Some of you may remember that about a year ago I was diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer, and ended up in a wheelchair, playing a Córdoba Mini II classical guitar. Things have progressed well, I graduated to a walker which I still use some of the time, but mainly am getting around on one or two canes, and in the house am able to walk short distances unaided. Yay!
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_e_biggrin.gif)
One of my very closest friends is a fine classical guitarist, also great jazz and Brazilian player— he decided I needed a "real" classical guitar to practice on, so gave me an old Aria Matsuoka flamenco guitar. It was missing three of the side dots and had a couple of small chunks out of the bass side of the fingerboard, all of which I was able, with all my newfound spare time, to fix. Touched up the fret ends, light recrowning, and rolling the edge of the fingerboard, plus a fresh set of strings, and I ended up with a pretty nice instrument. Will be installing bone saddle and nut next week.
I started studying classical guitar seriously, and am making good progress— not as easy as I had thought, considering I have 75 years of jazz, blues, funk, Latin and Brazilian under my belt. In fact, a very humbling experience, but one I’m really enjoying. What’s really cool is the improvement in my jazz and Brazilian techniques, which I had suspected and hoped might be the case …
I finally took the plunge and put my '51 Fender 5A3 Deluxe amp up for sale, on consignment at Emerald City Guitars in Seattle. You can see it on their website … it’s a really sweet sounding amp, the original speaker has about 3 to 4 hours on a recone done by Around The Sound, to make it sound like it would have as it came off the factory floor. Check it out!
I had mixed feelings about selling it, but realistically for me it was a one trick pony, albeit a superb one.
I’m anticipating being able to get out and play again next year (no outdoor gigs in the winter for me!!), and have decided to buy a Takamine TC132SC—not cheap ($1,549.99), but I’ll still have a bundle left over after that from the sale of the Deluxe, so might also spring for a Fender Acoustic Junior Go, as my Mustang II is going to be too heavy for me to schlep around for a while …
Glad to see that all the usual suspects are still active on the forum, and I plan to check in more often from now on—missed y’all …