Martin Guitars on Order
Because my Hamblin SJ has too much sentimental value to risk using it as my workhorse guitar, one of the first things I decided to do after recommitting myself to playing fingerstyle guitar was to look into acquiring some new acoustics.
I had three main requirements for a new guitar: it would have to be a small-bodied guitar that would be comfortable to play for extended periods, it would have to have a 1.75" nut width in order to give me the wider string spacing I prefer for fingerstyle playing, and it would have to have a longer scale length to accommodate the dropped tunings I use without losing too much string tension.
Fortunately, Martin makes a couple of small-bodied guitars that are a perfect match for my needs: the OM-28 and the 000-15SM. Both feature a body with a 15" width and 4" depth that make them extremely comfortable to play—and while many Martins are available with a 1.75" nut width, only a few models combine that with a longer (25.4") scale length since the shorter scale is more common on Martin's 000 models (as well as on most other popular brands' small-bodied guitars).
In addition to having the preferred dimensional specifications, the OM-28 pairs a sitka spruce top with rosewood back and sides—a classic combination that provides clarity and volume with the warm low end and rich trebles you'd expect from a Martin guitar. It sounds terrific when strummed or flatpicked, but fingerstyle is where it truly shines.
The 000-15SM, on the other hand, is an all-mahogany 12-fret guitar that has a slightly elongated body and a satin finish. These features make it very responsive and results in a guitar that sounds much bigger than it is. I used a very similar 000-15S (as it was known at the time) as my main songwriting guitar back in the early 2000's when I was composing the tunes that would end up on the
Solo Guitar album.
Over the next several weeks, I'll be selling off more of my electric guitars and gear in order to purchase a couple more of these Martins, since I've always preferred to have dedicated guitars set up for specific tunings. Having a pair of each of these models will allow me to keep one tuned to DADGAD and one tuned to CGCGCD (the other tunings I use are minor variations of these two).
The very first acoustic guitar I ever bought with my own money (back in high school) was a brand new 1987 Martin Shenandoah 2832 that was my pride and joy during my formative years as a guitar player. I've played and owned many, many different acoustics in the (nearly) 40 years since then, but as I've gotten older I've developed a renewed appreciation for the traditional aesthetics and classic tones of Martin guitars.
Return to Acoustic Fingerstyle Guitar
If you stumbled upon my website in the past few years, chances are pretty good you were interested in my acoustic fingerstyle guitar music, and may have been surprised to find that the site was mostly focused on electric guitars.
To make a long story as short as possible, back around 2010 I took a lengthy hiatus from playing acoustic fingerstyle guitar. It was intended to be a short break—I was going through a period of burnout after a decade of trying to balance composing, arranging, recording, performing, and giving lessons with the demands of my "real" life as a full-time high school English teacher and as a husband and father to four young children. I'd gotten to a point—as hard as it sounds to believe—where playing guitar just wasn't
fun anymore.
After a couple of years where I didn't play much guitar at all, I took up playing electric guitar again as a way to rekindle my love of the instrument without having to worry about ending up right back in the same situation. While I enjoy playing electric guitar, my jazz and blues playing is nowhere near good enough to take myself very seriously. So for a number of years, I put my acoustic fingerstyle music in the rearview mirror and just enjoyed falling in love with guitar all over again and learning a lot of new things.
Things changed recently when my youngest child, Alexei—who had started playing guitar a couple of years ago—came to me with an interest in learning how to play some of the songs from my recordings. This led to two very significant epiphanies. First, I realized that none of my children really remembered me playing acoustic guitar—they were mostly too young at the time, and only knew my music through the recordings. So it meant a lot to me when Alexei wanted to learn how to play my music, and it reminded me that music is a shared experience. One of the reasons I got into writing and performing music in the first place was to express myself and connect with other people—and my acoustic music had allowed me to connect to to people all over the world. But it wasn't until I saw how much it resonated with my own kid that this really hit home (pun intended) again.
The other revelation—which was just as important—was that it was
fun to play my old songs again. Enough time has passed that there's no longer any pressure to record and perform—at this point it's been about 15 years since I was an "active" musician—and that allows me the freedom to enjoy my music again without constantly looking forward to the next project. It's also been long enough that I have to re-learn how to play a lot of my own songs, and build my fingerstyle chops back up to where they used to be—which is keeping me both humble and motivated.
I don't know what the future holds, but for now I'm just excited to dive back into the world of acoustic fingerstyle guitar.
