To All the Instruments I've Loved

Posted by Marcy Paulson Oct 17, 2008

Two years ago, my husband let me open my Christmas present early. The gift was one of his most romantic ever: a beautiful guitar with a red cedar top, wild cherry back and sides, and a silver leaf maple neck. It’s strings sounded bell-like. I quickly learned how to contort my fingers into the correct shapes for several chords and began strumming out halting versions of “Away in a Manger”, “Bring a Torch Janette Isabella”, “O Come, O Come Emanuel”, “Good King Wenceslaus”, and “The Little Drummer Boy.”

The first day I began with vigor and remarked over and over about how the instrument almost seemed to play itself. The action was low and the strings virtually melted beneath my fingers. Naturally, I picked up the guitar on the next morning expecting similar results. That time though, the tips of my fingers screamed in revolt. Apparently, the day before had been a breaking in period, and after that, the fleshy tips were rendered as tender as rare filet mignon. The arduous process of developing rubbery skin on the tips of each finger was only beginning. In terms of hurdles to becoming a guitarist, this was only the first. I knew from experience that higher and more challenging obstacles lay on the track ahead, but the process of acquiring calluses certainly qualified as the most intense.

“You have to keep playing,” I told myself. “It’s bound to get better.” I’m sorry to say, I’d actually experienced the process of tender and hardening fingertips on several occasions. But calluses, as with many things in life, adhere to the time-honored mandate, “Use ‘em or lose ‘em.” How my throbbing fingertips were chastising me for the former calluses, which had once protected them and then been allowed to fade away with lack of practice.

There was the first time I owned a guitar way back in junior high. I’ll give you three guesses as to why I made that purchase. You got it. A boy in a garage band had slipped me a copy of their really pitiful album. He happened to be the lead singer, and I use the term singer loosely. Even back then when I was under the spell of infatuation, I had to admit that I couldn’t understand a word of his vocals and that any tune there was either very free or a bit strayed from on his part. But that was fine, he’d written the songs, and it was the 80’s after all, an era when half the songs coming out of the radio sounded pretty much the same.

I knew nothing about instruments and really didn’t have the funds to act on the knowledge had I known that all guitars are not created equal. As a result, I wound up with a piece of junk from China baring the general shape of a guitar and a high gloss finish. The instrument needed to be put out of its misery, but if I was ever going to try to get music from the oversized, plywood cigar box, it was in an even more desperate need of a set up. Set up? Of course, I had no idea what a set up was. I innocently assumed factories wouldn’t send out guitars that weren’t ready to be played. I really did give it a valiant effort, but the strings were at least three quarters of an inch from the fingerboard, and no amount of calluses can compensate for that. So in the end, my devotion to learning the guitar faded away as did my interest in the semi-talented rocker. By the time my first calluses had vanished, the dust was already collecting on the faux-leather case in my closet.

Much, much later, I traded that guitar in to fund a part of my future husband’s present. Have you ever tried to put wrapping paper around a banjo case? It’s not an easy feat, I assure you. Jeff loved the gift. Fortunately, he was still like myself in that oblivious state about the varying quality of instruments. Unlike the guitar that’d gone to fund the student five-string, his banjo was playable, but they did share similarities in the tones they could produce.

My next instrument purchase was at a yard sale and surprisingly it was here that I got the luckiest. It was standard practice for me to ask if there were any musical instruments for sale. Most of the time, people just gave me the weary “if it isn’t out here…” look, but one time it paid off. “I think I still have that old violin in the attic my dad forced me to play in high school,” the woman manning the sale told me bitterly. “I’d love to get rid of that thing.” Like ninety-nine percent of all the dusty violins in attics, this one had a faded label that read “Stradivarius,” and like all those other violins it was definitely a copy. The instrument however was a relatively decent violin made a quarter century ago in Mittenwald Germany and what it lacked in projection, it made up for in a warm and sweet tone. I took lessons and actually progressed on the fiddle. Fortunately for me, a violin’s strings don’t require much in the way of calluses. It’s cousin the mandolin however, which I decided to tackle next was another story.

I settled on the mandolin because its fingering is the same as the fiddle’s. Why not be able to play two instruments for the price of one? By this time however, I’d learned to do a little bit of research before purchasing an instrument. Good sound was of course a prerequisite, but to really interest me, an instrument had to be unique. The fiddle to which I had upgraded, for example, was number 103 handmade by Jean Ivy. Jeff and I had to travel past the point of all civilization to the very top of Sand Mountain, which is every bit as desolate as its name suggests, to try out the fiddles hanging in Mr. Ivey’s workshop, but the fiddle I brought home was well worth it. The mandolin I finally chose was a traditional, honey-gold A-style and sounded exquisite, but I soon found I’d need some perseverance if I wanted to enjoy its music. With its double steel strings, a mandolin feels something like a meet tenderizer on the tips of your fingers. Despite the grueling process, I’ve gone through several sets of calluses since my first painful weeks with the instrument.

I’m playing guitar now with a passion and am thoroughly enjoying every spare minute I can steal away to practice. My fingers are as tough as shoe leather and can bend a steel string under 150 pounds of pressure without even making me flinch. But, I’d be naïve to expect that if I die at a ripe old age, these calluses will be the ones accompanying me to the grave. I know myself far too well and can already see other interests and instruments like beautiful ivy vines winding themselves into the few moments of free time my days afford.

I’ve come to terms with my musical flightiness. I’ll never be a concert guitarist, because there are so many wonderful instruments to explore. I can however, play guitar tunes to my children, and even jam and perform with a host of interesting people. It’s true that the world needs virtuosos, but I for one, am happy that my genetics spared me the single-mindedness and unswerving dedication that this lot in life requires. There’s no telling how many instruments I’ll try to conquer during my lifetime, and how many will become a daily facet of my life as the fiddle has.