I'm in Love...

I have the bug. I think I may have caught it from Jeff. But last Saturday when we went to Guitar Works so that Jeff could get a nut for one of the tuning pegs on his mandolin, I wandered into the room of acoustic guitars, and there it was:



A Blueridge Adirondack guitar. And what a honey.

Now, I would be lying if I told you that the magpie in me was not first attracted to the inlay on the headstock:



But I know by now that sparkles and sheen and mother of pearl and that spiffy dalmation tortoise pickguard do not matter if a guitar doesn't sound or play well.

So I picked it up and played a little, and I was swept off my feet. The tones were so round and mellow; the action was smooth and the neck was so playable... and, although it claims to be a dreadnought, the body is much smaller than my current acoustic: a Washburn D10S. That's one of the problems with the Washburn--I like it a lot, but it's so big that I can't really sit down and play it. And it's really loud--it tends to drown out Jeff's mandolin, even when I try to play softly. Apparently, the Blueridge is made in an old-fashioned, pre-war style. I was smitten.

And then I looked at the price tag. Not so bad, compared with what you would pay for a Martin or a Taylor, but still more than I've ever paid for any instrument for myself. I figured there was no way to justify buying it--after all, I have a perfectly fine (but big) guitar. Still, as I sighed to Jeff as we drove off to continue our Saturday errands (with a tip o' the hat to Hepburn and Grant), "My, she was yar."

So now, I'm thinking that despite all the economic uncertainty, despite the fact that it is a rather frivolous purchase when weighed against the downward spiral of our retirement accounts, despite the indisputable fact that I'm not a particularly accomplished musician, I want to buy this guitar. It is calling to me as no instrument has since I walked into House of Guitars in Rochester, NY, in 1979 and saw my short-scale Rick hanging there waiting for me...

Tomorrow I'm going to call Guitar Works and see if I can trade the Washburn in to get a bit of a break on the Blueridge. And then, I'm going to have to take my playing a little more seriously, with an instrument like this one!

So... this will stimulate the economy, right? It is my patriotic duty to buy this guitar, n'est-ce pas?