When I got there they were filming for some reason. So I had to move out of their shots. They said they weren't filming audio and all the film crew's women and even some of the guys were going gaga over my playing. This hot black woman kept smiling at me and this one dude said I was amazing. Talk about high praise! I felt really good about myself. Not to mention the fact that girls with their boyfriends kept looking my way. When you're a good guitar player people sure notice you. But you wanted to know about the gear right?
I played three guitars. I plugged in a Steve Vai Ibanez Jem model into a Fender Deluxe amp and fired it up. A little out of tune but nothing a few tweaks of the knob couldn't fix. I played a bit of Four on Six by Wes Montgomery and went into some extended jazz soloing. My bebop licks have definitely improved through the last two years studying jazz on my own. Because I couldn't figure out how to get a heavy metal sounding gain through the Fender amp I only played clean stuff on the Jem. It works great as a jazz guitar surprisingly. I asked a guitar staffer about how to get a rockish sound out of a Fender amp and he couldn't figure it out for the life of him. They really don't know their stuff at Guitar Center when it comes to gear. Eventually he gave up and told me to try out a Peavy or Line 6 Spider-amps that I'm not fond of.
The second guitar I played was an Ibanez 7-string with a slanted neck. It was weird trying to get used to the slanted neck but I managed to blast out a few interesting djent riffs, chugging on the bottom strings. The Peavy amp did sound great for this guitar so the staff did have a good recommendation there. I'm a lot better at metal stuff on the 'ol six-string twanger. But I'm definitely down to play more seven-string in the future.
The last guitar I played was a Grestch hollow-body with a bigsby bridge and whammy bar (wang bar). This was by far the best guitar I played and sounded the best for my style-which lately has been straight ahead jazz and bebop with some strong neoclassical influence. This guitar just sounded amazing even using the Peavy-on a clean setting of course. The high light was playing Fly Me to the Moon, Mr. Sandman, and improvising some solos. The tone sung sweetly like an angel. It was beautiful. I liked it so much that I'm thinking of going back and picking it up next month for my birthday.
By this time I had played well over an hour and I was moderately loud. None of the staffers ever said anything even though the place was hella busy with all kinds of people shopping and getting helped by salesmen. I guess when you're good nobody ever has a need to tell you to turn down.
They restrung my Hagstrom and did a good job. They cleaned it up for me too so now its all sparkly. As good as I am at guitar and all the compliments and good vibes I got I realize as a musician that I still have a long way to go. We're always striving to become better musicians. You never stop growing or evolving. My plan is to keep working on jazz standards and memorize at least twenty or thirty tunes from memory and be able to play them in public. I could play outside on an acoustic in public places and have a case laid out for cash. This would be a lot easier than forming a band and having to find a venue to play and practice-all that rigmarole. I just want to keep getting better and loving what I do. I'll let you know when I'm playing live somewhere. Until then I'll be woodshedding standards.
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