charliea said:
...there's always the pleasure of a good veer in an otherwise straightforward thread.
Baited, and...Hooked!
To never have been bitten by the 12-string bug would have saved me thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars over the last three decades (well, probably not, as I would have spent, 'er, invested, that money in 6-strings, banjos, mandolins, lutes, lyres, bouzoukis, et al).
My first (conscious) encounter with this seductress was as a wee young boy, with my Stella 4-string guitar in hand at a friends house, where we struggled with chording folk tunes. His older brother brought in this funny looking, top-heavy harp-like thing (to this day I cannot recollect what brand). He said it was a 12-string guitar and began strumming it. I was entranced, and ruined! Why? To my ears (and contrasted against my 4-string), the fuller sound of that guitar was exactly what I wanted to spend my time listening to. Everything else seemed so defined, so encompassed with sonic boundaries. His instrument RANG!
My first 12-string was a no-name luthier's experiment gone bad. I struggled with that one for about a year, earned my stripes and battle scars, and became a full-fledged 12-string gigolo. Still but a boy, I played the field with Alvarez, Martin, Epiphone, Gibson, Yamaha, Fender, Ovation... I was learning to finger pick, but most of the folk music I had heard on the 12-string, to date, was strummed. One fateful day around 1970, listening to an AM radio in a field of strawberries, I heard John Denver play Rhymes and Reasons. The intro to that song became the quintessence of my search. At that moment I knew I had to have a Guild 12-string, and I had to become adept at tickling those strings, just like I had heard it on the radio.
Several years passed and my lust grew. A dear friend beat me to the ownership table, purchasing an F412 to match her F50. I so loved the sound of that bright, brilliant, maple guitar, and found excuses to play it whenever she would let me. It was not long before I secured my very own F512 to mate with my F50R. It was years later I came upon my adorable used (pre-loved) F412 that now sings to me nightly.
To say my journey is complete would be presumptuous. I have seen the future, and there are more 12-strings in it.
