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Like most musically inclined youths of the last half of the twentieth century, I always wanted to be a guitar player. The opportunity finally came when I was in college and I picked up a cheap made in Korea classical guitar which sounded much better than its small price tag would reveal. I taught myself basic chords by examining the chord charts on sheet music and figuring out how to play various combinations of notes. One unfortunate consequence of being self-taught was some of my hand positions were needlessly tortured: My fingering for a first-position D chord, in particular was a mess.
I was a couple years out of college and on a trip to Guatemala with a delegation from Witness for Peace that I managed to get the breakthrough that I needed. I learned enough simple songs to really get myself launched as a guitar player, saw the correct fingering for D and even learned bar chords. Suddenly a whole world of guitar playing opened up for me.
As a guitar player, I'm still a pretty odd bird. I'm still not entirely comfortable as a rhythm player, but because of my background on bass, playing lead-style lines somes pretty naturally. One of my first solo guitar compositions was a flamenco-style exploration which generally causes people to think that I'm a much better guitar player than I am. I'm working on further developing my playing, getting a better feel as a rhythm player and developing the ability to write supportive horizontal guitar lines.
My cheap classical has been replaced with a much less cheap steel-string Takamine electro-acoustic. This is a very nice solid-top guitar and is going to be my primary guitar for a long time to come.
I've recently added a Boss ME-33 to my rig, but as it didn't come with a manual, I'm some distance from being able to do much musically with it at the moment.
I've been thinking lately that an acoustic baritone guitar would be a nice addition to my arsenal.