The appeal of the guitar

It used to bother me some that every time I went somewhere with my guitar, I got stopped all kinds of questions about it. But I see now that it is a good thing, especially in the work that I do. The guitar is a familiar friend to most people. Everyone has a brother or cousin or Uncle or someone who plays it. And you can play every kind of music on it from classical, blues, jazz, folk, rock & roll, etc.

Yesterday at the hospital I saw a patient who had a guitar in his room. We had a good time showing each other songs we liked to play and sharing stories about our music making. It seems to happen about once a month that I get a referral from a nurse to see a patient who plays the guitar.

The fact that so many are familiar with it and it is so appealing makes it a good therapeutic instrument. I have met so many people just from talking in the elevators or hallways in places about it.

I got inspired to play the guitar as a teen when a neighbor and friend of mine played outside on her front porch. I loved the portability of it and that you could play it outside. Also in the 70s there were a lot of great guitarists around like Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Alvin Lee. The face of music changed as the guitar became the most popular instrument of all.
Pictured above is my guitar case. I deliberately put a lot of stickers on the case to be able to identify it from other generic black guitar cases.

Do you play the guitar? It's fun, huh?