Guitar
Beginnings
I was given violin lessons from about age 7 to 4th grade. When that ended somehow my dad and I got the idea of selling my violin and buying me an electric guitar. One day my dad came with with a black gig back containing a black Samick LK-35 HSS strat style electric guitar and a Dean M-16 practice amp. I remember my mom not being very enthused and saying that electric guitar was too easy.
Eventually I got started with guitar lessons with an instructor named Steve at Guitars & More in Greenwood, IN. I didn't have much familiarity with rock and other music featuring guitar at the time, and we started with the basics of open chords, picking, etc. After making our way through the book with basic tunes in it, he asked me if I wanted to just keep playing Yankee Doodle or learn some real music. Me being ignorant of any bands, he suggested I get a Green Day CD. That lasted until I had the bright idea of sharing the cool curse words I found in the lyrics with my parents. They weren't as enthused as me and after discussing with the guitar teacher, he suggested a Christian band called MXPX, which I didn't like nearly as much. Later I found some other bands I liked and attempted to learn their songs, especially Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, and Rush. I learned a lot from the lessons but in retrospect the instruction didn't go very deep in to understanding and mastering different songs, or maybe it did and my attention span wasn't up for it?
Around the turn of the millenium, it seemed time to upgrade my beginner guitar to something a little better. My dad traded my Samick guitar for an orange-colored Morgan Monroe Tempest, which was a copy of a Paul Reed Smith guitar featuring dual humbuckers and a set neck.
©1995 J.C.T. Wellman

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