I still don't know what to call it. Last week I had yet another reprise of telling a young guitarist that it's time for a new axe. In this case, my student has outgrown the Little Martin she's been playing for a couple years. She grew a lot over the summer and when we resumed lessons, I realized that the Little Martin was now, a travel size guitar for her, not the right size for her to play regularly anymore. When I brought it up, she wasn't as enthused as I'd hoped she would be. This is a student I have always seen respond to new and different with eager delight. At first I was a bit surprised, but after I thought about it, I realized that despite her tender age, she loves her guitar. It was her first guitar and the instrument she held and heard every time she played, since the very beginning. I was viewing it as a temporary measure, but it has become as intimate a part of her musical expression as any adult's beloved instrument.
I'm not big on anyone playing a guitar that doesn't fit them. That usually means that someone has a guitar that is too big either in body, neck length or neck width. But in this case the old faithful friend has become a liability because it's too small. My student is still what I'd classify as petite, so this week, I took my acoustic electric when I taught her. I wanted to satisfy myself, that the correct acoustic electric will fit her, if the bout is the proper dimension. I also wanted to whet her appetite for an additional guitar, not a replacement, because her Little Martin can never be replaced.
My scheme was highly successful. (I haven't been doing this for decades without learning something about my students' human nature, as well as their musical gifts.) I had her play her warm ups on my guitar. She didn't have any trouble. I thought she would want to play her lesson on her guitar, since she practiced on it, but when I asked for mine back, she wanted to continue playing it . By the time I left, she was looking forward to a new guitar, but she sharply told her mother that she will never part with the Martin. I chimed in that it would be the perfect travel guitar for her.
We get so attached to our instruments. I know I do. Not in the material sense, but I think it's the intimacy. I have commented about this before - probably in a podcast: At one time, I had a student who loved music and particularly the guitar. He was an exceedingly serious musician, and I would probably still have him as a student if his wife didn't have chemistry issues with him whenever we had lessons. I taught him for several years. During one of his lessons, I took his guitar to demonstrate something for him. At the time he was playing the same make and model guitar that I played. Although the guitar builder was the same man and the instrument's dimensions were identical to the guitar that I played every day, it felt totally foreign to me. In fact, it was almost confusing to play because it looked like my axe, but it didn't feel like it nor sound like it. I never had that experience when playing guitar models I didn't own. Since that shocker, I have tried to express that connection as being almost spiritual. Not in a religious way, but rather like an unexplainable connection. The more you play, the more that axe becomes an extension of you. It can't be an extension, if it isn't part of you.
If it's time for you or a loved one to update or upgrade their guitar, because of damage, fit or genre, see that it gets done. It's a good thing.
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