I’ve been whacking away at the guitar since I was kid. Back then I took classical lessons and even played with my father at a local guitar society a few times. I probably wasn’t any good, but it was fun. I never really learned any music theory though which, I’m sure, hampered me later on. I switched to folk guitar which, as it turns out, wasn’t for me either. In my teens I begged for an electric and ended up with a pretty unplayable guitar from Sears. That was basically it for me guitar-wise.
I’d picked up mandolin a couple of years back and had intended to learn and jam with the local bluegrass society. They immediately stopped their weekend jams in my neighborhood and moved far enough away that it’s too big a hassle to attend…so much for that.
I also have a pretty nice ukulele around, but everyone in Hawaii has one of those – state law I think.
In short, over the years I’ve generally had a something around the house to noodle with a bit here and there — but never seriously. In other words, I have failed to enlarge my musical life as it were.
Still it’s always been a draw and about a month ago I got much more serious about learning to play something, anything really. I decided that fingerpicking blues was a good idea because I do truly love the sound. It took a week or so to get my thumb moving independently, and, while I’m not as good or fast as most, I can keep it going while I pick out melodies now. My callouses have built up a bit so it doesn’t hurt and, most importantly, I’m having fun.
That leads me to Black Friday. My local music shop, Easy Music Center, was having a sale. For those who don’t know, Easy Music Center is a locally owned music shop (actually a couple of them) that, IMHO, does a great job and has great prices. I purchased my GString Ukulele there as well as a variety of small things over the past couple of years. I’m not a prolific customer, but they are always my first stop when I’m out fishing around.
To make a long story short, they were offering an extra 10% off most everything, including sale items, on Black Friday between 8am and 11am. I work about a two blocks from the store so I had to check it out. I ended up with an electric guitar. Silly me.
Apparently over the years low end musical instruments have really improved. When I was a kid low end electrics (and acoustics) were basically dogs. Nowadays it seems that even low end stuff is fairly playable. Thus it’s possible to give something a try, like an electric guitar, to see if it’s for you before dropping big bucks – and, perhaps even instead of big bucks.
What did I get? The best deal in the place that Friday morning seemed to be an Epiphone Special II Les Paul player pack. These have apparently been discontinued (not the guitar, just the pack) but they listed at $432 as far as I can tell. Normally, of course, they sell for far less, I’ve seen $199-$259 at online dealers that still have them. My deal? $108. That was just too good to pass up. And I didn’t.
And, having done no research it seems I got lucky. The Special II is not a bad guitar. Obviously it’s not a great guitar, but it is definitely playable. I did have to adjust the bridge height a wee bit as the bottom E buzzed like mad, but that turned out to be easy and didn’t mess up the intonation – lucky me. The sound is pretty good from the 10w amp that came with the package.
Keep in mind, I am not a guitar player. I noodle at best. Thus spending $108 on something that I can actually make a nice sound from is a steal. That old Sears guitar I had as a teen probably cost $79 or something (in 1972 dollars) and was basically impossible to play.
My favorite review of this guitar came from the SwedishGuitarNerd on YouTube:
I’ve no personal plans on playing publicly so don’t ask – not that I suspect you will. 🙂
The only other black friday purchase I made was the front rack for my Bike Friday…not quite as interesting perhaps, but probably much more useful in the long run.
Aloha!
Slower, cheaper, less useful…
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