Except for this year, we've had a very dry and beautiful winter so far.
My guitar background: I played in high school, college and beyond, I strummed, we were kinda hippies but not really and played strummed folk songs. I knew about 3 or 4 chords in five keys and never played above the third fret. Back then I played a Martin 00-18C with nylon strings.
In 2007 I got the urge to play again and started looking for something easier to play like the old Martin tenor guitars, only they'd stopped making them and they were very expensive used. So I ended up playing a Tenor Kamaka uke for about three years but mostly noodling around and learning to pick instead of strum.
A friend dropped by one evening mid summer and walked in with his guitar and started playing, after awhile he let me try, it had steel strings and was very difficult and painful to play but wow, it had bass tones.
The next day like a whirlwind (I'd had trouble sleeping, thinking about this) I went over to my local guitar store, it's a very good one where I had also bought my uke. I was going to get just something cheap in a steel string but after several hours came home with a beautiful Esteve 9C/B Classical, cedar over rosewood, way over any budget I might have wishingly imagined and I was in love.
I have played it a lot, every day for the last five months, I have had to relearn pretty much everything ( I got that original Martin in 1962) and have been teaching myself to fingerpick. Lately I've been trying to strum more and have been fastinated watching utube videos of performers and decided I also want to learn to play with a pick. Well my Esteve if I strum it very hard or fast repeatedly can get real muddy fast, it's got a beautiful sound picking which it was intended for but I started studying on the net and asking friends about the differences in available guitars. Most of the performers I know play Taylor, then I found out my brother who has played almost all of his life playes an 814 ( I think).
Last week there was a Martin show and tell at the store, it was so much fun an I tried and fell in love with a 00-28VS which just happens to cost so much that it was out of the question, plus I wanted to keep my classical.
Today I just had to go there and try some more guitars, we started with the less expensive Martins but soon were in the 3K range and then I asked to look at some other less expensive guitars and was suprised how much I enjoyed the Seagull dread. He kept bringing me guitars, I was in the little sound room and then he brought me a Taylor 214, and I don't remember the number but it was a comparable Taylor Dread and really liked both. Then a Martin 000-18, way out of my price range but I tried it anyway and quite frankly I felt the quality but liked the Taylor 214 anyway. Whew. It's home now, I only stopped playing it to write this. I'm pretty sure my Esteve is going to go back to the store tomorrow and be put on consignment, yes it's wonderful but I have been going back and forth and quite frankly don't think I'll play it much anymore. It looks and sounds incredible but my wrist is much happier with the Taylor and the narrow neck I honestly didn't think I'd be able to play after a lifetime of wide necks.
So it's not fancy, my Taylor, and maybe it's my hearing (I wear hearing aids but hear a guitar wonderfully with them in or out) but the sustain on the Taylor is just clean and sweet, the tonal sound (OMGoddess I bought a guitar with laminate sides and back- er plywood) and something must be wrong because dang, to my ears it sounds wonderful, and I swear it sounds more wonderful now than when I got home 4 hours ago (I've been playing the whole time).
So hi, I'm Jannie and I have a Taylor 214, I'm almost embarassed to be here because well it's not a fancy guitar but it sure plays and sounds like one and I really like the looks, the GA body is just perfect for me, but I didn't know that before I tried one.
