for thousands of professional and amateur players on tons of acoustic and electric guitars over the past 24 years, I know my way around acoustic and electric guitar playability no matter what make or model. It saddens me to realize that day in and day out, players of every calibre and music style and especially beginners who are keen to learn and who may actually be quite talented and who could become serious players are giving up on playing guitars or other fretted instruments which are somehow provoking far too much pain and unnecessary hand and finger strain such that for even a skilled professional guitarist, the guitar in question could be discarded because it's a real pain and endurance test to play on. Life doesn't need to be this way!
For those wanting to play guitar, but who almost literally hate their guitars because they don't feel eay and fun to play on, who might have been told that upgrading is the solution, that process often just equates to throwing more money at the the retail stores, often spending at least double the money or more than the guitar in question may have cost. The bad news is that simply throwing more money away upgrading is no real solid guarantee you will be any better off or any further ahead in the quest to find a guitar which is way harder to put down than it ever was to pick up. That's The Bad News.
The Good News is this sad state of affairs can be wiped away forever by Miles Jones at Fret Works where I use my valuable skills and tools to overhaul and dominate a poorly playing guitar in such a way that it will eventually respond to produce for you a very predictably harmonious and objectivley welcomed sense of truly useful and altogether acceptable playability and very likely to any other player, experienced or otherwise who picks up your guitar and begins playing your transformed guitar. After working hard at building a successful track record over the past 24 years, I have plenty of references from more than satisfied clients who will back up this "claim". Should you elect to patronize Fret Works, I promise you will find that it actually makes far more sense to rework the playability charcateristics or "dial in" the guitar you have right at this moment instead of throwing away, trading in or upgrading the guitar and this means you can avoid spinning the roulette wheel of chance again in your local retail guitar store! Don't get me wrong, all the retail stores are great as they usually have so much selection and that's wonderful but where the rubber meets the road, what you feel like when your fingers have to press the strings onto the frets, that's where almost any brand new guitar is almost always lacking and it is largely because there is no support to provide meaningful difference making COMPETENT, CARING, COMMITTED, CUSTOMER ORIENTED LUTHIER or GUITAR TECH SERVICE aimed squarley at keeping you, the supposed to be valued customer, at the very least content, if not elated and altogether happy with the guitar you wanted and purchased, which you have taken home and which you have to live with.
If the above doesn't actually fit your present profile, do you still like to play even though your Guitars somehow never felt or sounded quite natural and musically correct to your ears and in your fretting fingers. Do you play less guitar or bass than you would if the feel of the strings didn't just kind of bite, instead of just letting you effortlessly shift your hand smoothly from one position on the fretboard to the next? Are you kind of left waiting for the legendary callouses to start forming so that hopefully it will hurt just a little less next time you dare to pick it up and wood shed?
Do you procrastinate playing more or practicing more because you're sore after practicing due to a form of repetitive stress?
If you check in with your self and can verify this trait, then please realize that's only because your guitars, from a technical point of view, haven't ever been completely prepared beyond what is done exiting a mass production factory environment and therefor that's why your guitars need more care and attention and skill to elevate the details affecting your guitars overall state of playability function anywhere close to they way they can and should be reworked or adjusted in order to work perfectly, just for you, but only if you are struggling in any way with them.
For that, you need someone who knows how to perfect guitar playability and who can cater to the wide variety of guitar player preferences. Since 1982, Fret Works tech Miles Jones has become someone who actually knows all about what the minimum fitness level for the intended purpose needs to be with any guitar. This means he knows how to take any guitar in question and fix it so that it plays with very accurate musical integrity and is set up so that playing or fretting the strings is at least reasonably easy if not so easy it's silly, so that in general the feeling is that actual music playing experience is natural, easy and fun. Beginners can really take off with a reliably fit guitar which ensures a positive experience the first time right out of the chute and with every encounter thereafter!
Any guitar should not be or feel so difficult to play on that within a minute it is painful and in the way of enjoyment, spoiling the creativity vibe.
