Does This Guitar Make My Ass Look Big?

Okay, first a correction - contrary to what I had printed in the previous piece, the guitar is a true semi hollow body with a block running down the center third of the guitar - and I suspect the block is solid...from tailstrap button to headstock.

And then there's this...
"So I have a new tool. Why does this one fit better, feel better, make me play a bit better?

I guess a carpenter may have a favorite awl with which he can get a better line. I don't worship my tools, but I am regaining a sense of attachment for the tools that make me a better craftsman."

In a fit of clarity, I saw the truth of the words. This tool fits my hand better. Fits my body better. These are aspects that draw me to a guitar and tell me that this is the one. 

But, how does it sound you ask. Sounds? I sound like me. I have my own voice. A sax player on a six stringed wooden approximation.

So it is not the pickups nor the pots and capacitor inside that make a guitar mine.

It certainly is not the looks; I am not enamored of the top...maybe later that will enter the picture. The shape is, I don't know..."stylized." It doesn't look quite real.


There I was sitting, watching television when I perched the bottom of the guitar on my knee and I held the neck canted about forty five degrees vertical.

It fits me. 
This just sits against my body in the most perfect way, whether I am standing or seated. Even if I am not striking a classical pose - the guitar fits. 
And the neck? It is glass. Fender necks are coated and glossy, but this neck is different in that the frets seem to be one with the fretboard.
Running my finger up and down the neck feels like a memory of skipping along a wet street. When the street and the sky and six year old e were one. Every move was poetry...even if the truth was "slightly" different, that's the way it felt.


Waxing poetic? Yeah, I guess so.
I haven't felt like this since I was 16 and cradling my new Stratocaster. Then, the aesthetics were important, now they aren't. Then, fit had nothing to do with it, now it is everything.


What did the ad say? "Like an old pair of jeans..."
This guitar fits.

Tools of the Trade

Some people view guitars as works of fine sculpture or furniture or even art. They polish and preen and spend hours looking at and photographing their babies. My guitars are tools. My fingers are the magical things that make the sound that is my voice. Or rather, the connection from brain to fingers. But in any case, not matter what guitar I play, it always sounds like me.

I took a bunch of pedals I had not used in a very long while and made a trade that resulted in this.

A PRS - Paul Reed Smith - or as I have dubbed it, Pacific Rim S'mojo.
PRS are known for quality of construction, use of fine woods and craftsmanship. Frankly I think them way overblown. They are very nice guitars. But still, they are just a tool to be used.

However, some tools just fit your hand better than others. When that happens you find the sweet spot quicker, hit fewer poor notes, generally play better. It may be a placebo effect...I dunno.

When I try a guitar for the first time I will sit it upon my knee in a classical stance. The lower edge of the body on my knee, the neck canted at a sharp angle upwards. My Jaguar was very comfortable this way - an offset guitar. My teles, not so much. Even the Vox, which is technology personified is not cut out for play in this fashion.
I sat in the store and jammed with Robben Ford; it quickly became apparent the guitar was very comfortable. It fit my hands well.

It has some nods to technology - the inverse heel joint like that on the Vox, so access to the upper frets is easy. It also sports retro touches? Why a wrap around bridge/tailpiece? I do like fewer holes on the body, fewer pieces of metal...it feels cleaner to my picking hand, fewer things to "run" into on the way to adjust a knob.

It is "semi-hollow." How they decided upon this, I'll never know. It is solid except for the third of the body above the pickups. Most semi hollows are hollow with a block of wood in the middle that acts as both brace and filler - it kills feedback from which most hollowbodys suffer.
This carve allows for a resonance not found in a solid hunk of guitar. The guitar feels as though it is about to start feedback anytime now...anytime now. Thankfully, it never does.

Issues - The cats eye F hole has two burrs that should have been sanded or removed. And in a nod to Fender, it seems PRS will use whatever parts are laying about. In pictures I have seen yellow knobs, red knobs, zebra bobbins for the pickups and different colored pickup rings.
The wood itself? A mahogany guitar with a maple cap - with a flame maple veneer. Does that qualify as a laminate? The veneer is about 1/32 thick and easily visible in the F hole.
Make no mistake - perfect these things are not. But a very nice Korean made guitar, it is indeed.

So I have a new tool. Why does this one fit better, feel better, make me play a bit better?
I guess a carpenter may have a favorite awl with which he can get a better line. I don't worship my tools, but I am regaining a sense of attachment for the tools that make me a better craftsman.