Music Gear I

After a very long leave of absence, I found myself reading 3 very competent blogs, namely this one, this one, and this one, which has gotten me sufficiently bitten with the blogging bug. The pun's intended, and to get what I'm referring to, check out this post on theChung's blog. Ouch!

I'm going to put a disclaimer on this post up front: Though I'm CERTAINLY interested in music gear in all of its forms, I'm self-taught, and inexperienced in most of the musical world. I like to play around, sure, but I am by NO means a professional. In fact, there are 3 Chinese kids who I've been tutoring in piano for less than a month who already play better than I do. So this post is the opinion of a n00b. I'm someone who's figuring this stuff out for herself, and I have no more expertise and credibility than you do. Be prepared, and take it for what it is. kthnx<3. The first piece of gear and the whole of this post:

Takamine's EG523SC - Acoustic-Electric Guitar

Kind of a funny story behind how this lovely guitar came into my possession. I was doing temporary work for the county's HR department over in Martinez. They gave us a whole hour for lunch, which was absolutely unreal for me, as I take 15 minutes for lunch, tops. Lucky for me, the county offices are mere blocks away from Martinez's adorable little downtown area, so I'd take walks up and down Main Street to pass the time. The third day I did this, I bumped into a really nifty guitar shop, where the owner let me goof around on this beautiful little guitar that I'm talking about and let me ask him millions of questions about all things music - especially live looping. I spent the whole of my next day's break there also, talking his ear off and jamming to my heart's content. As I left, I was resolved to purchase this guitar as soon as I had saved up enough money from my job. I returned to work after that break, where the office had been run by all of the temps while the full-time employees were at a mandatory retreat. 3 o'clock rolled around, and the full-timers came back, exhausted from the day. Three of them, one of them being my boss's boss, went into a spare office behind my desk to chat and unwind from the day. I was at my desk working on a massive and mind-numbing project, listening to a book on tape in one ear. A few minutes after they started talking, I hear someone say "Neil Diamond." Then a couple minutes later, someone says "Rod Stewart," and I couldn't help but smile to myself. After yet a few more minutes, my work hit a snag. I got up to ask someone in that office a question, and as I reached the doorway someone in the room said a sentence that had the word "generation" in it. I couldn't help myself. This just came tumbling out:

"At the extreme risk of getting fired and speaking of generations, only people in your guys' generation would be sitting around in the middle of the afternoon talking about Rod Stewart and Neil Diamond."

Needless to say, I got fired the next day. I still stand by my joke, and were I to have the chance to do this all again, I would've done the exact same thing. However, this change of events left me jobless, and without fundage to pay for the guitar that I was madly in love with.

Later that night, I was talking to my sister, and she got it in my head that I should start getting serious about making art my career. I jumped on CraigsList, and within that first week, I made 2000 bucks worth of deals in exchange for commissioned artwork. My sister's a real smart lady. Anyway, after that week, I decided to go back to that guitar shop in Martinez. While I was there, I mentioned that I have some experience in web design, and wondered if we could strike a trade - a website for the guitar. He was not only down with the idea, but he was really excited about it! I'm still working on the site, but he let me take the guitar in advance.

Whew! That was a really long, really rambly story! It's late, and I tend to ramble on little sleep.

Now on to talking about the actual guitar! All of the guitars that I've played before this little baby were the crappy $30 variety. This is a mid-range guitar ($800), with a built in tuner and a 1/4" amp output. It has a jumbo body, which gives it a gorgeous, round tone which I am ABSOLUTELY in love with. It's also a dream to play. There are a couple of key things that I really appreciate - the main one being that the fret board is slightly bowed out, which makes bar chords RIDICULOUSLY easier to play than any of the guitars I've played before. Also, it sounds great whether it's plugged in an amp, or generating its own sound. Plus, it's pretty, and that makes it awesome!