How do you recover from DAMAGING your guitar when you’re learning how to play? Do you cry? Mourn? Instead, check out this video to see how you can incorporate your guitar into your journey to fuel hours of practice and fun!
★ What kind of guitar player are you? How should you practice? Take our quiz today: https://tonypolecastro.com/
★ Get the show: https://tonypolecastro.com/get-acoustic-tuesday
Getting the motivation to practice can be extremely difficult. One of the best ways to help you find inspiration is to incorporate your guitar into your guitar journey. I know it sounds confusing, but bear with me…
Your acoustic guitar is a powerful instrument. Even if you’ve damaged, dinged, or dented it, your guitar tells a story. If you can incorporate that story into your guitar journey, your drive to create, play, and have fun will be so much higher!
There’s no better guitar I could think of to talk about this concept than my Martin 0M28 Marquis. I’ve banged it up quite a few times, but this Martin Guitar so intricately tied to my guitar journey that I’d never let those dents and dings tarnish my view of this beauty!
In addition to talking about my Martin Marquis, I’ll also let you in on my D’Addario Nickel Bronze review — and how those strings stack up with the Santa Cruz Parabolic Tension strings…
Finally, we’ll take a look at Third Man Records’ new release of vinyl titled “The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records.” It’s an incredible box set, and I’m so excited to share it with you!
As always, you can catch Acoustic Tuesday at 10 am every Tuesday in these four places:
In 1964 I worked at a music store in Van Nuys Ca: Adler Music. A tall handsome man walked in and said “I want a Gibson FJN”. The man, not known to me at that time, was 26 year old Hoyt Axton. I replied I don’t believe that model exists. He replied in his low voice “son it does and I want one”. I shuffled through papers and found that yes it’s a brand new model. It was ordered. On arrival I tuned it and was amazed: the folk era instrument that took over the west coast. “ I want one”. Mine arrived, I played it exclusively. A short 6 weeks later it was stolen along with my new Ode banjo. Two beautiful instruments gone! The FJN was only made from 1964 thru 1967. By then the folk era was changing.
Fast forward to 2011. My beautiful wife found a Gibson FJN in New York for almost 10 times what I had originally paid. $250.00 now $2,500.00. When the guitar arrived it took me only a short minute to realize that this was my original FJN from 1964. Several scars (still existing) on its spruce top were created by my Irish Setter’s paws. It’s over 50 year sabbatical is a mystery to me but the guitar is in fantastic condition in its original hard shell case.
I love the beautiful pair of my wife and my FJN.
During a particularly cold winter I burned the wood heater for 3 weeks with my favorite Tacoma guitar hanging on the wall about ten feet away.Not knowing what humidity or lack of correct humidity would do to wood at the time,one morning I took the Tacoma down off the wall to play and discovered to my shock and disbelief an 8″ long crack in the top between the bridge and the bottom of the lower bout.This guitar is like one of my children and I was broken hearted and didn’t quite know what to do.I started researching the effect of humidity on guitars and dug out an old Vicks humidifier from when my daughter was young and ordered a good quality hygrometer and when it arrived started keeping tabs on the room that my guitars live in.I now have a good humidifier and keep the room at a good balance for the guitars.I took the Tacoma to my repair tech and he made a repair that has lasted and I have to point out to people because he did such a good job,
This all taught me a lesson I won’t ever forget and helped put me on a road to learn more about guitars in general.
Omigod! I am so glad you got your guitar back!!! Destiny or what! Thanks for sharing that beautiful story!
