All strung up! (Not the Christmas tree...)

I love Tuesdays. It was an extra special one for me today because I strung up my fourth guitar and heard the first notes emerge from its soundhole. I think that is a really special thing to hear, because just a second ago, it was just wood glued together in a specific manner and now it is doing something. Making sounds! Music!

It was a long, and sometimes stressful, road to get to this day but the excitement of twisting the tuners and finding the E,A,D,G,B, and E for each string respectively is exhilirating. Like Christmas. I am sure it would be more exciting if I could play better, but it is still a neat feeling for me. I stroked a few chords on the new guitar, and thought, "Hm, that sounds pretty good I guess." Then my dad took it and actually played it and I thought, "Well ok, when you put it that way...." I am so pleased with the sound, and that is such a scary thing since I have worked for a month on something and who knows how it will turn out until after all of that labor.

Of course there were a fair amount of mistakes along the way. For example, Herb was looking everything over, testing the action and set of the neck and suggested that the truss rod be tightened just a bit. Well...thanks to his comment I remembered I hadn't even attached the knobby onto the end of the truss rod that does such things. And also, somewhere along the way we made a pretty significant ding in the finish that I only discovered after my dad mentioned it. No one has any recollection of hitting it on anything so that is still a mystery, though the general blame has been directed toward Harper. (I am sure she is not the culprit.) Bottom line, there was a large ding in the side of my brand new guitar and the hike in my blood pressure was palpable. I started scrubbing on it with a little bit of 2000 grit sandpaper before my dad got a hold of it because I left to help set up for dinner. Several minutes later, as we all sat down to some delicious vegetable soup that Jean Callison brought over, my dad said, "I will give you fifty cents if you can find that scratch." So. I love him.

At the end of the day, I am really excited to say that this guitar sounds wonderful and even though the full body Koa OM is still my favorite guitar I have made, this one is a very very close second. Maybe it is a tie. I wish the bearclaw in the top would show up in pictures the way it gleams in the light when you look at it in person. I wish you could hear the bold notes that come from its modest body. Well, just stop on by and see it. Or better yet, listen to Juniper Green, my cousin Matt's band because with any luck he will still be playing this guitar when he is super famous.

Testing her out.

Me with Harrol and Herb.