String Section

Music is my boyfriend. There was a time that music was the most important thing in my life. All of my savings went to buying records. All of my spare time was practicing instruments or playing in various school bands. My first job was teaching guitar at the Ontario Conservatory of Music. I lacked the drive, confidence and focus to become a rock star but over the years I’ve accumulated many musical instruments. I still like to play them. I should try and practice every day, just like I practice my writing with this blog or draw in my sketchbooks.

Today I decided to take an inventory of all my instruments and catalogue them in the blog. There are a lot. I will break them up into several different posts. I’ll start with the stringed instruments because I am more proficient at them. Especially the bass guitar. I identify as a bassist.

I also enjoy playing the guitar. We have three of them. Two classical and an electric. My finest guitars is this Takeharu that I found abandoned on the sidewalk.Takeharu was a relatively short-lived Japanese brand that had its heyday in the 1970s. I believe this one dates to the 1980s because when I rescued it, it was lodged in between a stack of yearbooks and textbooks from that era.

Mr. Andrew bought me this Jay Turser many years ago. One of the goals of this blog is to do have a digital place where I can store and reference my research into the things that interest me. I have gotten a little lazy on the research end of things. I don’t know much about Jay Turser except that the brand started in the 1980s, has gone through many owners, and is considered a good but not great guitar.

More recently (but still years ago), I bought Mr. Andrew this CF Martin Sigma guitar for his birthday. This is also considered a good value proposition

I found this ukelele in a free box on the side mart.

I bought this ukelele when I was working the overnight shift as an assistant editor. I worked alone and spent most of my time logging tapes. Learning an instrument kept me company.

And this is my grandfather’s ukelele. I come from musical people. If I won the lottery, I would spend all my money making a self-produced vanity record for sure.

The most challenging stringed instrument to learn was/is this Mandolin. I got it for free because the neck had been repaired. I can pick out a few tunes on it but I’m still in a learning curve.