“If you find a pair of shoes that fits, buy it in every colour.”

“One biscuit is never enough.”

All three of those phrases is in some way related to the way I spent yesterday evening.  You see, a couple of years or so ago I was mulling over which electric guitar to buy, and when my wife eventually stepped in and told me which one I’d chosen (she knows my mind better than I do most of the time) I ordered a shiny new Line 6 Variax 300.  What’s special about that guitar (and all the others that Line 6 do, in fairness) is electronically model a whole load of real guitars and pack them all into one all-singing-all-dancing guitar, with each guitar selectable from a handy volume-type knob.  The result is that I effectively have 25 guitars instead of just one.

Thankfully, restringing only needs doing once, and it takes regular strings too despite its complicated wizardry.  I did a little research and found which strings the guitar had from the factory, and ordered a set on the internet a couple of days ago.  Now, this is where I hang my head in shame and hope there are no ‘proper’ guitarists reading – this is the first time I’ve replaced the strings since I bought the guitar, almost two years ago.  Ouch.  Sure, I’ve not been playing it every day since then, but even so the strings were sure to be corroded and mucky and dead-sounding by now.  And they were.

The bottom strings weren’t too bad, if a little discoloured, but the thinner strings were almost black with grime, and were coated in dead skin and suchlike.  Not nice.  I replaced each string individually, one at a time, courtesy of a tutorial on changing guitar strings.  I could have worked it out for myself (I have changed guitar strings before, after all), but as this was the first time for this guitar, I thought it would be wise to take special precautions and do it “by the book”.

So now I have a newly restringed guitar sitting in the lounge.  I played it for a while last night, and it sounds much brighter, the way it’s supposed to sound.  It does beg the question, though, whether I should do the same with my bass guitar one day.  That’s never had a change of strings either, and I bought that several years ago.  Then there’s the cello, still on the same strings it had in the shop, over a decade ago.  If you ever meet a professional musician, don’t send them my way… I’d be too ashamed.

Introduction

This year Ellie and I were both leaders on a Christian youth camp (a CYFA Ventures camp) for 14-18 year olds, at a boarding school near Southampton called Stanbridge Earls.  We’ve both been before, but this was the first time we’d been as a married couple, so that was a nice novelty!

Our week was actually started off a few days earlier than everyone else, as we went to Southampton University for my brother’s graduation.  It was lovely to see him, and all our family, and generally hang out in Soton for a bit.  Photos will be up on a gallery somewhere in due course I expect.  Ellie and I then stayed a couple of nights at a guest house in Soton, visiting the New Forest on the Friday before going off to camp on the Saturday morning.

Saturday

We arrived at Stanbridge Earls with plenty of time to spare.  In fact, that’s a bit of an understatement – we got there a full half an hour before we were technically allowed on site.  So we drove around for a bit before venturing through the gates to find a couple of the other leaders who had already arrived.  All the leaders met up at around 10am, had a quick business meeting and a catch-up, and then promptly got to work setting up the site for our camp.  Ellie and I were both hard at work in the theatre, which is where the morning and evening meetings were held throughout the week (like mini church services).  Ellie was up in the lighting box finding her way around all the knobs and buttons, and I was generally setting up the stage with a few other people, placing instruments and helping plug various cables in the right places.

It was actually really nice to be back on camp again.  Wandering around the site it was all so familiar, even though it’s been 2 years since I was last there.  It was as if I’d never been away.  Camp is a bubble, completely cut off and separate from the rest of reality.  And it’s quite a nice bubble, too.

We had a good number of kids this year, around 50 in total, which meant that there was a chance of getting to know most of them over the course of the week.  They arrived in dribs and drabs and congregated in the dining hall, and mid-morning we were given our first activity – the Members’ Challenge.  It was essentially a quiz that we had to do in our dorm groups that took us all over the site to retrieve various things, answer certain questions, or have our photos taken in various poses.  It was good fun, and helped us bond with our dorm right from the start.

Then after dinner we had our evening meeting, for which Sam led worship on guitar, I played my funky electric guitar, Tom played bass, and Sarah played drums.  There were some people singing too, but they varied through the week and I can’t remember who sang when, so I’ll just thank them all and assume that someone was singing!  The music was good and loud this year, with both Sam and I having pretty solid guitar setups – Sam had brought his new electric guitar as well as his acoustic, and was using a Line6 Spider II amp with a pedal box, and I was using my Line6 Variax guitar (that essentially gives me around 26 guitars in one) plugged into my Line6 Spider III amp.  It was a bit mushy that first night, with both of us trying to find a good balance between who was playing and with what level of distortion.  The kids seemed really into it right from the start, which was good.

