A few weeks ago we were coming back from the park and decided on a whim to visit a garage sale going on in our neighbourhood. Sure enough, they did have a guitar - a toy electric still in its box. It's a plastic body, plastic neck, nearly plastic everything, though the strings are metal, and it does actually play like a guitar. So we've been noodling around on it for a while. Sarah is learning basic chords, which is good because her earlier habit of playing all-open strings was getting annoying.
Last week I bought a real electric from a workmate who had upgraded his. I also got his 30 watt practice amp, with lots of digital effects, and all for about half the price of an iPod, and I didn't have to do a lot of searching for it. It's a Les Paul model from Epiphone, but it's their entry-level model, which is a good fit for newbies like me but most real guitarists would probably sneer at it. It has the shape and neck of a classic Les Paul, but the pickup switch is in the wrong place, and it's only got two knobs for pickup volume, missing the other two tone knobs that a standard one has.
Then again, a Les Paul is a Les Paul, so I get to play the same axe that gods like Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Pete Townsend, Slash and Randy Rhoads are often seen playing. It is one of the few iconic rock guitars.
My previous guitar experience was mostly with an acoustic I got in Olympia years and years ago. It was alright for its cheap price, but I couldn't play barre chords without buzzing, and its string height made for less than easy playing. Playing this is much easier, and when I use the amp, it sustains a note in a way I'd never experienced before - it's a whole different way of playing. Now I can play along to favourite songs and sound much closer to them.
Sarah and I have lots of practice ahead of us but today we had some fun with perhaps the most important part of guitar playing - which is of course getting our rock poses down.
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