Well worn guitar

THE BEST GUITAR I have ever played is my Takamine P3 acoustic. It has the Cool Tube pickup, a cedar top, and it's set up perfectly. I've played the high end acoustics by the big name companies, and this guitar plays and performs better.

I am mostly a strummer. Because I play the guitar in a rock band (The Cheeseburgers), I have a tendency to smack the strings hard. This is a combination of bad technique and the fact it's hard to hear on stage. We have monitors and our drummer, Kirk Gribbler, does a good job of feeding the sound to the front of the stage.

But when you play for so long, your hearing starts to go and it's difficult to pick up the nuances of the acoustic. In a rock band, it's just a percussive and rhythm instrument, for the most part.

This means I bang pretty hard on the bottom of the sound hole. I've put a couple of chips in it and I've had to tape it off to keep the wood from peeling any further. I am working hard on my strumming and shortening the up and down motion, but sometimes, well, it just happens.

I feel bad about beating up my beautiful guitar. And then I watched this. And now I feel better.

Ah, the stories Trigger could tell! Same goes for my Takamine.