The evening was rounded off with a quiz that Richard had sorted out.  And then bed.  And it was surprising just how much we needed it after just one day.

Sunday

Somehow I was too busy to notice that it was Sunday and I should have been at church.  Then again, every day that week felt a little bit like a Sunday, with all the God-centred stuff and worship twice a day.  Good stuff.  Sam and I alternated leading worship this year, so Sunday was my turn to lead both morning and evening sessions.  I don’t think I did a huge amount else that day, apart from sorting out music and stuff.  I should really have been socialising with my dorm, but there was just far too much other stuff that needed doing.  Ah well, we live and learn.

In the evening we had a “Night Hike and Campfire”, which was essentially a crowd of 80 people stumbling through the darkness, through the trees and bushes (at least I think that’s what they were), and eventually finding ourselves at the big camp fire where the ALs had hot chocolate prepared.  Oh, I ought to mention what the ALs are – Assistant Leaders.  Lucy and Anna (twins) and Laura were members last year, but were old enough this year to be ALs instead, and did a fantastic job of doing all those jobs that no one else wanted to do, like cleaning and serving hot chocolate and typing up songs at short notice and generally doing loads of stuff behind the scenes.  They were a fantastic team, their matching T-shirts were awesome, and they really helped make the week a success.  Hats off to you girls.

Monday

The major activity on Monday was so big it had to be split into two parts, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.  The Mini-Olympics basically involved a whole series of games that we did in our Bible study groups (which was half of one dorm group combined with half of another of the opposite gender).  My team was stunningly average, and despite some heroic triumphs and some embarrassing defeats we actually ended up coming somewhere smack bang in the middle.  Can’t complain.

It was the evening that really saw things come alive though, with the Murder Mystery that PJ had created.  Yes, created, not an off-the-shelf jobbie.  Completely engineered himself.  And it was awesome.  Set at the turn of the century, the plot revolved around a young lady who had been bitten by a vampire, and the teams had to run around the site interacting with various members of the household to try and find out who the vampire was and how to stop him.  I was a butler called Hinton, and spent all my time in the dining room polishing cutlery and polishing my shoes.  Others weren’t so lucky – Will was a crazed madman running around in the woods smelling people and shouting random things in the darkness, in the pouring rain.  It was really well received though, and all the members pulled together and enjoyed it greatly.

Tuesday

Tuesday I played a lot of music.  And I mean a serious amount of music.  I was leading worship in the morning, then the morning activity I was leading the members’ band, in the afternoon we did Junk Funk and then I was leading worship again in the evening.

Okay, let’s just explain what some of those are, because unless you were there you’re unlikely to understand the significance.  The members’ band is where we get all the members who play instruments and try and get them co-ordinated into a band, with the aim of having them lead the worship for the Thursday evening meeting.  My job was to organise them all, which turned out to be a job and a half, simply because there were 6 drummers, at least 5 guitarists, and a whole gaggle of singers.  We managed to make some sense of it all eventually though, and played through a couple of songs.  I decided it was best to leave the final decisions until the next rehearsal, and just whet everyone’s toes for now.

Junk Funk was a joint leadership thing between myself and Sarah, who is a trained and very talented percussionist (she can play pretty much anything that you hit).  The idea was to get a whole load of junk, give it to the members and get them to play as a percussion band in some form.  A bit like Stomp, if you’ve heard them.  Now, Sarah and I come from very different percussion backgrounds – Sarah is very highly trained, and has a passion for Brazillian and Latin rhythms, and is very organised.  I have no training whatsoever, a general appreciation for anything rhythmical, and prefer planned spontenaity to prescriptive pre-planning.  In actual fact the combination of those two approaches worked out really well.  We had a huge number of kids come along, most of whom were very rhythmic (which made our job a lot easier).  Sarah started off by teaching people a few call and response things from her Samba training, which we used at various points during the session to control everyone.  Everyone seemed to pick these up quickly, so I then led the planned spontenaity (which I don’t think Sarah had come across before), which basically involved starting everyone off with a beat and told them to get creative with it.  Before very long there was a multitude of beats going on, all very musical, and all I did to control it was wave my hands around to tell people to get quieter or louder, or which section should be playing at any given time.  It was lots of fun, and they made a wonderful sound!  The only problem was that in some ways they were a little over-enthusiastic – there were a couple of kitchen items that got a little bashed out of shape over the course of the session, and by the time we eventually finished everyone’s ears were ringing!  All good fun though, and definitely one to do next year.

