I bought a guitar on Friday. This is no ordinary, straight out-of-the-box, ready to play thing. Nope, it’s knackered. I bought a knackered guitar? Why the buggeration? Well, because I wanted the challenge of fixing it up. It has no electronics, no bridge, no scratch plate and the machine heads are really loose. The neck is in good shape, but the paintwork on the body is shoddy.

I plan on upgrading as much as I can and keeping some vintage. It was made in 1996, and I should tell ya, it’s a Squier Bullet Stratocaster. It seems like pretty good wee piece of kit. Okay, so I’m going to have to brush up on some stuff, like wiring, but as I said, I’m up for the challenge.

The thing is, I don’t know if, once I finish it, I would want to keep it or sell it. I think that I’d like to keep it because it is my first proper guitar project. Yeah, I’ve upgraded both my bass’, but those were pretty simple.

I know that when I was upgrading my guitars, I really enjoyed it. I like the feeling of planning something, executing the plan and then sitting back with a smug smile on, as I’ve just realised a goal.

It has always been a goal of mine to fix or even build a guitar for myself. I’ll get around to the building eventually, but for now, fixing will do. I do fear that I will get addicted, though, and that’s an expensive hobby. That project guitar brings the total to two basses, one bass neck, an acoustic, two electric guitars, a banjo and a ukulele, and I do play most of them on a regular basis. But anyway, I’ve always been interested in fixing things. You name it, I’ll try to fix it. Sometimes I’ll even break it, so I can fix it, or will it to break, just so I can take it apart and look inside.

I don’t know if this is a common thing among people who like fixing things, you know, technically minded folk, but I do know a couple of people who are like this, so I’m going to hazard a guess at it being a common thing. Hell, why not? Every other statistic is just made up on the spot! And that’s a real, true statistic. You know it is because I said it and what I say goes.

It goes, it goes!
You knows, you knows!
It goes around,
like a giant cloud.

Oh cloud, you’re cute,
though you are mute,
but not for long:

Here comes thunder!
It’ll pull us under.
Oh, damn, what a blunder.

Thunder came around,
like cheese by the pound.
Where’s this going?
Around and around!

Yeah, so that was something like a poem, but I dunno. Whatever. Maybe I could set it to music, though I’m actually not that good at playing. Yes, I admitted it, I’m not a very good player. I’m not ashamed, but I am trying to improve. I still prefer to fix guitars, but I suppose in order to test them properly, I should at least re-learn some scales.

I taught myself scales and a few other things, mostly tricks, just by watching other guitarists and reading books and practising until I hated it, then practising some more, until I loved it again.

Repetition is important for learning. You start learning, you repeat the procedure, you get it wrong, you start again, learning from your mistake. It’s a tried-and-tested method, and it should be practised more. I’m aware that people learn in different ways, but the repetition method works almost all the time for almost everyone.

I’ve been missing learning. Not really been doing much of it, really. Dunno why, but I suppose I just got lazy. Still, this new guitar of mine seems to have stimulated my yearning for learning, and my pining for rhyming, though that didn’t strictly rhyme. What a pity.

A pity, indeed,
is the fact that this deed,
this musing, you see,
is now D.E.A.D.
Dead, I said,
but I never meant dead,
just at an end,
a conclusion, if you will,
so, you know, just chill!

Kittylove
Andrew =^.^=