Smell The Glove
\Jupe thinks that one is the maximum number of guitars that any mortal could ever need, or should be allowed to have. (unlike, say, cats, for whom there is no upper limit.) By contrast, I now own five, which I’m sure she must deem most extravagant. Now I’m no Nigel Tufnel (of Spinal Tap fame) but I can tell you unequivocally that different guitars — not just different types, but different individual guitars as well; although the variance among individuals of the same type is understandably more subtle — sound and play in a manner that is uniquely distinct one from another. Personally, one of the many pleasures to be derived from music is an appreciation of tone; that is, the physical qualities of sound: “woodenness,” “brassiness,” warmth, or stridency, and so forth. I was sort-of forced to care about tone from an early age. You see, when I first picked up the guitar seriously, at age 16, all I wanted to do was play rock music. (Keep in mind, this was circa 1985, the apogee of the hair rock revolution.) As luck would have it, however, the only instrument I was able to procure that I could play left-handed was an old Spanish guitar that had laid, unplayed, against a living room corner since before I was born. (Therefore it sounded like heaven on earth: its materials had had decades to mellow. But alas, it played like hell, with a neck so bowed that its warp made a painful mockery of my most valiant attempts.) Thus “handicapped,” I resigned myself to the process of learning the basics, in a style in which I had had no previous interest. It turns out, proper classical technique places great demands on the performer’s ability to elicit clean, effortless tone from the instrument. Finally, I had something on which my natural anal-retentiveness could latch onto. Over time, I learned to love classical guitar, and it learned to love me back. Today, I have two classicals, made of different woods and to different specifications. One was made in Spain, a gift from my mother. It is made of a light-blonde wood (dunno which am pretty sure it’s spruce, now) and yet sounds distinctively warm, sweet and oh-so-mellow, like the gurgling of a slow stream. The other is a Japanese (Takamine) that I bought used, sporting the more traditional honey coloration (cedar top, I’m guessing), and is much more sparkly, vivacious and “forward”-sounding. I love them both and probably will keep them for life.
Now, with acoustic instruments, where the sound consists entirely of the instrument’s substance and your playing, it all makes sense, no? But what about electrics? Until a few months ago I had owned exactly one guitar, a low-end dealie (Ibanez EX Series, for those of you keeping score at home) that I bought with blood, sweat and tears during my poverty-struck college days. The thing was designed principally for hair-metallers on a budget. Try as I might I have been unable to coax much out of this instrument other than straight-ahead rock’n’roll. No blues, no funk, nothing but shred. It’s not as if one couldn’t actually perform a jazz piece on it, say: it just would sound… indelicate. Like a Hippo in a tutu. For years I blamed my lack of skill for this. 
Yet, underhandedly, I began collecting parts for what one day would become my second electric guitar. I figured if I snuck it under the radar one bit at a time my conscience couldn’t get too uppity about it. It took something like five years but I finally finished it, last October. The neck is bolted on a little crooked, so its intonation leaves a lot to be desired, but guess what? The thing sounds completely different than my other guitar. While the Ibanez has a decidedly in-your-face, bright and trebley sound and attack, my new “Frankenguitar” (as I’ve nicknamed it) is dark, stout, punchy. (No doubt the Seymour Duncan JB pickup has a lot to do with that) Its fretboard is planed much flatter than my Ibanez’s, too, which allows me to respond more immediately to the instrument: I feel like I can play more effortlessly, whereas the Ibanez all but begs me to ride it hard. (We’re still talking guitars here, right?) What an eye-opener! Problem is, for years I’ve been dreaming of a guitar sound that is more liquid, more saucy and less strident. “Respectable distortion,” I like to call it. I pretty much concluded such a sophisticated sound just doesn’t exist in the low end of musical instruments. So, shortly after the birth of “Frankenguitar” I went really crazy and x-mas gifted myself with my first semi-high-end guitar, an honest-to-goodness Gibson SG series. Boys (and girls!) like Tony Iommi (of Black Sabbath), Angus Young (of AC-DC) and many, many more call the SG their own, and who can blame them? It’s like all my life I’d been going out with little girls and this was my first time with a grown woman. There was no preamble, no awkward “getting to know you” stage: from the moment I plugged in my SG felt right, like she was made for me. (Time will tell whether she won’t just drop me like a bad habit, as with all other grown women I’ve loved…) Her range is incredible: roll the volume knob back, or switch pickup emphasis from the bridge toward the neck and she’s all quiet spank and purr. Push back towards the bridge and she opens up and roars like a fat harley on the freeway. From church music to death metal, this girl can do it all. In her own distinctive voice, of course: you’ll never confuse her with Clapton’s Strat, or Tom Petty’s Rickenbacker, or B.B. King’s Lucille. Which is exactly my point, Jupe: these things all sound infinitely different. Just like hardly anyone who can afford it owns just one pair of shoes, I can’t own just one guitar. But I’m still no Nigel Tufnel.
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