Up to my Fretboard!

I’m home from work today enjoying the best pollen Georgia has to offer. (This has been the worst allergy season I can remember.) While I wait for Benadryl to come to my rescue I’m drinking coffee and scanning the Internet for anything related to acoustic guitars. (I know I should be playing but my family is sleeping or stirring for school and, like I said, don’t feel too fresh right now.)

While scanning my usual guitar forums – to include Chordie – I discovered a thread regarding Eastman guitars. Now I know there are thousands of Eastman threads but this is the first one I’ve read. My curiosity piqued, I visited the Eastman website which appears to be under construction. This is a bit of a disappointment, but most, if not all, the wording is in place and I am impressed. Being a fan of the written word and realism, my ability to detect (and chuckle) over “marketing"  language is keen. Phrases like “hand-crafted"  ubiquitous in guitar related materials and McDonald’s Big Mac T.V. commericals is always suspect if not downright laughable.

But perusing the Eastman website left me with the impression they produce honest, high-quality instruments. They take the time to explain “the ‘pre war’ mystique"  rather than just claiming their instruments reflect that “golden era of guitar building" .  I’ll admit I’ve fallen prey to this marketing ploy when I purchased a Morgan Monroe Blues 32 guitar about a year ago. A decent guitar and maybe even an imitation of pre-war construction but at the end of the day the substantial gloss and sunburst finish was too thick and gave the guitar a “tight"  sound, which I do not care for.

Eastman also addresses the fact we have a tendency to “pigeonhole guitar body styles by playing techniques and sterile measurements"  rather than focus on the player or what is played. I’m up to my fretboard in reading about this guitar is for fingerstyle and this one for strumming, etc. Yes, I suppose different body shapes – and maybe tonewoods – LEND themselves to a particular style of play or genre of music. But for most of us – or at least me – it really doesn’t matter. What matters is finding a shape, tone-wood combination, sound, color etc. that the player likes. I own a small-bodied mahogany guitar, which if you do your reading, implies I am a blues player. I enjoy blues music and would like to be able to play blues style music but all the sunglasses, mumbling lyrics, and “blues"  guitars in the world will not make it so.

I will admit part of the reason I bought this guitar was I was looking for the woody (sad?) mahogany tone and I love the look and feel of a satin finish but I am not naïve to believe this is going to make me a better guitar player or one capable of playing the blues, or any other type of music for that matter. No, what comes out of the guitar is directly related and somewhat proportional to what goes into playing the instrument.

For what it’s worth I own three guitars, three different shapes and tonewoods and I can’t play anything on any of them.