Guitar

My trusty Gibson Dove.

I bought it in Seattle in 1996, part of our big "Anchorage to Seattle" adventure. Four weeks on the road: 2 crashes, 1 bear (dead) and a moose on the runway later I bought this guitar on a whim. It cost me $1600 at the time which took me nearly a year to pay off!

This guitar is part of our family as much as the kids are. It features in many picture of our children when they were babies. Just there, in the background. See? There exists just the one picture of me playing it, the one C. took: me, sitting in the shop window in Seattle trying it out.

I have a love-hate relationship with it. Sometimes it sounds great, sometimes it just doesn't. I think that has more to do with me to be honest. If I don't feel well, the tunes are harder to find. When I'm feeling good, the music is good. It's a strange thing, because at the end of the day it's a bit of wood with some high-tension steel wires strung across it, nothing more.

Recently my hands and fingers are finding the same chords, the same progressions, the same tunes. Nothing is new anymore and inspiration is hard to find. In an attempt to re-ignite my interest in playing guitar I've retuned it to EADEAE, a tuning made popular by folk legend Martin Carthy.

Early results have been disappointing, but there's no rush.

So. There it is. My guitar. Blip 101.

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