Peruvian Nights and Jamaican Days

GITTAR

So I finally bought myself a guitar. I've had a guitar before - in fact, I've had several. Two belonged to my uncle, one belonged to Jen, and one was sitting in a closet in an apartment Jen moved into in Maryville, when she first moved out of the dorms. All of them were junk. The nicest was the old Harmony from my uncle. It was old enough that it was from a time when Harmony wasn't a totally wretched brand. We pawned Jen's guitar, because it buzzed, and it was a heavy, laminated piece of crap. I gave the older Harmony back to my uncle ages ago, and I think I sold the Synsonics electric (yes, the kind you can buy from the JC Penney Wishbook) at a garage sale. All told, I've been in possession of at least one guitar at any given time for the last 8 or 9 years, but I've never had my own guitar that I purchased for myself. Too cheap, and also have never felt like I was good enough to warrant purchasing a nicer one.

But I finally bought one after searching around for a few months - an Epiphone C40:



Got it at a pawn shop. I've been leery of Epiphones in the past, since my uncle cautioned me against getting one in 2000 or something. But this one has a pretty nice sound. At least it doesn't buzz like every other one has (except the Old Harmony).

Yes, it's a classical guitar. Yes, it has nylon strings. Cedar top, mahogany neck, rosewood fingerboard. Solid wood. Made in Korea in 1990. I've been wanting to learn how to read music for guitar. I could read music well with my trumpet, and did OK with piano, but I haven't made the effort with guitar, before now. G-Had has even offered to provide me with some custom lessons - lesson 1 is to learn Greensleeves, which he transcribed into both standard notation and tab (in like 5 minutes - genius!).

Epiphones seem like a crapshoot, because I played 2 Epi Hummingbirds and a couple of other Epiphones at Musician's Friend, and they were crap. Of course, maybe that's why they were at the Musician's Friend clearance center. Doy.. I would still consider an Epiphone Les Paul, in blue, of couse, since they're about 1/3 the price of a Gibson LP, and the sound and quality generally seems pretty good:



I think I need to practice scales and stuff. I can limp through Greensleeves, but I'm cheating (tab), not reading the music. It will be a process, but I feel like it's something I want to commit an effort to.

-m