You’ll remember from part I that all of my progress so far had been achieved using a barely functional electric guitar that I picked up for a lousy two bucks on a flea market.
When it started to become clear that I might have a future with the guitar, I started to wonder about getting a decent instrument. Something in the 300 to 400 dollar range maybe. (And that’s another great thing about the guitar: You can get a good instrument in that price range, which is four times less than what a saxophone costs).
I started thinking I’d like something that I could play plugged or unplugged, so I zeroed-in on hollow-body electric guitars, and specifically on the Ibanez Artcore series that were in my budget and said to be as good as guitars that are way more expensive. I even visited some stores with a guitarist friend of mine who was blown away by the Artcore he tried.
Still, I didn’t buy it (which will come as no surprise to people who know me). I just wasn’t absolutely sure this was the type of guitar I wanted.
And as luck would have it, my girlfriend suddenly remembered she had won a guitar at a fair a few years back, although she couldn’t remember any specifics about it. She dug it up and brought it over. It was a cheap classical guitar (that had metal strings on it !). So I bought some nylon strings, and this has been « my » guitar ever since… I later bought a stick-on pickup that I use to record it, and with todays software plug-ins, it’s easy to make it sound like pretty much any guitar going through a variety of amps.
Even though it isn’t a good instrument by any stretch of the imagination, it is OK, and way better than my electric which I haven’t touched in months. But more importantly, it helped me realize something I had always known, and that was probably interfering with my resolve to buy the Artcore. I like the warm, round sound of nylon strings, and more importantly, I don’t really like the steely sound of acoustic (steel string) guitars! (unless they are playing delta blues)….
Besides, to play nylon strings, you don’t need to have and care for thick layers of corn on the end of your fingertips… Of course, some say that classical guitars are harder to play, what with their larger, flat necks. It’s all a matter of taste in the end, but when I’m just playin’ and singin’ unplugged, I just prefer the sound of nylon strings, and I can still make the guitar sound like it’s going through a stack of Marshall amps if I feel like it.
I tend not to use a pick, even when I’m strumming, even though the instruction method I’m following requires one. I guess it can’t hurt.
So now, I am thinking of getting a decent nylon-string guitar in the same price range, preferably with a built-in pickup. I haven’t gotten very far in my research yet. Probably something like this Alvarez AC60SC (although it doesn’t seem to be available in Europe).
Tune-in next time for the last installment of this dull series of posts…