The evening meeting on Tuesday was argubly one of the more powerful ones of the week, with a really stirring talk by Jennie followed by some quite touching worship afterwards.  There were a number of people in tears by the end of the meeting.  That’s by no means a bad thing, of course, and showed a good level of maturity from the members to be able to take on board the tough message.  All in all it was quite a draining day – musically, emotionally and spiritually.

Wednesday

Half way through the week, and by this point most of us were running low on energy.  In the morning Sam, Sarah and I led a Worship Workshop, which actually only attracted 4 members, but we had a good session talking about how to play effectively as a band, what constituted worship, and how to lead worship.  It was a bit of a fly-past tour of the topic rather than an in-depth study, but I think it was enough to at least whet the appetites of those who attended.  Judging by the musical ability of some of the peeps in the members’ band and the spiritual and emotional maturity already demonstrated, I can see there being a whole new generation of worship leaders just waiting to be put on stage!  With God’s annointing I am sure they will go far.

The afternoon I think I managed to take some time out to relax a bit.  At least, I think that’s what I did.  It’s all so long ago (already) and the week was so packed with stuff that figuring out what I did when is a bit of a challenge.  Thankfully though I managed to pace myself better this year – two years ago when I last came I pushed myself a little too hard and crashed quite spectacularly on the Thursday.  This year I managed to alay my guilt and spend some quality time sitting on a sofa doing very little.  Not wasting time, savouring it.

That evening we had the formal meal, for which everyone dressed up in black and white – and bling – and had a lovely meal.  For a change, all the members were served by the leaders (rather than the job being assigned to specific dorm groups).  The food, it has to be said, was lovely, just as it had been the whole week – hats off to the cooks!  After the meal we all headed down to the theatre for the Stanbridge Earls version of “Britain’s Got Talent”; there were a number of acts, though many of them (including the Monty Python sketch Ellie and I had rehearsed) were cut short due to lack of time and lack of talent.  A little frustrating for those groups who had been rehearsing for hours, but never mind.

Thursday

Another relatively easy start to the day, with nothing specific planned for the morning except leading worship.  It was the afternoon and evening, though, that got my pulse racing again, with the second of the two afternoon activity sessions (the one just before dinner, which was followed immediately by the evening meeting) being the second members’ band rehearsal.  Everyone managed to make it to that rehearsal (the previous time several people had been on an off-site activity so couldn’t make it), so there were a lot of people to try to co-ordinate.  Rather than dictating to them what they were going to play and how, I had decided to let them have a say in it all, so the first part of the session involved everyone discussing which songs we wanted to do, taking into account the theme of the talk that night, and then the complicated task of working out who was going to play at what point.  I think there was a little disappointment by some of the drummers, all of whom really wanted to play but not all of whom could play at once!  We finally managed to get that all sorted though, and managed to go through the songs a couple of times.  The main problem I had was keeping a tight reign on their enthusiasm – there were three fantastic guitarists all playing at the same time, and I kept having to tell them to scale it down and not all play at once!  It was quite heavy and stodgy at times.  Thankfully I think the message got through eventually and they managed to put their egos aside for the meeting, and it all worked really well.

Oh, and the evening session saw all the boys camped out in the theatre watching Finding Nemo.  Quality.

Friday

Aahh!!  Our last full day of camp!  Where has the week gone??!  It was a bit of a shock to the system actually, realising that camp was nearly over.  We had grown so used to functioning on no energy, relying on God’s strength to get us through the day, and it felt quite odd to be thinking about going back into the real world again.

In the morning I helped with the scone-making, and in the afternoon we all ate them with jam and clotted cream in our dorm groups (a traditional Friday activity on camp), before a leaders vs. members game of rounders.  Which the leaders won.  Regardless of the score, which attested otherwise.

The evening meeting’s talk was given by Rachel, who I’m not sure had actually been to camp before this year, but who really got stuck in and active, despite having had both her legs broken in a car accident only a few months ago.  Her talk was one of the best of the week, touched on some really tough issues, had some funny moments and some tear-jerkers.  It’s been a while since a talk aimed at young people has brought me to tears.  It seemed to have a big impact on others too, so it was definitely well received by all.

