Return to Avalon
I'm excited to announce that I have renewed my relationship with Avalon Guitars in Northern Ireland. I used an Avalon A101 to record the
Celtic Guitar and
Solo Guitar albums, which led to me becoming an endorsing artist for Avalon.
Avalon Guitars is the same group of luthiers and craftsmen who made the Lowden Guitars I owned in the late 90s/early 2000s, before they started building guitars under the Avalon name. So I've been a fan of their guitars for more than 30 years now.
The company was recently purchased my John McCartin—who is a long-time traditional Irish musician and Avalon player himself—and he plans to honor the legacy of Avalon Guitars by focusing on their artisan roots as a relatively small shop buidling hand-crafted guitars.
This new era for Avalon coincided nicely with my own return to playing acoustic fingerstyle guitar, and they were more than happy to assist with my plans for a couple of new cedar-topped guitars.
They'll be building a pair of small-bodied, cedar-topped guitars for me from their Performer Series—one with mahogany back and sides and one with rosewood back and sides. Both guitars will feature cutaways and iconic Avalon appointments such as their 5-piece necks and abalone rosettes.
The builds should be underway soon, with an approximate delivery date of early November. I'll be sharing updates and posting pictures on my
Avalon Build page throughout the process, so stay tuned!
Martin OM-1
In the process of selling off my electric guitars and ordering some nice new acoustics, I planned on also adding a (relatively) inexpensive guitar to the collection. I always like to have a "grab and go" guitar that I can take almost anywhere without worry, or leave out on a stand around the house to pick up at a moment's notice when inspiration strikes.
Having a guitar like this gives me the freedom to enjoy playing in situations where I don't have to worry about anything happening to my "nicer" guitars—and as a result, tends to get played fairly often. Some players/collectors refer to this type of guitar as a "beater" or a "couch guitar," or a "travel guitar"... but I tend to think of it as a "songwriting guitar," since historically I've done most of my writing either spontaneously or while being inspired by playing in unusual locations.
There's a certain irony to owning a bunch of really nice acoustic guitars for recording and performing, and then doing most of my writing on the least expensive guitar I own. But it's always worked for me, so it's a habit I'll happily continue.
As luck would have it, I found a used 2009 Martin OM-1 for sale locally at a great price, and I couldn't have hoped for a better "songwriting guitar." It has the same dimensions as my OM-28s, and the same longer scale length and wider nut width that all of my other Martins have—so it doesn't compromise the playing experience in any way.
Add in the fact that it's an American-made, all solid-wood Martin that cost me less than a fifth of the current price of the OM-28 (and even included a hardshell case), and it really is the perfect songwriting guitar for me.
Martin OM-28s 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 small-bodied guitar that is a perfect match for my needs: the OM-28. It features a body with a 15" width and 4" depth that makes it 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 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 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.
I ordered a pair of OM-28s, so I can keep one in DADGAD tuning and one in CGCGCD tuning.
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.
