Introducing : José

Say hello to my six stringed friend. Observe the omission of the word ‘new’. It is indicative of the fact that this particular instrument in question is not a brand new one. This is not to say that it is something that has been handed down several generations either. No, that’s something Ed gave me once he got bored with it. Evidently he was overtaken by a sudden, but temporary, urge to fill the musical void in his life with something substantial.

José, as I like to call it/him, is a rather standard Givson (no, not Gibson, it’s Givson) large bodied guitar. Ed bought it for around Rs. 3,500 from the New Bharat Music House in Lajpat Nagar. He also took classes for a month, and was planning on learning Spanish guitar. Hence the Hispanic name – José. But since I haven’t really seen much in the likes of qualities such as persistence and follow through in him. So it was no real surprise when the instrument was stored away. This was, of course, more than an year ago. It has gathered dust for a while. Since then, the guitar has journeyed to Thane, one of the suburbs of Mumbai, where it gathered some more dust.

Finally, it’s back here. And by Jove, I intend to make the most of it! I’ve managed to lay my hands on a 20 DVD set called Learn & Master Guitar by Steve Krenz. I haven’t made appreciable progress thus far – still working on loosening up my stubby fingers, but it seems to be a rather nice substitute for a real teacher. It’s got lessons, extra workshops, reading material, jam CDs – the whole lot. I might do a review of it once I’m done with the course, and receive some feedback on my guitar playing. Right now, I’m just trying to work my fingers to the bone.

Of course, this having been handled by my brother, the fretboard seems a bit off angle and there are a couple of dents and scratches. But nothing too serious. Tuning this thing of course takes a great deal of patience. At first, I tuned by ear to the tuning video that was part of the video lessons. Then, I tried tuning just the low E from the video ear, and then tuning the subsequent by fingering the fourth fret of the previous string, but even that didn’t go 100% as per plan. Eventually, inspired by Rishabh, I decided to go for a mobile app which would make my phone double up as an electric guitar tuner. Found a decent app for my Symbian smartphone, but I can’t find the link to the tuner right now. But it did help me set it up beautifully.

And FYI, I do tend to name all my stuff. For a full listing, you may contact me at “mail [at] vivekn [dot] net”