Yesterday, I had an unexpected bout of GAS (Guitar Acquisition Syndrome to the uninitiated). It’s a chronic disorder that afflicts pretty much every guitar player in existence, with, to my knowledge, one exception… that being Willie Nelson and his preternatural devotion to Trigger. Willie walks a different path than we mortals.
Wasn’t really shopping for a new guitar, was just killing time on the road. But every once in awhile, you’ll find the very guitar you need placed conveniently in your path, and you’ll also have the means to claim it as your own. The Lord provides.
So what I found was a very nice deal on a Córdoba Iberia Series GK Studio. Made in Spain, it’s a modern take on a traditional Flamenco guitar. It has the obligatory golpeador, (a clear Mylar tap plate installed to protect the top), with a solid European Spruce top, Cypress body and a mahogany neck topped with a rosewood fingerboard. The modern touches include the cutaway, and the Fishman Presys dual-source pickup system, incorporating inputs from both an under-saddle piezo and an internal condenser mic, which can be blended to taste. Extremely nice neck contour, traditional Flamenco scale and string spacing, with a loud and resounding bark to it.
BTW, the ‘GK’ in the model designation refers to Córdoba’s long-standing association with the Gipsi Kings. See Córdoba’s description here.
This guitar is firmly in the mid-strata of Córdoba offerings, retailing for just under $1000 (I paid considerably less). While not top-of-the-line, it isn’t by any means entry-level, so it has a good balance of features and quality of build that makes it just right for what I want at the moment — this will be the axe I use to compete in the upcoming Indiana State Fingerstyle Guitar Festival, to be held July 28, 2018 at the Brown County Playhouse.
More about GAS, and my thing for nylon strings
I discovered the awesome sound and playability of nylon-strings guitars very early… in 1968, to be exact, during my seminal exposure to Classical Gas by Mason Williams (the story of which is chronicled here). While I’ve played all manner of guitars over the years, the nylon-string variety is where I’m most at home, as it is the most conducive to the fingerstyle approach that evolved for me, combining elements of classical, Flamenco, Latin and jazz. I started out on classic guitars, but over the years gravitated to Flamenco models as I began to explore the style more in earnest.
Which brings me back around to GAS. All instruments will vary greatly in quality, and with pianos, horns, woodwinds, percussion, even other members of the string family, you will always get the quality for which you’re willing to pay. But the fundamental range in design, function, and application of these instruments remains fairly constant and focused.
Guitars, by contrast, are all over the map when it comes to design and function. In fact, I see no other instrument that has anywhere near the diversity of design as guitars. There’s your steel-string acoustic guitars (further divisible into flat-tops and arch-tops, each distinct in tone); your nylon-string acoustic guitars (divisible into classical, Flamenco, and ‘crossover’ models); acoustic-electrics (steel or nylon, with a myriad of pickup configurations in hollow, semi-hollow, and even solid-body versions).
Then you have your electric guitars which, being free of the design constraints of needing to perform acoustically at all, boast almost infinite variations: solid-body, hollow-body, semi-hollow body; single coil pickups, double-coil pickups, combinations of single and double-coils; hard-tail or floating (‘whammy bar’) bridges; passive or active electronics, modeling or straight magnetic, MIDI compatibility; one neck or two… or more, etc etc. And don’t get me started on body shapes, colors and finishing options.
While many devotees of other branches on the instrument family tree often settle on having a fairly small collection of instruments that basically look, sound and function the same (primo instruments for work, cheaper instruments for teaching or knocking about), guitarists face a conundrum in that there can never be one single instrument that gives them the full-range of sounds, tones and feels guitars offer. There can never be a one-axe-fits-all guitar. For starters, even the most versatile guitars cannot provide the best of both acoustics and electrics, much less the innumerable and nuanced distinctions that set one instrument apart from another.
So what can you do, except buy more guitars? I mean, seriously. If you want to be in the game, and like dipping your chops in a multitude of musical genres, you simply have to have a deep bench. For some, it might be just a second guitar, or a third. But that modest beginning has an insidious way of blossoming into a full-blown obsession with collecting a wide range of instruments, often in spite of the fact that you simply can’t play them all unless you can afford to hire a tech crew to keep them all tuned up and ready to go.
And then there’s collecting for the sake of collecting. Had I known in my youth what that $350 Strat, Les Paul, D-35 or Country Gent hanging on the wall at Rocky’s Music Center would be worth just 20-30 years later… oh man, I do believe I’d have been investing more wisely in my retirement plan.
That said… guitar players are universally in perpetual denial that we have a problem. Even though I have successfully avoided piling up guitar cases ad nauseam, I’m still guilty of having more guitars than I need. But hey, it’s not a problem for me either… really it isn’t.
And that’s Guitar Acquisition Syndrome, a pathological disorder dearly loved by guitarists and their local music stores, but almost universally misunderstood by spouses, significant others, family, friends… and basically anyone who doesn’t spank the plank. Yes, it’s a thing, but it’s OUR thing… get over it!