After that our dorm had an extended time of Bible study.  Earlier in the week we had looked at the topic of relationships and going out, which our dorm group really got into and had more to say – the hour session we had just wasn’t long enough, so we scheduled this additional discussion to run through any more questions they had.  It was really encouraging to find that they all had so many questions, and how maturely and sensibly they discussed the issues, especially given they were the youngest age group at camp.  We all talked long into the night, going over a whole load of tough issues, and there were a fair few challenges that we all had to address, both leaders and members.  It was well worth doing though, and everyone seemed to get a lot out of it (we even had members of someone else’s dorm joining in).  It meant a late night for them all, but I think it was worth it.  There is no substitute for thinking.

Saturday

Yes, it finally came, the last morning of camp.  Everyone packed up and had breakfast, and after the morning meeting everyone dispersed and went home, some by car, some by train, some by boat.  It was sad to say all those goodbyes, and there were many tears shed and e-mail addresses exchanged.  Then, once all the members were dealt with, we leaders set to work taking everything down again, ready for the next group who were arriving that afternoon.  I spent most of my time in the theatre again, packing up instruments, folding up microphone stands, boxing up speakers, loading up cars, coiling up cables.  As with setting up at the beginning of camp, it was surprising how the big things were the easy ones to get set up and put away again – it was all the small things that caused the problems.  There were boxes that just wouldn’t contain another small item, there were odd bits and pieces here and there that just wouldn’t fit into people’s cars again, there were missing items, excess items that shouldn’t have been there, and a lot of tidying up to do everywhere.  We managed to get it all done though, and finally managed to get all the leaders off-site to meet up at the pub down the road for lunch and a fond farewell.

In conclusion

Wow, what an awesome week.  God was really present with us the whole time, for which we were all very grateful, and lots of fun was had too in the various activities we all endulged in.  My electric guitar has never seen so much use in all the time I’ve had it, but it stood up to the punishment admirably.  I managed to lose my Bible (and other bits and pieces) several times during the week, but Ellie was always there to find them for me (and put me to shame in the process).  We all went home very tired, but also very satisfied that God had been at work through us all in teaching and inspiring the members who came.  Unfortunately I didn’t have time to take any photos, but people on Facebook will probably already have seen the photos put up by various people who did manage to get snappy.

And next year?  Well, Ellie and I will definitely be going back as leaders, and since Sam plans to abscond to Australia I shall probably (it has yet to be confirmed for definite) end up co-ordinating all the music next year.  That means I’ll need an assistant, so that I’m not leading every meeting.  I’ll also need to think about songs to take with us, and equipment that we’ve so far relied on Sam bringing, like projectors and computers and cables and stuff.  All good fun!  Roll on SE09!!

For those who have not heard me raving about this guitar before, allow me to quickly explain what makes this guitar so different from most others you may have seen. At first glance it looks like any other electric guitar, with the red body and white pick-guard and traditional cutaway body shape. But take a second look and you’ll find something missing – the pickups. Rather than it being one guitar, this is lots of guitars in one, thanks to some clever modelling and a selector knob. Think of it a bit like the voices on a keyboard – hit the right setting and you’ll create a completely different sound. The Variax 300 has several guitars built-in, including a variety of electric guitars, some semi-acoustics, a handful of acoustics, and some fun instruments too (banjo and sitar, to name but two). It truly is one of the most versatile guitars I’ve come across.

Straight out of the box, the guitar was out of tune, but that’s no surprise. The action wasn’t bad, and the bridge adjusters weren’t all level so I’m guessing a certain amount of work was done in the factory to set up the intonation. Of course, it being a clever bit of kit, you can’t just plug it straight into an amp and start playing, you’ve got to find another power socket for the guitar transformer, which is a little box that sits on the floor. A special lead (which is supplied) plugs from the guitar to one side of the box, and a conventional jack-to-jack lead plugs from there to the amp. The special lead looks much like a normal jack-to-jack lead, except that it has an extra contact point on it for carrying power to the guitar.

