"I started playing guitar when I was 13 about 6 months after my cousin Jerry started playing. My cousin lived upstairs from me in our grandmother's multifamily house in Kearny, New Jersey. Our school friend from down the street, Bobby Colgate taught us both how to play. There were four of us, my cousin Jerry, Bobby, Tony (bass player) and I all lived on Duke Street across from the Hudson County Park where we spent many wonderful musical days singing and playing together. I didn't have a guitar but my cousin did. So my grandmother ordered me a $10 Harmony Guitar from Sears catalog. It was a classical style guitar and very hard to play, but it was a guitar. Then when I was 15 my other grandmother's neighbor in Harrison, Mrs Grant, gave me an old 1950s Harmony archtop Guitar from her attic. This guitar was very easy to play and I played it constantly even bringing it with me almost everywhere I went. Unfortunately it was stolen less than three weeks after it was given to me. That being said, I never really had a decent guitar until I purchased my first “store bought” guitar at Mascara Music in Belleville New Jersey. Bill was the salesman, Great Guy!! It was a 12 string guitar and I was 17. I improved exponentially almost overnight with that $145 guitar that I still have today. One month later I was a completely different guitar player. About 3 weeks after that I went back to Mascara Music and bought a 6-string guitar that I also still have. It was wonderful having my first full time summer job! I have often wondered how many Lennon and McCartney's, Drake's, Joni Mitchell's, Jimi Hendrix's, Neil Young's, Tom Petty's, Ushers, Louis Armstrong's, Bruce Springsteen's, Crosby Stills and Nash's and many many more artists that may never have created any of their beautiful music had they not had access to an instrument to start them on their Musical journeys!! With that said, there are many wealthy townships that have fully funded musical education programs, Other communities not so much. When a school loans out all of their instruments to students in a given year that would be the whole band unless a student could afford to rent or buy one from a local music store. The Point Pleasant borough School band kept my three kids from other things kids can get interested in at that age like drugs etc. They all loved their music and loved playing in that band! It kept them interested in something they grew to truly love!! So for me, if even a few unused instruments could find their way to a school system in need, perhaps a horn or a violin, to a child that didn't have access to one, Imagine the Possibilities! You never know what child could then start on their own Musical Journey. We all think about Fame and Fortune with musicians but the world needs professional musicians for everything from Opera to Backup bands and Studio work. And maybe with a gifted instrument, a young girl or boy might achieve any of the above or even become a Music Teacher, forwarding music to another generation!! 🙂Possibilities!! “ Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their Music in them” Oliver Wendell Holmes “ Music once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies “ Edward Bulwer Lytton “ Music can change the world” Ludwig Van Beethoven "
"There was a song written by Neil Young from 2005 that really hit a chord with me (no pun intended).. It's a soulful song tenderly sung. The song is called “This Old Guitar”. (Please YouTube the ALBUM VERSION of this song and you will see what I mean. He has to sing it differently Live.) It's about a 1941 guitar that was once owned by singer-songwriter Hank Williams. In the lyrics Young rights, “this old guitar ain't mine to keep” “just taking care of it now “this old guitar ain't mine to keep” “ it's only mine for a while” And later: “ the more I play it the better it sounds” “ it cries when I leave it alone” “ silently it waits for me” “ or someone else I suppose”. The point of the song is as with Hank Williams, someone else will eventually be playing and caring for that guitar once Young's time with it has passed. This song got me thinking about my two very rare custom, one of a kind performance guitars. Now in the past I had mentioned to my wife and kids that I want these two very rare guitars to go to someone who would play them and not to a collector who would just lock them in a dark lonely humidified Vault somewhere never to be played. “GUITARS AND INDEED ALL INSTRUMENTS ARE MEANT TO BE PLAYED NOT COLLECTED” !!!! Being played is when instruments LIVE and can bring forth emotions of Joy, Dreams and Hope's or release pain from within the songwriter or the artist playing them!! Guitars and similar stringed instruments like pianos and also woodwind instruments are made of a living medium, WOOD !! Wood still exhibits living traits after being made into an instrument. Wood will still move, breathe and change its tonal characteristics depending on the temperature and even humidity in the air. Because they are made of wood some instruments like guitars can also “go to sleep” and become less responsive over time from not being played. Techniques to “wake them up” do exist. In