my first guitar

i suppose i should start off by saying that my music lesson blog entries may include notes about guitar as well as piano from here on out. after playing around with craig's ibanez electric guitar for several days i decided to get my own. in fact, he returned his and bought a different one, too. an upgrade, basically.

i went with a fender stratocaster (mexican made). it's blue with a white pick plate. not only is it a beauty, but it plays and sounds awesome, too. once i tweak it a bit for my playing preference i think i will love it even more. the action (string height) is too high, so i'm having it lowered this week. i'm always very excited to get a new music instrument. while i've owned several iterations of a piano/keyboard, this is a first for me. to say i'm on a high right now is an understatement.

the guitar that craig bought was also one of my choices. it's another ibanez (part of their RG series). it came set up with a very low action and slightly lighter (thinner) strings than my strat. thinking back, i'm not sure why i chose the strat over the rg ibanez; i would've been happy with the ibanez's factory set up. but i do like how clean the strat sounds and how it feels in my hands. which is why i think with some tweaking it will be my preferred guitar. i can always play craig's and he can always play mine. that's one cool advantage to buying two different guitars; they each differ in pick ups and sound.

so far all i've really learned is how to play the opening riff of 'smoke on the water' (deep purple). i'm looking forward to tonight's lessons so that i can not only learn something new for piano but also for guitar. after practicing guitar for less than a week, i have already noticed improvement. i told craig last night (after playing my strat for a bit), "i can do this. give me a few months and i'll be playing guitar."