Once we’re plugged in, the fun starts. Changing between guitars is quick and easy, even if the markings and names on the knob are a little confusing to begin with – to avoid copyright complications the Fender Stratocaster sound isn’t listed by that name at all, although everything is neatly explain in the manual (but who ever looks at that??). The tones seem pretty realistic, and gives plenty of scope for creating interesting sounds. The pickup selector switch actually does a variety of things depending on which guitar you have selected – sometimes it’ll do what you would expect in swapping between pickup combinations, but in some cases it switches between guitars as well; the acoustic setting on the guitar selector knob gives you five guitars depending on which pickup position you use, including three 6-strings and two 12-strings.

One of the consequences of not using traditional pickups is that lack of noise – regardless of which guitar you select, there is no discernible hiss or background hum, which is pretty impressive. The downside is that when playing through a heavily distorted amp setting there is no guitar resonance to hide your mistakes. I’ve also found that the strings don’t seem to ring on for very long, making those soaring guitar solos a little more difficult to produce. That may be resolved by a different choice of string, but I have to admit this is one of the guitars biggest failings for me.

Another small gripe is that when playing vigourously my strumming hand hits the volume knob, which is just slightly too near the strings for comfort. I’m sure this can be avoided with practice, but it’s a shame Line 6 didn’t pick up on this during development.

Something else worth pointing out is how it feels to play. Although it may sound like a Fender or a Gibson or an Epiphone or a banjo, it won’t necessarily feel like any of them when you’re playing. There is sadly no vibrato built into the bridge, and bending notes somehow seems to deaden the note, which is rather frustrating. Nonetheless, it’s a guitar that promises fun in bucketloads, and I’d thoroughly recommend it to anyone who wishes they had a room full of guitars but can only afford one!

Until this morning I had my heart set on the Yamaha RGX A2, which is a futuristic looking white guitar with some fantastic design elements and quirky features, including an LED in the volume knob and tuning pegs that are round rather than flat. In terms of looks, this guitar is awesome, right up my street. However, it is about £250, and having played it in the shop this morning it didn’t quite feel that much. Sure, it was fun to play, and allowed me to create some really cool rocky tones, but because it only has two humbucker pickups it’s rather limited in tonal variety, which is a shame.

I then picked up a Yamaha Pacifica. These are legendary guitars, loved the world over by amateur and beginner guitarist for their reliability and flexibility. With a more traditional Strat-inspired body and layout, and with a combination of humbucker and coil pickups, it has a lot more tonal variety than the RGX A2, and also has the benefit of a vibrato (sometimes called a Tremelo or Trem) bar. That makes playing punchy rock solos a little more interesting! In terms of completeness, then, the Pacifica is actually more suitable for me than the RGX A2, in that it’s able to play a wider range of styles. It might not have such good looks, but it is likely to be more reliable, and comes in much cheaper at around £140. Of course, it’s still a beginner’s guitar at the end of the day, and has Yamaha written on the headstock. Yamaha make motorbikes and cheap keyboards, remember. Do I really want to be playing a beginner’s guitar? Not really. I’m far from being professional, but I wouldn’t consider myself a novice either.

That brings me back to the Line 6 Variax 300 that I found a few months ago. Line 6 traditionally make guitar accessories and amps, but have recently turned their hand to guitars, bringing out a range of digital guitars – rather than having normal pickups it has a clever electronic bit of wizardry that models a bunch of other guitars. At the flick of a switch you can make it sound exactly like a Fender Strat, or a Gretsch, or a Guild acoustic guitar, or a banjo… how’s that for flexibility! Apparently some of the acoustic sounds aren’t perfect through a normal guitar amp, but through a PA system it sounds awesome. To beat it all, it comes in at an affordable £250, which is the same as the RGX A2. Those who know me will know that I don’t like to be limited to one style of music, but rather I prefer to explore all sorts of different sounds, from rock to jazz to classical to quiet acoustic to funk to pop to whatever, and in that sense this guitar is pretty much perfect for my needs. Sure, it’s perhaps not as attractive as the RGX A2, and the internal electrics are a little more tricky to replace if they go wrong, but for studio recording and playing at church this would be a fantastic choice.

So there we go, I’ll be buying the Variax 300 then. In fact, I’ve also got my eye on a Line 6 Spider III 15 amp to go with it, which has some fun features too. With all of that in mind, it should be a while before I get bored of that setup and need to invest in effects pedals, which is even better! The only down side is that I’ll have to buy the guitar and amp on the internet, as none of the local guitar shops stock them, but maybe that’s a good thing – it means I’ll have bought it before I play it, which means I’m less likely to start thinking about rethinking my decision…