Exchanging the guitar

I exchanged the guitar.

The beautiful, beautiful gift that was given to me three months ago by my very cool, very wonderful church. The next time I play you will see a different guitar in my hands. Let me explain:

Shopping for a guitar is a very personal thing. It is extremely difficult to pick a guitar for another person. Even so, I loved the 714 the I received. They tried everything to get the information from me without my knowing it. They even had my brother call me with a hidden agenda of extracting information from me, what guitars I was looking at, what my next purchase would be, etc.

It was all very well done, I was blown away and completely surprised. The guitar that I had played at the guitar store and loved, they bought for me. There was only one problem. Had I known I was actually shopping for a guitar and not just dreaming, I would have put a whole lot more effort into it. I only played 2 or 3 guitars before I settled on liking the 714. If I actually had the money to spend, I would have driven to the larger acoustic store in Lansing and played more like 15 or 20 of them.

Which is what I eventually did.

The 714 is a beautiful guitar with a to die for tone. The only problem is that it is a fairly small guitar, and small guitars don't react well to being hit hard. When you strum a smaller bodied guitar hard, it doesn't respond with more energy or a fuller tone. In fact, the tone kind of falls flat when you hit it harder than it was designed for. The smaller guitar is even designed only for light gauge strings, instead f the mediums I am used to playing on.

And who are we kidding - I'm never really going to be able to not hit a guitar hard.

There was a moment when I was playing the 714 at the baptism picnic when it was just me and the guitar and I listened to it and thought, "something is missing here." There was just a fullness missing from the tone when I played it the way I was used to.

This sent me on the trek to Lansing to Elderly instruments where I played an 815 that I just fell in love with. It has the big body, big tone I was looking for. Back to Guitar Center in Grand Rapids to return the 714 (within the 30 days I had to return it). The guy that sold the guitar in the first place somehow managed to talk me in to ordering an 815 through him. Probably because he almost matched the 714 price and let me keep it until the 815 came in.

The only problem was that there weren't any in stock... anywhere. This meant that Taylor would have to build me a brand new one, and that would take about 3 months.

I'm happy to tell you that 3 months are over, and the new 815 is here. I just picked it up Monday and have yet to put it down:) The big sound is there, but the feel of it is so much smoother and quicker than my old 310, it is a little slice of guitar heaven to play it.

When I hit the chord now, there is just a moment where it feels like, "Ah. That's what a guitar ought to sound like." Not to mention the thing is just beautiful to look at.

For those who might sit in church on Sunday and think, "Hey, that looks like a different guitar," that is why.

For those who would never have noticed anyway... Never mind:)