New Guitar

Well, I did it. I took the plunge and used some Christmas money to buy a guitar. I've learned how to tune it, I know three chords (E5, A5, and D5), and I'm working on some calluses. My fingers sting as I type this.

I bought a Fender Acoustic starter kit for about 200 dollars at a Guitar Center here in GR. I walked in right when the store opened to beat the crowd and was seized by the impulse to turn around and walk out. The place was a tower of amps with hundreds of guitars hanging on every square inch of wall space. Big bluesy guitars. Little bitty electrics that didn't even look like guitars. Red guitars. Blue guitars. Green guitars. Somebody banged on a drum set in the back. It was overwhelming. I made my way to the acoustics, which fortunately were in a soundproof room to the side. But there again, so many guitars! What's a budding Eric Clapton to do? Luckily, a nice sales clerk, Scotty, must have seen my angst and asked if he could help me. Scotty is in his twenties with a seventies hair cut and earrings that widen his earlobes into holes you can see through. He seemed guitarish enough.

I told him I'd always wanted to play the guitar and got some Christmas money. "So I'm really just off the street," I said. He smiled politely and suggested a starter kit, pointing to a pile of boxes on the ground.

I felt like a loser. Here were all these beautiful guitars hanging on the walls in all different shapes, sizes, and colors, and this guy was pointing me to a bunch of boxes? A boring vanilla-colored guitar was pictured on the front. It had a "real wooden top." Big whoop. "What about one of these on the wall, which I see are on sale?" I asked, thinking he'd forgotten about an incredible deal for just such a customer as me.

"I really recommed a starter kit, man," he said. "They get you into the guitar for not a lot of money, and they have some bonus beginner features like an electric tuner and an instructional DVD to get you going."

Beginner features? We don't need no stinking beginner features.

I cleared my throat. "One thing I've heard is that if you get a really cheap guitar, it may be so hard to press the strings down that you get discouraged faster than you would otherwise and you'll be more likely to give up." I figured this bit of inside knowledge would impress him.

"That's called playability," he said (this guy's good, I thought), "and I can assure you these starter guitars are very playable." Starter, I daydreamed. Reminds me of when I was "Peewee" baseball player or a "Guppie" swimmer. "Besides," he continued, "whether or not someone gives up has much more to do with will power than the guitar." Easy there, big guy, I thought, don't lecture me on will power. You're talking to someone who's trained for and run a 25K, someone who wades through 300-page manuscripts for a living! I wrote the frickin' book on will power, dude. (Whew! I'm getting tired of writing this. Better stop soon.)

Then Scotty turned and faced me. "I really think you'll like the kit. It's a great way to go." All right, all right. A call to my wife and a flash of plastic later, I walked out with my Fender.

Now we'll see about the will power part.