addition there is a break-in period for new guitars depending on the Finish. It can take years to fully break in a wooden instrument, that is why you can now buy a guitar with a Torrefied “pre-aged” top that already has an aged broken in sound. The top of a guitar is where the sound hole is, for those unfamiliar with guitar construction. Again the point I have been making is these instruments are made to be played and the more you play them the better they will sound. So if you have an instrument Play it! Play it! Play it! You'll feel better!! But if you have an instrument you're not planning on using, consider finding someone “maybe in your family” that would benefit from you forwarding it to them, that will make you feel better too!! “Ive found that no matter what life throws at me, Music softens the blow” Bryce W. Anderson “Every song is like a painting” Dick Dale "
"This rescue idea came together from several happenings. I had been looking for a couple of good used performance quality guitars for performing live. I play in several different tunings and you can't re-tune your guitar on stage, it just takes too long. So if I'm going to play in different tunings I use multiple guitars. MY $6.00 GUITAR. So in my quest I came across a few guitars, most in very bad shape that I purchased because I felt they were asking me for help!! I know that sounds crazy but it seemed they were asking me to save them from the dumpster Lol. One in fact that was leaning on a garbage can at a garage sale. I asked the woman about it and she said seeing as she was going to toss it out anyway I could have it for $6. I gave it a quick look and saw it was covered in cement dust inside and out. The guitar itself had moisture cracks on the back and sides, the binding was coming off and it actually scratched my right arm. The covered tuners were a little rusty but because they were covered I knew the inside would be okay. The fretboard was very dirty and had a moldy looking substance on both sides of most of the frets. This guitar was a Scary Sight. Now decent new tuners started at around $35 In 2022 when I bought this guitar so I was good with the $6 that it cost me. Now with the tariffs they are even more expensive so this proves that even a seemingly unrepairable instrument can have a value in repairing others! So I removed the tuners to clean them and even got the rust off the covers with some steel wool. It was then I went back to the guitar and noticed the neck seemed straight, the bridge was tight and not coming off, also the top was flat with no belly. This really surprised me seeing the abuse it had gone through. So I taped The binding down with Scotch tape so it wouldn't cut me again. I then cleaned the mold off the fretboard and frets. I cleaned the cement dust off the body inside and out and then put on an old set of strings. I then adjusted the neck and to my surprise it came alive!! I could almost hear actor Colin Clive from the old movie Frankenstein shouting “It's Alive”, “It's Alive” in my head LOL. So YES I now have a Frankenstein looking guitar but it plays well and sounds great. That's all that matters to me. (See Pics and Video) Now I could never use this guitar for playing on stage but it is a great practice or learning guitar. The action is good and it sounds wonderful. It was then I realized I would have done just about anything to have had this guitar when I started playing. I would not have cared about how it looked as long as it was easy to play and I could have gotten better by playing it. This inspiring moment for this rescue was only one. Another was, I had told an acquaintance that I was looking for another guitar and sometime later when I saw her again she said she would give me her husband's two guitars. He had passed several years earlier and they were in her attic. This Kind, Thoughtful and genuinely Considerate gesture along with thinking of where my guitars would go after my time with them is through, had me agreeing with Neil Young in his song “This old guitar”. These are a couple of events that help to inspire this instrument rescue! I truly believe as I have stated earlier, music makes for a better world because it genuinely brings people together. So if my efforts have a lasting effect on even a very few people I will be very very happy indeed!! So please consider Yuletide guitar and instrument rescue before you toss out that old guitar with a broken neck or that bent horn with a dented bell. You may help a future musician to get started. Right now at this moment as you are reading this, there are future musicians being born that may be very special 18 or 20 years from now only because an old friend or neighbor gave them an unused or forgotten instrument that was just lying around in their attic!! Thank you for considering YULETIDE GUITAR AND INSTRUMENT RESCUE.!! “ My heart which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by Music when sick and weary” Martin Luther “ Music can heal the wounds Which medicine cannot touch” Debasish Mridha “ If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a Musician. I often think in Music. I live my life in terms of Music” Albert Einstein "
