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February 2nd, 2012

It's Ground Hog Day!!

I've seen there was no shadow for Wiarton Willie or Shubenacadie Sam so yeaah, it's an early spring. Enjoying the weather today? Cold, grey day out there but hey, it's winter? a lot of fun shoveling, walking, etc. Hope you all make the best of it. After the shoveling, well, of course there's the playing and when it comes to the playing there's the strings. Improve your sound with the best strings on the globe from globalstrings.com. D'Addario, D'Aquisto, DR, Dean Markley, Elixir, Ernie Ball, Hannabach, John Pearse, Savarez, S.I.T., Thomastik-Infeld to name a few. Especially on a day like today. Order on line and in a short few days your strings are in your mailbox. Beautiful. Guitar, Bass, Mandolin, Violin and even Uke are in stock and awaiting shipment to you. Canada's players get their strings at globalstrings.com. Enjoy your day and All the Best.

Today's Birthdays In Music

1927 - Stan Getz, Phila, jazz tenor saxophonist (Benny Goodman, Jimmy Dorsey Bands)
1942 - Graham Nash, English guitarist (Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young)

Read more... [January 25th, 2012]

January 16th, 2012

Wholly Cow,

Another weekend behind us already. They go way to fast and I really don't like it. At least it's sunny here today. Cold but sunny. Need as much of that vitamin D as possible in the winter. Keeps me going.

So, how about yourselves? Good weekend? Hopefully lots of playing, jamming, practice. Did you learn anything musically cool?

One thing I've noticed, especially in the winter, is how dry everything gets. My instruments are drying out rapidly and it doesn't make for good playing. On fretted instruments, if you run your hand down the sides of the fretboard you will feel the frets sticking out a wee bit and sometimes they'll cut you. Your instrument is screaming out for moisture, just like that dry flaky skin we have in this cold, dry season. One day a couple of years ago, as I came home, I glanced over at my double bass (boy, I loved playing that instrument. The sound and feel. Nothing else like it but that's a whole other story.) and what I saw was frightening. I had to go in for a closer look. It was so strange looking from where I was standing and when I got close I could see. My neck had fallen off. WOW! Shock and dismay. The building was so totally dry and I had not realized it and had not had a humidifier running. I was so very sad but.... lucky enough I knew how to fix it and I will tell you this. That baby never played so good. I had reglued and set the neck, took the action down and a few other small things I could never seem to get around to and man, it worked out like a charm. Now, I'm not saying that that's the thing to do. It just happened to work out that time and sadly, I sold that Bass I loved so much just when it was playing the best it ever had but it went to a good home and to someone who loves playing it just as much as I did. The point here is to keep a good eye on your instruments and keep the humidity up wherever you keep them. The woods and the glues need the moisture and your instrument will play better and last longer and won't cut your hands. You can buy humidifiers from many manufacturers and we carry the D'Addario here on our site under accessories. Click on the string catalogue button on the left hand side, scroll down and you'll see the accessories square to click on.

So, a true story about proper humidity and how it nearly wrecked a great instrument and how you can avoid this problem. That's all for now Folks. Hope you enjoy your day.

Canada's players buy their strings from globalstrings.

D'Addario, D'Aquisto, Dean Markley, DR, Elixir, Ernie Ball, Hannabach, John Pearse, Curt Mangan, Savarez, S.I.T., Thomastik-Infeld.

All the Best.

Friday, the 13th of January

Good Friday the 13th to you all,

Glad you could drop in. I see some parts of the country are having some not so nice weather. Please be careful as your driving in these conditions, Very slippery and there are many accidents out there. Here in Annapolis Royal, after a lot of snow yesterday evening, we're now experiencing a warm spell and the snow should be gone by tonight. It's +6 right now and going to 10 today.

Have you seen the video by Walk off the Earth and Sarah Blackwood, 5 people on one guitar doing a version of Somebody That I Used To Know. If you haven't you must check it out. Interesting and very good. You can find it on Utube and I hope you enjoy it.

Congrats are due for the George Harrison documentary - Living In The Material World. It won a Critic's choice award last night in L.A., Directed by Martin Scorsese, it is supposed to be an excellent film about the late Beatle. Have not had the opportunity to see it yet but can't wait.

So, here in the world of instrument strings, everything's chugging along. Your orders are being packed and shipped and we're happy to help you out with them. We're trying hard to keep prices and shipping low and the more you order the better we can make things for you.

I was just looking at the DR handmade coated coloured strings while I picked a customers order and thought I'd mention them to you. These are called EXTRA LIFE for electric guitar and they come in a multitude of colours. We carry the black and red but do have access to all the colours. They look pretty cool on a guitar and being from DR, they have an extremely long life. the interesting thing with their process is that they coat the wrap wire before it's wound on the string. The coating has a corrosion inhibiting lacquer for extra protection. I believe these strings are definitely worth a try as DR make an excellent string - coated or not. These are fun, they last and they sound fantastic. Treat yourself and please let me know what you think.

Well, that's all for today folks.

Make the best of this day and have a great weekend.

Happy Birthday Shouts for the Great Joe Pass, T Bone Burnett, Fred White and anyone else with a birthday today - All the Best. For a complete list of musician's birthdays just click on the history tab at globalstrings.com.

