Guitar Story (Part 1) / Minor Tangent(s)

A couple days ago I was a part of a historic mission. I went with my friend/guitar student (Andrew) to Mill Music in Renfrew to get his very first electric guitar. (Mill Music has a very tasty selection of guitars – every time I go I find one that stops me in my tracks. This time there were two: a beauty of a Jazzmaster – one like Nels Cline’s, and a grey-blue Fender American Strat with a rosewood fretboard.)

They had a bunch of guitars as well as some combo packs on sale. It didn’t take long for us to zone in on a few Strats (well . . . Squires). After a test drive and some questions - - - Andrew decided to go with the classic Strat-Pack: a Strat styled Squire, a Fender practice amp and an extensive list of goodies. All on sale. You just can’t go wrong with that. Beginner guitarists take note: just get a Strat-Pack and be done with it.

The final decision was colour – we asked to see it in blue. When the sales guy brought out the box, he opened it up and instead of blue (like was marked on the box) out came a metallic red beauty. And that was that.

On the return trip to Cobden, we swung through a Wendy’s drive-through and I hammered down a much needed Big Bacon Classic. I’d missed lunch and we were a little behind because our churches’ youth/jr. high groups (known as KAOS and FUSION) big fall kick-off’s were starting shortly - - - requiring both mine and Andrew’s attendance and participation. Andrew was doing sound and power-point and I was going to play in the band.

Trouble was, I didn’t have an electric guitar at the church and I didn’t have time to go home and get mine. SO . . . yes, Andrew graciously allowed me to take his metallic red Strat on its’ maiden voyage. (Once I hooked up my amp and stuff I made sure that he played its actual first notes and chords.)

It rocked.

Here’s my tangent: small things can cause big changes. Andrews’ new guitar came set-up with really light strings . . . and I couldn’t believe how fast it played – my fingers were flying - - - which is VERY unusual for me (ask those who know my playing). I normally play electrics with heavy strings, because I usually play in settings that require cleaner electric tones.

But more recently I’ve been feeling the urge to learn to burn a bit. Maybe some further lessons but definitely some practice will be involved, but this super-light strings revelation has me motivated enough to probably get there. Small things can make big differences. Something so obvious, something I know . . . yet it took me actually experiencing them under my fingers again for something inside me to click on and want to learn some Van Halen solo’s all over again.

Here’s a slightly further tangent: the same thing happened to me earlier this summer. All growing up I was huge into biking. When I was little I had my little BMX dirt bike that I rode everywhere and over everything. I graduated to a mountain bike and did the same thing. But for the past few years – I’ve hardly ridden at all. And one of the basic reasons was that one of my shifters was busted. It wasn’t really that I had a misguided thought process like: “My shifter is broken, and that must be really hard to get fixed, there’s no bike stores in town, so I just won’t ride my bike.” It was more like – my shifter broke and I kind of forgot about biking and filled my time with other things.

Then this summer I just decided to get it fixed. I took it to a shop and they replaced the shifter for $25. Twenty-five bucks. And it was like I had a brand new bike again. And I rediscovered a passion I’ve had since I was 5. But I wondered why I didn’t do it sooner, and why I had this three year gap in doing something I really enjoy?

Small things can make a big difference. Happily sometimes these small things present themselves serendipitously. The sad part is that sometimes they’re so small you wonder why you didn’t think of them or do them sooner.