My guitar
For the last two years or so, I have very rarely played my guitar.
She stayed in her case most of the time. Once a month or so I would bring her out and look at her, strum her a bit, then put her back. But I haven't done that at all since the summer of last year. This guitar didn't take well to the humidity of the Irish climate, so ever since then the neck has been slowly bending forward, until I about two years ago when I had to tighten the neck bolt to get the action back to where it should be. (The action is the name for the distance between the strings and the fretboard beneath them.) But the neck slowly bent forward again, and now the bridge is slightly turning inward too. This makes it impossible to keep the guitar properly in tune. Because of these problems, I was beginning to think that I was turning into a bad guitarist. There is some scuffing on the top of the neck where the finish is coming off, and there is also one spot of impact damage on the back, probably from the last time that she went through an airport baggage system. So after months of ignoring the problem, and not playing her, today I finally put her into the hands of a local artisan who is going to repair her.
This guitar has been with me for all of my adult life. This was the guitar I used almost every time I performed at the Bardic Competitions at WiccanFest and Kaleidoscope Gathering. Even the case still contains sand from my very first WiccanFest fire pit. All of my own original music was composed with this guitar. The music I made with this guitar helped bring me together with people who subsequently became some of my closest friends. Through the music of my guitar I even met the first woman with whom I ever fell in love. I've taken it with me while traveling in at least four Canadian provinces and three American states, and three European countries. I've played it for an audience of hundreds; and I've played it for no one and nothing but the sand and wash of the sea. And to top it off: this guitar was a gift to me from my mother!
Although I hardly ever touched her in many months, now that she is out of my hands I find I really miss her.
There's something ironic in this. Aren't human relationships surprisingly similar!
Singing: Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone...
Ahem.
For those who live local to me: I've given her to Brad McDonald, who understands the personal relationship that a musician can develop with his instruments, and how an instrument can become the embodiment of someone's history and identity. Brad also gave me one of his guitars to play in the meanwhile. Interestingly, there was a different guitar he was going to loan me, and which I have played a few times over the last few months. When he was tuning it, a string broke, so he had to hand me a different one. Now, I'm not overly given to superstition, but being something of an animist I could not help but feel as if the guitar broke one of its own strings so that Brad wouldn't give him to me, or so that Brad would be compelled to give me another guitar. (Both of those guitars are male, by the way: Brad carved a green man face into each of them.)
In a few months time, I'll get my own guitar back, and everything will be fine again. But until that day, I'll be thinking of all the good times I had with my guitar, and all the places where I've been with her.
Photo: playing my guitar at my clann's Lughnasa gathering, London Ontario, in the summer of 1995.
Audio: here on YouTube is a recording of me playing one of my own songs on this guitar, at Kaleidoscope Gathering, many years ago.
She stayed in her case most of the time. Once a month or so I would bring her out and look at her, strum her a bit, then put her back. But I haven't done that at all since the summer of last year. This guitar didn't take well to the humidity of the Irish climate, so ever since then the neck has been slowly bending forward, until I about two years ago when I had to tighten the neck bolt to get the action back to where it should be. (The action is the name for the distance between the strings and the fretboard beneath them.) But the neck slowly bent forward again, and now the bridge is slightly turning inward too. This makes it impossible to keep the guitar properly in tune. Because of these problems, I was beginning to think that I was turning into a bad guitarist. There is some scuffing on the top of the neck where the finish is coming off, and there is also one spot of impact damage on the back, probably from the last time that she went through an airport baggage system. So after months of ignoring the problem, and not playing her, today I finally put her into the hands of a local artisan who is going to repair her.
This guitar has been with me for all of my adult life. This was the guitar I used almost every time I performed at the Bardic Competitions at WiccanFest and Kaleidoscope Gathering. Even the case still contains sand from my very first WiccanFest fire pit. All of my own original music was composed with this guitar. The music I made with this guitar helped bring me together with people who subsequently became some of my closest friends. Through the music of my guitar I even met the first woman with whom I ever fell in love. I've taken it with me while traveling in at least four Canadian provinces and three American states, and three European countries. I've played it for an audience of hundreds; and I've played it for no one and nothing but the sand and wash of the sea. And to top it off: this guitar was a gift to me from my mother!
Although I hardly ever touched her in many months, now that she is out of my hands I find I really miss her.
There's something ironic in this. Aren't human relationships surprisingly similar!
Singing: Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone...
Ahem.
For those who live local to me: I've given her to Brad McDonald, who understands the personal relationship that a musician can develop with his instruments, and how an instrument can become the embodiment of someone's history and identity. Brad also gave me one of his guitars to play in the meanwhile. Interestingly, there was a different guitar he was going to loan me, and which I have played a few times over the last few months. When he was tuning it, a string broke, so he had to hand me a different one. Now, I'm not overly given to superstition, but being something of an animist I could not help but feel as if the guitar broke one of its own strings so that Brad wouldn't give him to me, or so that Brad would be compelled to give me another guitar. (Both of those guitars are male, by the way: Brad carved a green man face into each of them.)
In a few months time, I'll get my own guitar back, and everything will be fine again. But until that day, I'll be thinking of all the good times I had with my guitar, and all the places where I've been with her.
Photo: playing my guitar at my clann's Lughnasa gathering, London Ontario, in the summer of 1995.
Audio: here on YouTube is a recording of me playing one of my own songs on this guitar, at Kaleidoscope Gathering, many years ago.