Diy strap button hack - no drilling required

Guys - here's an idea for a way to attach a guitar strap if your guitar doesn't have a strap button at the base. Command hooks, the kind for apartment walls that come unstuck easily & don't leave a mark, have a product called a 'crystal hook.' It's basically a clear plastic faceted knob.

So, yep, attach the Command knob to the bottom of your guitar & voila, strap button, no drilling or trip to luthier.  $8 amzn. 

You don't have to do a lot of gigging on stage to get value from a strap. A strap will perform the function of holding or stabilizing the guitar so that your left hand only has one job left, which is moving around the neck, either up and down frets or across strings.

Remember with Command hooks, you get more sticking power if you let them sit for a while before putting weight or stress on them. I left mine over night.

The knob was big for the slot on my strap, so I had to cut the slot deeper.

Also the leather (or faux leather, not sure) isn't soft. So I crushed and bent it quite a bit to make it more flexible.

I put a lot of pressure on the knob to get it thru the slot, so it did initially come off. Also there was a lot of packing tape glue on my guitar from attaching my classical guitar pickup. 

Should have done it right the first time anyway. I really went after the glue with  some Goo-Gone to give a cleaner surface to adhere to. 

I did place the knob in a way that leaves room to re-attached the pickup when needed.

I also discovered thru this that it's maybe best to get the knob thru the slot first, and then adhere the knob base with strap already on it to the guitar as a second step.

My poor old reliable Denver classic 4/4 ends up being a guinea pig for a lot of my kooky adaptive ideas. But I think this is a good workaround to suggest to a student with a not super expensive guitar. No harm, lots of advantage.

Here's a little ALBUM OF PICS. Also shows is the quick release strap mechanism I added. (It's pretty cheap too- about $15 amzn.)

Update on Thrawn Lesson - new fingerings

I went over the fingerings from my ORIGINAL POSTING of  General Thrawn's theme from the Star Wars universe with student who requested this tune. The fingering up in fret 18 didn't work for him. 

So I've revisited, added some new fingering charts & a slowmo demo video. JPGs sheet music plus link to video found here

Personally I prefer locking on to one string vs introducing string crossings.  But maybe there's an advantage for new learners in prioritizing close finger placements.

The original tabs i found showed the frets 18>10 sequence (Bar 44) on string 1. So that's high Bb note to D note (2 ledger lines above staff). My previous instruction was to anchor the sequence on the D note on String 2, Fret 15.  He felt Frets 18: 15 was too hard to get fingers around.

The second way is to use String 1 as anchor, slide it up from 17>18, and place index on Fret 19 of String 3 to play the D. That only gives a 2 fret spread, and a minimal difference in string spacing between String 2 vs  3.

Taking another look at this has given me a chance to refine the closing sequence at Bar 49. Original tabs show all on String 1, 10>3,6>11,10>3,6>11, 10,9, 3-3. 

Ok, so 3 & 6 are a G note and Bb note (1 ledger line above staff). 10 is D note, 2 ledger lines. We know that G note  is Fr 12, Str 3, and Bb is Fr 11, Str 2. That let's make a sort of squeezed C chord formation over the 3 high strings. 

After playing the Bb, flatten the middle finger to catch Fr 11 on Str 1 for the D# note, which is the Tab 11.

Then you might as well play the  final descending line as written in the Tabs. You need to move to a C# for Tab 9, which is a simple slide down of 1 fret.  Then just keep going down to the Bb & G notes on Str 1. The 3-3 formation comes pretty easily as a 1st position fingering, so just keep as is.

Here's the DEMO VIDEO (thumbnail at left). I've tried to find an angle that shows left & right hands. Slow tempo, but actually the theme is super slow any way.