The Beauty of Guitars

When I was a kid, my best friend and I decided to start a band in his dad's shed. We didn't have much equipment, he had a beaten up old drum kit and I had a barely-working electric guitar plugged into my dad's old reel-to-reel tape recorder.

We practised hard and loved every minute of it. Eventually we became worthy of the title "musician" and graduated to better equipment. But we never lost the feeling of excitement we had when we began our musical journey in that drafty old shed all those years ago.

These days, I've got a small collection of lovely guitars and I appreciate their form and physical presence just as much as the tones they produce. I have some great photos of my guitars, as well as those of friends. I hope you enjoy them.

Painting an orange guitar

Photo by Dr H

Oil-can-guitar player

Photo by Steve Crane

Multi-coloured guitar on the street

Photo by aswinkb

Musician Seeking Higher Education

The other day I was jamming out in the studio and laying down some tracks, and the owner of the studio came by. He was a guy that started out as a musician like me, but he built up a successful business.  I know that he still plays a bit, but mostly he works in the studio. I know it’s a pretty successful business – everyone I know around the Valley likes to record there. It’s got great rates and a friendly staff. There’s even a little stage to have practice performances.

I may have aspirations in the music industry, but I do have a college degree as well. My undergrad is in music theory and performance. It was quite a good program and liked my time in college. As I try to make it as a guitarist, I am also considering going to graduate school as a backup plan. As a result I’ve become interested in the ‘business’ part of the music business. I’ve always been pretty good at math – I think that is true for many musicians. So one thing I am considering is going to get an MBA. This means Master’s in Business Administration.

Business musician

One important step in getting an MBA is to take an exam called the GMAT. Basically every decent business school requires that you take this test. The best score you can get is an 800, but most good schools want you to get at least a 700. So if I decide to pursue my interest in business, I will make sure to study plenty of GMAT sample questions so I can score well.

Now let me talk about this amazing guitar I’ve been playing lately. It’s a Gibson Les Paul. This guitar was always popular among musicians, but it wasn’t very well known among the mainstream public. However, once Slash from Guns N Roses began to use use this guitar, the popularity really took off! I’d say that a decent nuber of rock fans could place a Les Paul now.