It's out of hand really. My infatuation with guitars is ongoing and quite pleasurable. It is my meditation or certainty the most meditative activity I have ever unintentionally meditated into. My collecting has altered over the years. When I first started I was buying what intrigued me as a neophyte. An Epiphone Jumbo; a Yamaha 12 a laminated Mahogany Washburn. My ears were not trained. I have played for years but my ability to hear and absorb tone and clarity was an afterthought. Now it is a post thought. I am prepared and attuned. My hand immediately judges the depth and width of a neck. My right arm finds itself comfortable or awkward as it sits on the lower bout and I begin to pick and/or strum. The sounds drift up and I know that what I hear isn't what someone in front of me hears but as I do not perform...so who cares.As I dig deeper into the mysteries of guitars I find myself fascinated by the fact that some of them are mysteries. I have this guitar which has the name "Boston" on the headstock. If I do a search using the terms "Boston" and "Guitar" I usually get information about the band Boston or various Boston based music stores. I have come across a "Boston" brand guitar that is only sold in England (so far) but the one shown is just a basic laminate Dread. Which is not to insult that breed. I have also learned that you can't generalize about guitars. One laminate top is not the same as another just as one solid top is not the same as another. Wood is just too variable as people are variable and as the guitars are made of wood from here and there and from different trees absorbing different nutrients from different soils every guitar will be slightly different. Not that makers have not striven for uniformity and predictability. Ovation did it with those aluminum neck Applause guitars in the late seventies and the various carbon acoustic makers (Rainsong, Composite Acoustics and more) certainly attempt it now. I have a great fondness for the Composite Acoustic sound but that is a topic reserved for the future. So this Boston guitar is a schizo thing. Not an acoustic electric but with a cutaway. Relatively intricate trimming but lower end tuners that I replaced last week because of a few too many rattles. It has a pickguard that seems almost Tolkien-esque in its odd shape and color. I have searched friends and the guitar does not exist anywhere else but in my "guitar room". I am probably wrong. There must be another mustn't there? It might have been a prototype but how do I find out? Beats the shit out of me it does. It sounds fine. Not magnificent but fine and it may be an illusion. I have written in other places and at other times that I was in a serious car wreck many years ago and have thought, now and then, that I am in a coma somewhere and this life has been an unconscious hallucination. The "Boston" guitar may be some sort of shaky proof of this possibility.
Then there is the Chenault. (Gesundheit). Once again the amount of information available about the brand is next to nil. More that what there is about the Boston but a more mysterious compilation of statement. One fellow out there in the digital universe says they are made in Tennessee. If they are I can't find out a damn thing about them. Another biped says he bought one from someone on a a Mexican street. Odd. Someone else said he bought one in England. Probably at the same store that carries Boston guitars. This one, the Chenault (Gesundheit) is quite something. A perfect size neck for my hands. A burst finish that is better and more attractive than any other I've seen. Expensive and well made tuners. A delightful action. A wonderful sound. The thing about the brand is that even though the name is almost non-existent the design of the logo and the choice of typeface and how it is all put together is quite attractive. Not thrown together in some helter skelter attempt to put some name at the top of the headstock or to imitate Martin. It is a first rate guitar. The sound and quality of finish and playability are splendid BUT once again I can find no info about the brand. I can't even be sure where it comes from put I have a feeling (which is the name of a guitar brand from China) that it isn't Tennessee.
What I have learned in my years of collecting and buying and selling and collecting and buying and selling is that there is an infinite variance to guitars. Not one is the same as another. In addition price and parts is not always a simple way of determining sound and playability. I have another acquisition. A Harmony Marquis H370. maybe from the 1970s. It has a laminate top and laminated backs and sides and open tuners and all in all it is not composed of selected super duper selected woods and assembled by artisans who used to work with Michelangelo when he was building guitars. Yet, with all that the guitar isn't it plays wonderfully and sounds just fine...thank you. Not that Villette guitars (ooo I love them) or Lowdens are not a trip and a half to play but price is not the only factor. There is an infinite variability to guitars from the same plant constructed on the same day. I love that aspect of this hobby of mine. I do love guitars.
That's all for now kids. Thanks for joining me here in the peanut gallery.
