Fun at the music store

I've been teaching my nephew how to play guitar for a few months. Earlier this week, one of his friends bought a $1500 guitar. For whatever (fortunate) reason, this inspired him to give his old electric guitar to my nephew. Of course, having an electric means having an amplifier.

So I arranged to meet at Long and McQuade, a music store near me, to help him shop. I went down the guitar aisle, and saw a beautifully finished telecaster. The guitar technician told me, "It is called a Telecaster Highway One. It is cheaper than other American made Fenders, because it doesn't have that hard lacquered finish."

Cheaper! I thought. On this red beauty, you could see the grain of the wood, and the semi-gloss finish made it look like a real wood guitar. I knew that this guitar would be easier to dent and chip, but that just gives a guitar character. So I went up to the counter and said, "He's looking for an amp, and I want to try that telecaster. Do you think we could kill both birds with one stone?"

They hooked us up to a Vox amp that looked nice. I started playing this telecaster... but as a stratocaster adapted guitar player, I was hitting a few bum notes - an embarassing thing to do in front of other musicians. I couldn't help it; the neck on a telecaster is much thinner. But I found my groove, and started finger picking out some nifty blues riffs that made this guitar sing. Ientirely forgot I brought my nephew along.

"Here! Try it," I said.

"No, no, I just want to hear it," He said. I think he was worried about showing off his nascent guitar skills in a room full of skilled musicians. I could relate...

"How would it sound in headphones?" He asked.

"I don't know... but I'm sure they'd lend you a pair."

He went and fetched a pair, while I played Dire Straits "Telegraph Road" melody parts onto this telecaster I had fallen deeply in love with. The headphone volume was really low, since the quarter inch jack was more for line output than headphones. So we had the tech switch us over to a Line 6 amp with a proper headphone jack.

"It is second hand," the tech said, "so it is only a hundred and eighty. But it has six months warranty on it, so I imagine it has hardly been used."

On the front panel were some sound presets - Clean, Cruncy, Metal, and Insane. My nephew plugged in the headphones and hit Insane. "

Here... have some fun," I smirked.

As he heard his chords buzz and shimmer harder than Hendrix , Creed, or Nickelback, he smiled like a small boy. He bought the amp, we headed for my house, I dragged my stratocasters up from the basement, and we jammed away like teenage boys who've just started their first band after discovering the volume knobs.