my life. on the internets.

Category: guitar

I bought my guitar

After 3 different trips to two different music stores, I finally bought an acoustic guitar. A black acoustic guitar. More specifically, I bought the Ibanez PF15ECE Dreadnought Cutaway Acoustic-Electric Guitar in Gloss Black.

The Ibanez PF15ECE Performance Series Acoustic-Electric Cutaway Guitar uses mahogany back and sides to provide rich, warm lows and sweet sustain. The Fishman Sonicore pickup and SST preamp assure an accurate reproduction of the guitar’s natural tone when plugged in. The gloss black finish, gold die-cast tuners, and pearl dot inlays give the Ibanez PF15ECE a distinguished appearance. Ibanez includes an onboard tuner with your PF15ECE Guitar!

Awww yeah, mahogany, gloss, gold, and pearl.

guitarPhoto taken directly from Ibanez’s website.

It was surprisingly hard to purchase this guitar because both stores discouraged, and were downright unhelpful about me purchasing a guitar with steel strings, since I didn’t know how to play. They also encouraged me to purchase the cheapest guitar possible (something that most sites suggest is a bad idea).

I was planning on only getting an acoustic guitar, and not electro-acoustic, but I liked this one, and it sounds great. Maybe someday I’ll want to hook it up to my computer, or an amp.

It also comes with an integrated tuner, but it wasn’t clear to me how it worked (even after watching the salesperson barely able to use it). So I used a free Android guitar tuning app called GuitarTuna. It works well. I know it works well, only because I was actually able to tune my guitar, and without this app, I would have not been able to.

The guitar came with D’Addario coated 80/20 bronze strings. Don’t know what that means exactly, but it’ll probably be useful information for when it’s time to restring.

The guitar is black, and I like that, because my favorite guitar player was Johnny Cash. He didn’t always play a black guitar. I could have probably gone with any guitar type, and Johnny Cash probably played a similar one at some point in his life. But black is cool, because Johnny Cash is cool and also “The Man in Black”, and also if you Google “johnny cash guitar”, the first site selling a guitar in the results selling a special edition of a black guitar, for $6,000. Maybe someday…

Eventually I need to purchase a case for the guitar. But I took it home in its cardboard box. I also bought a dozen medium Dunlop picks with a tortoise shell pattern. I was disappointed to discover that the picks are actually made out of celluloid, and not actual tortoise shell (just kidding).

And that’s it. Now I have to actually sit down and learn how to play.

I’m writing this because my fingers are too sore to keep practicing right now. I’ve started the Beginners Course at justinguitar.com. I’ve spent some time on the D chord, and the A chord. Tomorrow I’m sure I’ll spend even more time on them, and then maybe the E chord!

Of course, Wikipedia has an alphabetized list of musicians who have made notable use of Ibanez guitars.

I am going to learn to play the guitar

One of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2016 is to learn to play the guitar. Part of my resolution is that I record myself playing something intelligible by the end of June.

In the early 90s, when I was attending a private school in Valdivia, I was put into guitar classes. I didn’t have much interest, and went along with it because I wasn’t given a choice. Later that year, for a school presentation, my entire guitar class played several songs on the guitar. I was given a plastic bird whistle, which I had to dip into water and then blow into, so it would make bird sounds, like this video. I think that shows where my guitar skills were at.

Now I wish I’d cared more.

I checked Ask MetaFilter, because I was confident that someone had asked about learning the guitar, and I was right. There was lots of information. I liked the responses in http://ask.metafilter.com/216825/Guitar-101

They refer people to Justin Guitar . This guy Justin in London has put out over 900 guitar lessons on video, and all are completely free. He supports himself by donations, and people buying through his store. The Beginners Course is nine different stages, and there are multiple lessons, each with videos for each stage.

Before I can start the Beginners Course, I need a guitar.

So now I have to figure out what guitar I should purchase.. I’m pretty sure that I want an acoustic guitar, but I don’t want to spend too much on my first guitar. Decisions, decisions.

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