Augustine, D'Addario, D'Aquisto, Dean Markley, DR, Elixir, Ernie Ball, GHS, Hannabach, John Pearse, Curt Mangan, Savarez, S.I.T., Thomastik-Infeld and a few more for your guitars, basses, mandolins, violins or whatever needs strings.

January 12th, 2012

The date today is 1.12.12

Just thought that was interesting. Big Happy Birthday shout outs to Tex Ritter, Ray Price, Long John Baldry, Ricky Van Shelton and whom ever else shares the luck of this day to be born on. Have a Great Day. You can read more of today's birthdays in the history section of our site - www.globalstrings.com. Well, we've got some capos, cables, accessories, stringwinders and art up and on the site. Just click on the string catalogue button on the top left side of the home page and you'll see the new categories on the next page that pops up. We'll eventually get them connected to the front page so it's easier to get to but that's the way for now. Hope you get there easy enough. Yesterday we wrote about the late John Pearse and how he got into making strings etc. I find it an inspiring story and might have to see about making our own brand of globalstrings. What do you think? Fresh strings made to high quality specs right here in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia. I think it might be a good idea. We'll check into it and just see what the possibilities are. I'll keep you all posted.

Have you discovered the Curt Mangan strings yet? Another hidden gem on our site. One day we'll have them on the front page as well but they are in the catalogue once you get in. Available in Acoustic 80/20 bronze as well as phosphor bronze and Electric nickel wound, All the Mangan strings are "Fusion Matched" which is the highest quality wire and high workmanship to produce strings with exacting core-to-wrap ratios and tolerances. They say they're "Real Strings Real Tone" and "It's not what we do...it's what we don't do!" They also state on the package that they're strings are not for everyone and that they deliver maximum tone and maximum longevity. I think they are definitely worth a try. I have not had the pleasure yet but I will soon and of course I'll let you know.

Well, that's the scoop for today. Hope it was good for you and please send any comments and ideas in so I can use them.

Thanks so much and

All the Best

"The World's best strings at the World's best prices"

D'Addario, D'Aquisto, Dean Markley, DR, Elixir, Ernie Ball, Hannabach, John Pearse, Savarez, S.I.T., Thomastik-Infeld and more.

Read more... [January 12th, 2012]

January 11th, 2012

A Good Sunny Morning to you all,

I really hope your day is off to a great start and continues to roll that way. I'm sitting here at our quaint little store in Annapolis Royal and looking at the musical gear around me. Gotta love it. As you may have noticed or read, we are adding more things daily to the site. Keep checking back often to see what's new. We're more than strings now and we should possibly start to sell unsigned artists CD's as well. If anyone is interested please shoot us an email and we'll see what kind of response we get. In the meantime, reporting from our location, let's talk strings. I mentioned the other day about my string changing ordeal and thought I'd talk a wee bit about John Pearse strings. Many a player have used them and they are preferred by many of today's top players. The thing I must say is how balanced a sound they have between strings and they do ring especially well. John Pearse strings are made by a company called Breezy Ridge Instruments and here's a bit about their story.

English studio musician John Pearse first began researching into music string manufacture in the mid-sixties. The first person, ever, to teach guitar on television - his BBC lessons have been seen in six countries while his PBS series, STRING ALONG, was shown in most US television markets whilst becoming perhaps the best selling video guitar course both nationally and internationally.

He is the author of some forty books on such diverse subjects as instrument building and technique- to cooking and the traditional art of fly fishing!

In 1965 John began his collaboration with British Music Strings, a London string maker, to develop a guitar string with both a longer life and a more accurate vibrating and nodal pattern. His designs were so successful that, over the years, both British Music Strings and Thomastik marketed strings under his name. John also designed string lines for Bourne Guitars and Jay Associates, makers of the Jester guitar line.

John Pearse

In 1978 he came to the United States to develop a unique line of accessories for the C.F. Martin Company. After eighteen months, in 1980, John decided to leave Martin, and, with Mary Faith, started Breezy Ridge Instruments to produce the Breezy Ridge Hammer Dulcimer. His revolutionary design proved itself to be the best sounding Hammer Dulcimer ever made. Next came a line of music strings designed especially for the professional musician. Within months, word of these exciting strings had spread across the country and pressure from both the public and beleaguered dealers had persuaded John and Mary Faith to make their line available to stores and things have just kept growing since then!. In addition to expanding the string line over the years, Breezy Ridge has also brought out many of John's unique accessories and produced his popular PBS TV series "Stringalong" and "Cooking with Wine" which have garnered rave reviews everywhere! In addition to all the new accessories available through Breezy Ridge®, he has also worked with Rick Shubb to produce the line of Shubb Pearse Bars for lap-steel and resophonic guitars. John has also published a book of his stories called "Carousel." John passed away in October 2008 in Germany, not having been back to the States for several years.

So, there's a bit of background on the famous John Pearse strings and accessories. All available here at globalstrings .com. Along with the JP strings we also carry a whole load of the world's best strings and I'm sure we've got your favs. If you would like to see a write up of your favs and how they got started just drop us a line and we'll do what we can to get it up here.

Hope you enjoyed this and don't forget to order your strings for your guitars and basses, mandolins and violins from Canada's source for instruments strings. globalstrings.com.

Thanks for reading, send some suggestions on what you'd like to see this column about, order lots of strings and play a ton.

All the Best

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