Unfortunately this negative poor playability complaint characteristic is so common to nearly all guitars being sold anywhere in North America for at least the past four or five of decades. Despite what just about anyone at a happening retail guitar store says about the product they sold you, if you need a better playing guitar and you can't get some meaningful help from a happening repair person then The Good News is that your Guitars could actually be reworked and then set up by Fret Works so much better than they are right at the moment. I, Miles Jones promise you they will feel so easy, effortless and natural to pick up and begin playing on, and they will let you stay as long as you like playing. I promise they could actually become for you, much harder to put down than they ever were to pick up before! (So married dudes beware!!)How about a set up on your guitar where you only have to touch the string to make a note? No more pressing so hard to make the note, only light touching can make any note, silky, buttery smooth action, think about it!
Tired of always making way more than your own fair share of effort struggling to play a new or used acoustic or electric Guitar?
Look, if you own any kind of guitar and wish you could play more, better and different and if you are procrastinating or putting off practicing guitar because the guitar you got is somehow killing the tendons and muscles of what ever hand you fret with making your fingers burn and making the guitar play out of tune is therefore basically a "struggle" or a "hurdle" to even attempt to play the guitar more than once.
No ones finger tips should have to really take all of the strain with how tough "it" builds up to be to play most modern mass produced guitars with any hope of true enjoyment. You know, people want a guitar that lets them recreate the music inside them. Honestly you can't create for long if you feel your fingers are getting burned by the pressure it takes to fret the guitar strings. Please realize the early fatigue and most of the hot finger tips you get as soon as you start playing isn't necessarily because of just being back on the scene, because you are a beginner or even poor technique on your part, and I mean this especially despite what any retail professional sales people might be trying to convince you of when you ask for help and get their opinion when you take a guitar back because it just doesn't work properly.
Although you may be serious about guitar playing or whether you may not be out to conquer the instrument, for the time being, the way your guitar feels and responds to your touch is crucial to your development.
If the way your guitar feels to you could be characterized as harsh or unwieldy when fretting the strings, then isn't your guitar easier to put down than it is to pick up and practice or play with?
I don't even know you and I believe you deserve a guitar which feels completely natural, responsive and effortless to play on, which plays in tune and stays in tune with itself.
So if you are struggling, don't fret (groan!) because that's just a natural response to the the type of stimulus you feel in your hands and under your finger tips.
It's not your fault if all the extra resistance you feel when fretting the strings on your guitar is making your progress (as any style of player), slow, painful and tedious going.
The fact is, if you are struggling at all, the problem lays within the guitar you are attempting to conquer and not with you!!.
When a guitar causes anyone pain to play on, it is so simply because the guitar in question is just not even remotely set up to the minimum level of acceptable playability, let alone to the full latent potential it may have.
This negative attribute - IT SUCKS- (is that strong enough?) could very easily be directly in the way of you growing and developing as a musician while enjoying yourself making the style of music you want to make.
Why put up with needless suffering on what is perhaps one very cool looking guitar which, until it's made truly ready to play on, simply can't deliver the outstanding playability characteristics which you actually need, may want and believe to be unattainable and justly deserve because you are interested in learning all you can about becoming the guitar player you want to be?
Your acoustic or electric guitar should always be set up so that it feels natural and effortless and essentially fun to play music with and it should feel next to effortless under your fingertips and it should always respond just right to your particular picking attack and of course, it has to match with your overall particular sense of guitar playing "dynamic".
Like most guitar players, you are probably quite serious about developing your chops.
Miles Jones is committed to working to make your guitar feel completely natural and comfortable just for you to play the way you likeand want to play. So, if you have any issues with your guitar and really want to get good at playing guitar, then here is someone who will cater to harmonizing your axe with your unique tastes and personal playing style, no matter what style of music you want to play and no matter whether you are a pro or whether you simply play guitar for fun.
Miles tries his level best to serve everyone with the same degree of respect as he would treat a Joni Mitchell, a B.B. King or a Stevie Ray Vaughn. As demanding and as time consuming as it is to make real lasting improvements on guitars for fussy clients, Miles feels humbled by the privilege to get to work for all kinds smokin' pro or hobbyists from all over Alberta, across Canada, the United States and from the far corners of the globe.
