sfguitartechIn 2006, I started this thing because of my affinity for guitars. It was a feeling so strong that for years before I accepted the terms of agreement for this website, I felt I should make a profession out of it. In 2007, while a Junior in college, I started to intern for a guitar company and my posting frequency (with what little precedence of dependability I created) began to dwindle. In August of 2008 I became a full time employee working for said guitar company. After that, you could see the posts became oriented to notion I was coming to — realizing my favorite thing was just a business.
Within the servers of this website are some unfinished drafts. Drafts of the thoughts I had while my brain went through the machinations of making this warm shelter of guitars I’d housed myself in into a cold industrial building (sometimes literally). Guitars became a job.
I’d go to sleep and wake up thinking about guitars; I’d go to work and talk guitars; I’d build guitars, working on and in guitars; the money I made went to buying guitars; the people I idolized all worked with guitars; my calendar revolved around guitars; I would read about guitars, watch videos of guitars and in the end did nothing but resent all of it.
A few weeks ago, I lost it. Something changed and I had no desire to build guitars. I never thought that I would get dejected and frustrated every time I looked at the thing I was in charge of creating. I was a race car driver waiting for the bus. I spent 5 years learning to be as good as I could within whatever I was doing, and I didn’t care.
Friday, I quit. I packed my car up with my tools, I cleaned up my workbench and left the building. I’ll be back there, programming myself out of everything I’d spent five years programming myself into but my life for the guitar is over. Now “guitar” is now just another language I know. I can express some thoughts through a few strings and my hands, I can draw pictures and express ideas in it, but it’s not all I am. That’s where I’m going from here. I’ve spent 5 years looking at life through a guitar catalog, and it’s time for something else.
In all honesty, this may be my last post in here or the first of numerous. I bought a camera, I’m going to get some new tires on my car, and I’m going to see things. I may share them here or start fresh somewhere else where I can figure out that I’m not only a guitarist.
I am now the recovering guitarist.
Just another boring story of one man’s life and the guitar.
The guitar in the last 100 years has become the most popular instrument of our time. Beginning from a basic nylon strung instrument it has by popular demand of the people’s choice moulded and presented its self into many forms and shapes. In the early twentieth century it quickly became the people’s instrument as it easily found residence in homes and on the streets where most new music over the last 100 years was created. It’s no great enigma why it then crept its way into radio orchestras and big bands from the homes, streets and clubs of Jazz, blues, country and western, rock n roll and all forms of other popular music of the people, who all gave it the approval to adapt itself to almost any styles of music.
I fell in love with the guitar as a teenager in the late fifties and remember whilst the piano was still the most popular choice by parents and schools for learning music even if most could not afford one. The guitar however was more affordable and could not be carried around. But the electric guitar, which was a whole new appropriation when I saw my first Fender Strat on the television with the likes of Buddy Holly and The Shadows. I never did get one until I reached 60 and even then it was a Squire but it did satisfy my lifelong desire to have one around my neck. In the background of the enormous variety of makes and designs of guitars out here by the 60’s I spotted the arch top guitar which for some reason back then I saw as the holy grail of guitars. Perhaps it was my ignorance and all my elders’ criticism of the guitar widely used in rock n roll at the time, that mostly only true talented legitimate virtuoso guitarists like Chet Atkins or Big Band musicians etc played them.
I spent a life time always having as guitar around the house but never taking it serious as my family came first and left me no time for music. In that time my love for the arch top grew and grew until I reached my late fifties and my children had grown up and then that love became an obsession and I started collecting them. When I first started collecting they did not have to brandish a big name, as my main interest was their beauty and their rich acoustic centred sound that would come out of these works of art. Because I did not follow the names as much as my eye I have found some surprisingly unique cheaper arch tops that have their own unique rich sound. As I near the end of my obsession with arch tops in my retirement, if someone should ask me what should I look for in a good arch top I would have to say. The same way you chose your wife. The one that you love and connect with the most, not what others tell you is good for you. You should know for yourself. Find it through love and connection.
Richard Autenzio. Archtop Guitars Australia.
1. Just another boring story of one man’s life and the guitar.
The guitar in the last 100 years has become the most popular instrument of our time. Beginning from a basic nylon strung instrument it has by popular demand of the people’s choice molded and presented its self into many forms and shapes. In the early twentieth century it quickly became the people’s instrument as it easily found residence in homes and on the streets where most new music over the last 100 years was created. It’s no great enigma why it then crept its way into radio orchestras and big bands from the homes, streets and clubs of Jazz, blues, country and western, rock n roll and all forms of other popular music of the people, who all gave it the approval to adapt itself to almost any styles of music.
I fell in love with the guitar as a teenager in the late fifties and remember whilst the piano was still the most popular choice by parents and schools for learning music even if most could not afford one. The guitar however was more affordable and could be carried around. But the electric guitar, which was a whole new apparition to me when I saw my first Fender Strat on the television with the likes of Buddy Holly and The Shadows. I never did get one until I reached 60 and even then it was a Squire but it did satisfy my lifelong desire to have one around my neck. In the background of the enormous variety of makes and designs of guitars out here by the 60′s I spotted the arch top guitar which for some reason back then I saw as the holy grail of guitars. Perhaps it was my ignorance and all my elders’ criticism of the guitar which was then widely used in rock n roll, that mostly only true talented legitimate virtuoso guitarists like Chet Atkins or Big Band musicians etc played them.
I spent a life time always having as guitar around the house but never taking it serious as my family came first and left me no time for music. In that time my love for the arch top grew and grew until I reached my late fifties and my children had grown up and then that love became an obsession and I started collecting them. When I first started collecting they did not have to brandish a big name, as my main interest was their beauty and their rich acoustic centered sound that would come out of these works of art. Because I did not follow the names as much as my eye I have found some surprisingly unique cheaper arch tops that have their own unique rich sound. As I near the end of my obsession with arch tops in my retirement, if someone should ask me what should I look for in a good arch top I would have to say? The same way you chose your wife. The one that you love and connect with the most, not what others tell you is good for you. You should know for yourself. Find it through love and connection. And always remember you can always grow to love something if you just give it a chance.
Richard Autenzio. Archtop Guitars Australia.
A sad but meaningful post. When what you love becomes something else, it’s time for a change. Too often people stay in situations that will never give them what they used to enjoy receiving and become bitter and emotionally “stuck”. There’s more to life than guitars, and if you are open and without preconceptions, something else will grab you and won’t let go for a while. What you found in guitars through immersion is exactly what is required to do anything in a profound and complete way. Possibly you next incarnation will appear when you least expect it from a source you couldn’t have foreseen. It sounds as if you’re going out to find it. Best of luck, and thanks for this evocative thread.
Terrific guitar story. a favorite pursuit of mine: guitar stories. There is so much rich culture, history and community reflected in these stories, as well as hope for a future filled with creativity and productive energy…. something we need more of in the face of our increasingly superficial and anonymous new age of technological multitasking. Thanks for this blog!
I don’t think that’s a boring story. I experienced that too. I mean, learning guitar is not easy, it takes times, and it takes great motivation. Sometime you may think that you should quit learning to play guitar as you feel that playing guitar is not you. However, as the time goes by, you find yourself really wants to play guitar and you find the real you, a guitar player.