Yourself?

In Love

I just bought myself a second hand Fender Stratocaster, and I'm very broke now, but it's worth it!
Because I'm absolutely in love with it. I can't help caressing it and playing on it. Was just listening to it through my favourite headphones, and it's like listening to that older wiser mself that I always thought i had.

There's something about music that moves me, and rationally, it just feels sounds so silly. How can a sound move someone? How can it evoke all sorts of emotions in a person if we've never heard that sound before... But I was out shopping for guitars the other day, and I just heard one or two that simply screamed buy me!!! Buy me!!! I don't know.. have you ever cried upon hearing a single note? I think I was the first one to just get stunned at Swee Lee.

There are just so many good guitars out there. So many different sounds that are just so moving. How can one find time to listen and appreciate them all? And in the sea of sounds, how does one find your own voice?

I heard three amazing sounds while guitar shopping. Four actually, but two of them were terribly similar. The first one I heard was the black Fender Stratocaster American Standard at Swee Lee. It's still available, but it's pretty expensive. This was the guitar that made me cry. Somehow just in that series of jazz chords, something shifted. Like I got drawn into the tone, and just got lost in my own thoughts for a second.

The second one was an original, worn 1962 Fender Stratocaster lying at Guitar Connection. I picked it up and just played a little series of chords, and the feel of that neck spoke volumes. Somehow it felt so exquisite that I didn't rush through my song, and played it gently, thoughtfully. It just gave a very solid, mature feel, even though the guitar body's paint was rubbed off at parts by normal wear and tear. Very clear, crisp precise sound. However, I didn't like the way the chords sounded, very thin and indistinct.

I chanced upon the third one by chance, when I was on the way back to pick up the guitar I finally bought, I played the guy's other collection of guitars, and there was this Tom Anderson guitar he had, with only 3 tones, but each tone was marvellous. The tone was beyond this world. Both clear and powerful at the same time. Soothing. It was a more Telecaster style body though, and hollow, so it probably won't have suited the genre of music I like to play. But the sound... oh the sound...

And the last is the guitar sitting in my room right now. I didn't like it at first. I thought it sounded really mainstream, and not as crisp and clear as I would have liked. Of course, the day before I played guitar two, which was beyond this world kind of expensive (the same price as a car), so it quite coloured my expectations of how a guitar should sound like. But I had a suspicion that the guy's equipment tended to colour the sound a little bit, so I bought it on a chance that I would grow to like it on my own equipment.

It doesn't have the complexity of the Tom Anderson (a sound which I still think about!) or the mature feel of the 1962 Strat, but then again, it's price wasn't as high as the both of them either. It has a nice tone, no doubt about it, and of course, it fits in with the newer genre of music, and it sings in it's own little way. It's a nice little voice, which will probably sound better after a few years of playing and a bit of wear and tear on it's body.

I don't believe in the taking care of objects with lots of wrap and skins and leather cases. I think everything in this world is designed to last with human use. Look at the pyramids, look at the antique guitars, violins.. (Pianos always sound worse with age. So do drums). It's really a lot of natural selection in action. With human use, the bad ones get weeded away over time. The good ones stay and leave their names as collectibles and treasures. And I've been lucky so far. My iPod, which has no case, no leather cover, has never broken down, while my brother's, which is stuck under layers of plastic and this cloth cover, has broken down twice. The guitars that I do like to play, never have any problems. It's the ones that i don't like to play that end up with the warped necks and stuff.

I look around my house and it's just such a waste. So many little things that I could simply do without. So few meaningful objects that I know I'll still have 20 years from now. I'll still have my teapots, my weiqi board, a box full of letters and maybe my fountain pens. But what else in my house will still be around and treasured by me in 20 years? What else will still mean something to me and make me cry?

I just bought a good friend today. I hope 20 years later, she'll be like the one I played in the shop. A rock within the seas of change.

posted by Downhere. @ 1:01 am