Hi Tony,
I had a guitar wreck you might find interesting. I was looking for my first electric guitar in 2002 after moving to Minneapolis. I ended up buying a Parker Fly for about $2,500, which is the most I ever paid for a guitar at that time. I was very proud of it and thought it quite a stunning looking instrument. I enjoyed it for a couple of years and during the downturn of 2007 ran into some bad luck when I lost my wife, job, and house in rapid succession. As I had to move, I rented a storage unit for a lot of my stuff. One of the first questions I asked is whether the unit was climate controlled. They assured me all was well, and I deposited my excess baggage including a number of acoustic guitars along with my Parker. Fast forward about 3 years later…a friend called and asked if I wanted to get together to jam. I went over to my unit and grabbed a couple guitars including the Parker and proceeded to my friends place. After arriving at his house I needed to use the bathroom, but invited my friend to check out how pretty my Parker Fly was in the mean time. When I came back, my friend was looking at me with that: “Oh you poor bastard” look on his face, and there on his coffee table lay my Parker case with a totally destroyed guitar. Everything that was steel was encased in a thick ugly crust of rust. The strings had all broken long ago. The electronics had a white mineral, coating, and all the frets had fallen off (This is a composite black neck and body married to a beautiful mahogany body with glued on frets). When I picked it up, huge blisters under all the painted surfaces became apparent, and when I squeezed them water came shooting out. It was trashed to say the least. It took me a while to figure it out, but eventually it dawned on me what had happened. First of all, I found out later that the climate control in the storage unit in winter was more like 45 than the 65 degrees I had thought to be the case, but this was only part of the story. When I first took my Parker home, it had come with a large bag of silica gel to keep things dry during shipping (key phrase: “during shipping”). I figured, if the manufacturer put it in there, then it must be a good thing, right? Well it probably was – during shipping – but the purpose of a bag of silica gel is to keep things dry…and, how does it do that? It absorbs water. Therefore, if you keep a bag of silica gel around for an extended period it saturates and becomes a water soaked sponge. Since I had a large water source in a closed case in 45 degree temps, the water now condensed out onto everything with the result that everything rusted, corroded, and got under the paint. and/or broke. If you ever want to totally trash a perfectly good guitar, do this. Quite the mess. I sheepishly went home with my tail between my legs and was quite bummed as you might imagine. After awhile I realized that as an original owner I had a warranty and maybe I could prevail upon Parker to fix things up, or in the least get a good price on a rebuild. Long story short, I sent it off to Parker who replaced all the electronics and hardware under warranty which I found pretty nice. They would not repaint it though and there were some pretty serious blisters everywhere. Another couple years went by and I finally decided that I had to complete this project. Eventually I found a guy in Oregon who had experience with reworking Parkers. He did an absolutely fantastic job and the guitar looks like new. Interesting aside: I found out later that Parker actually was in the process of going out of business about the time they rebuilt my guitar, so I was lucky to get under the wire and have the original manufacturer repair it with factory parts. They ultimately sold to Godin and remained in Chicago as far as I know. That’s my riches to rags to riches story.
Keep up the great work, really enjoy your weekly show.
Tony, the only guitars I own which have dings are the ones I play 😉 Hey, it happens… and often early in the life of the instrument. I TRY to avoid them, but a ding or two over the years just reminds you that this is YOUR guitar.
BTW, I think I now prefer OM bodies to dreads. (Easier for me to play too, as I’m only 5’9″.)
I bought a D28 custom Martin with Madagascar back an sides with VTS Sitka spruce top this year April 2020. I had been playing it every chance I had indoors as well as out when on the porch or carport while my wife worked in her flowers and her outdoor living area I was playing learning and enjoying my
new guitar when a couple weeks after playing it I was wiping the fingerprints off the back an notice blistering all over the back an sides I could even feel them with my fingers they were like little pin pricks all over and even some on the top can you imagine the devastation the cake over me I had somehow destroyed this instrument that I’d dreamed about owning but not until this time in my 50 year old life could bring myself to purchase an now I have somehow damaged this beautiful finish to the point of disbelief. So after the shock wore off a few weeks later and after deliberating the possibilities of what could have caused this
I remembered a day on the porch I was playing or trying to let’s say but the biting flies were so aggravating that I went an got the bug spray
And sprayed myself down I wasn’t close to the guitar within 15 feet of it anyway so no worries
right never thought anymore about it until that fine misty looking blister bubbled up on the Martins lacquer finish anyway a month and 485.00 dollars later I got it back from Willcutt Guitar repair shop and they did a super job of wet sanding the finish back to clear jubilant
brilliance there’s only one little spot you have to look for to see the reminder that you don’t spray any and I repeat any kind of solvent or anything else in the same zip code of your guitar. I learned a lesson I don’t want anyone else to experience. Thanks Tony for your show and your love of all things acoustic. God Bless