Friday Oct 16 I got an email from my 306 prof suggesting I bring my guitar to one of the music supply stores to have them restring it for me. I was able to borrow a vehicle so I could make the trip between my morning class and my music class. I walked in the store and went to the first employee I saw and explained to them that I was new to playing the guitar and wanted help restringing the high E string. 

That is when the employee took one look at the guitar and told me it wasn’t just the string that was broken. They took the guitar from me to have a closer look at it. Since their back was turned to me I couldn’t really see what they were doing other than loosening the strings with some kind of tool, and then inspecting the area where the neck joins the body of the guitar. 

 

 

 

Then they turned towards me to explain that two of the screws that hold the neck to the body of the guitar were not working. The employee suspected that since there was a different tension on the string when I was tuning the guitar compared to the tension when pressing on the fretboard and that was the reason my string snapped. Looking at the guitar I could see exactly what they were talking about and I was surprised that I hadn’t noticed earlier. However, now I was stuck with a broken guitar instead of a broken string. I didn’t have time to do much else at the store and since I was borrowing the guitar from someone I didn’t leave it at the store to get repaired. So despite my efforts I had a five string guitar for the class.

 

After my class I was able to chat with my prof about the situation. It was then that they suggested that my frustrations with playing the guitar might stem from using a defective instrument. Which would make sense given that the neck of the guitar wobbles quite a bit. It could explain why I thought the sounds I was producing were off despite having just tuned the guitar. At that point we made a plan for me to get an instrument from MERR and stop by their office for some coaching.

 

I had mixed feelings about switching instruments at that point but I didn’t have much of a choice because I definitely couldn’t keep using the guitar I have. I picked up a rental acoustic guitar from MERR and went to see my prof. It was great to have some in person feedback on tuning, hand placement/shape, and general tips on ways to practice. 

 

After that I started feeling much better about my guitar learning journey. Yes I had spent time playing an instrument that wasn’t working properly but the chords and strumming are the same and transferring that to an acoustic guitar has been okay despite the size (a big part of my reluctance to start with the acoustic). Even with the rollercoaster of emotions I was finally seeing some improvement and have been steadily working towards my midterm goals.

Until next time!