Amos Garrett (click on Amos Garrett to visit his home page)
Amos Garrett, who is without a doubt, a truly legendary Guitar God, has enthusiastically and happily endorsed the work Miles did for him on his Fender Telecaster at Fret Works for many years. Amos Garrett means so much to me, not only because he is one of the world's most inspiring, truly original and pure guitar players, the world has ever known, but because we are friends and he trusts me to keep his guitar in perfect condition. Amos is well appreciated and admired for his taste in space and time and for his thrilling, mind bending guitar chops and his totally unique feel for the strings and thus his mango sweet tones, an incredibly blissful melodic feel and really just an overall kind of guitar sound which is so naturally appealing and which always reminds me of the incredible privilege it is to know and make myself useful to the guy and what a joy it is just to be alive. He has a loyal, one could add cult following among all seriously informed and dedicated musicians and among the millions and millions of avid listeners all around the whole wide world. Amos Garrett knows exactly what he's looking for in terms of playability because he is an unparalleled master of the instrument. If you don't know Amos Garrett, you to only just check out his version of "Sleep Walk" or the 1976 Smash Hit "Midnight at the Oasis" to get a tiny sample of his beautiful melodic phrasing and uplifting and soaring solos, his delicate touch and yet his complete command of the guitar. He has influenced legions of guitar players for at least three, if not four generations, with many of the new boys like Mark Knopfler of Dire Straights or Jerry Donahue, most recently of the Hellecasters, owing a long overdue tip of the hat and more verbal acknowledgments to the man who has been fearlessly and joyfully lighting the pathway so brilliantly for everyone else with a guitar in their hands to freely follow.
Amos has willingly attested in writing to the "to die for" excellence with which the task of modernizing his Fender Telecaster was carried out to his exact order. This was accomplished by planing the fingerboard to be truly level then modifying and blending the high register radius of the fingerboard of his stock Fender Telecaster from a 7 1/4" cylinder shape into a cutting edge, modern HOT ROD compound radius shape of a final 12" curve, at the end of the high register. Of course replacing all of the frets with a slightly wider and taller wire than the thin tiny vintage frets and only after work super-hardening and gluing them down permanently, following up with a custom rewire on the guitar to his spec and then finally tying it all together with a bow by setting up his guitar so that the strings, to quote the man "are layin' right on the deck". All in all the work completed at Fret Works for Amos has made him happy, content and so relaxed when he plays because for him it is so slinky, so smooth, so effortless and slinky to play on, that's right I already said that that he declared it The Best Guitar he has ever played! Anyway thanks so much for all those wonderful chords and all those glorious licks Amos! You are God with a guitar feeding my soul and Man, do you tie a mean trout fly! All that work was completed in the Spring of 1991 for Amos Garrett and that axe is still going strong in in 2006 with the same frets which were installed back in 1991! That's only 15 years of constant and delicious playability off one set of new frets and there's no sign they are about to wear out soon.
If you really get off on playing guitar but yet you feel like you are just having to work too hard to break through and you long for an effortless, highly responsive low slinky string height or in other words, action with an easy, natural feel from your guitar, then please drop in, call or write so that we can assess your guitar together, determine what the facts suggest and discuss the required process which can and will transform your instrument into one which plays like butter and which will literally come alive in your all too, able, enthusiastic and willing hands!
At Fret Works, any and all workmanship rendered and all materials consumed to achieve the most needed and wanted result (prefect playability) on your instrument is provided to you for a fee only the basis that it (the net result) must meet or exceed your expectations or be what you need and want, and you, the esteemed guitar player, are the sole judge of that. If the net (needed and wanted) result of the work done meets or exceeds your expectations and is something you are happy, glad and willing to pay a fee for then all the work done and materials consumed to perfect the feel, response and playability of your guitar are warranted to be free of defects in either materials or workmanship, including the final set up, as long as I am alive. This lifetime warranty does not include normal wear and tear, abuse, neglect or damage caused by excessive heat, cold or humidity or lack of humidity. The lifetime warranty does cover any incidental adjustments which may be required to cope with subtle movements of the materials used to construct your instrument due to the above and does not cover any real significant damage which unreasonable exposure to any of the above hazards may cause. If this is not clear, please contact me and I will do my best to clarify any issues or questions you may take up with.
-Miles Jones-
Exactly how your guitar feels and responds in your hands whenever you are fretting the strings and strumming chords or picking single line runs truly makes the playing experience live or die for you, doesn't it? So then, Which do you want?
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