"pay it forward" guitar

B429R · 06-27-2007, 01:20 PM

That's a sweet, sweet sounding guitar!

ibanez_dude · 06-27-2007, 11:52 PM

Holy crap, that is beautiful, and it sounds awesome too!

telecasting · 06-28-2007, 02:14 AM

Martin, have you tried making wooden truss rod covers?

martinedwards · 06-28-2007, 07:06 AM

Certainly something to add to the "to do" list.

I have a sheet of the 5 ply plastic that I got for a scratchplate and then never used........

but solid wood wood (sorry,would) look nicer.

I used to inlay a celtic cross into the TRC, but I really got to hate that job!!!

telecasting · 06-28-2007, 10:10 AM

Well, if I ever took the plunge (which I'm thinking might be a serious possibility at some point), it would have to be wood Mart. What other inlays have you done? Also, do you use solid woods all the way through?

martinedwards · 06-29-2007, 12:37 AM

I'm not a fan of bling generally, and other than rosettes The celtic cross is all Ive tried.

solid wood?

NO ply here!!

although I have been known to mak a nice stripy neck or two

and I'll have a serious look at your email when I get back from the three back to back festivals I'm going to (starting tonight!!)

Mattlock · 06-29-2007, 02:00 PM

Very, very, very beautiful! I'd like a guitar like that someday.

martinedwards · 07-14-2007, 01:43 PM

And it's gone.

The Summer Madness festival was great, followed by Streetreach where I was area manager for Monkstown which is the estate I live on the edge of.

We took the caravan home on the Tuesday morning and I slept at home for Streetreach. When I got up on Wednesday morning I had the feeling that the guitar would be gone by the end of the week.

I THOUGHT that i would be because one of the 2000 young folks doing Streetreach would have a disaster and smash a guitar, so I took it with me in the car when I went into Belfast on Wed morning.

I got breakfast there and told a few of the leaders I had this guitar if they heard of any horror stories.

Then I went across to the "overflow" hall (the Nugent Mish, where the kids "feet first" was last year) to sit & noodle to pass the time.

There was tables & chairs set out for about 200 so that when the main hall was full folks could bring their coffee & toast over.......

anyway when I got there there were 4 people in the hall.

I went off into a far corner out of the way and started messing around, mainly with a 12 bar in E...... SRVs Mary had a little lamb with my own poor variations.

Not grandstanding in any way y'understand, noodlin with my Ausie Bush hat down over my eyes so I couldn't even see if anyone was paying attention.

So after about 20 minutes I heard a voice and looked up. A teenaged girl with a silly woolly hat on and an unusual accent that I couldn't place asked if she could listen to me play.

"you obvioulsy need psychiatric help, but feel free" I said, and she sat cross legged like a wee pixie to listen. I played a little more & then offered her the guitar. She played a little finger picky thing and said how she wasn't used to steel strings as she had a classical....

Then she asked if I minded if she played one of her own compositions.

WOW!!!!

she had a voice like a young Joni Mitchel.

I told her (truthfully) that I'd only ever heard one "unsigned" voice as good in my LIFE and that the owner of THAT voice had got a 1st class honours degree in music using her voice as her instrument and had gone on to be a session singer and was currently working on her 2nd album.

she was so chuffed by that, and really modest with it..........

she handed me the guitar back and .... It was a God thing y'know?

"you don't have a steel string?" I said

"No, I can't afford one" she said......

I put it in the case and pushed it over to her and said "Its yours"

once she stopped hyperventilating and saying "really" over and over again and had cried a bit I explained the pay it forward thing.

Her name is Sasha, shes 18, grew up in South Africa but now lives in Cork, Ireland and starts training to be a doctor in September

hopefully she'll send me a pic of her playing the guitar sometime, but y'know what folks?

it feels great to do good stuff for folks

sabertooth181 · 07-14-2007, 04:02 PM

Awesome. Sounds like you found the right person.

cheyguy426 · 07-14-2007, 07:52 PM

Thats' great. When I first read it i thought it got stolen or something... Glad the story turned out better than that!!

Great Stuff man.

katmetal · 07-14-2007, 07:58 PM

Beautiful guitar & a beautiful gesture...

God Bless...

martinedwards · 05-20-2009, 04:52 AM

remember this old thread?

I was looking round facebook last night (not at ALL a regular there, I have 4 friends..... people who actually ARE my friends.......) but anyway, I found that one of Sasha's pals had posted a vid of her singing a song she wrote, playing the guitar I built.

Dunno if you can link into facebook without signing in, but heres the vid. it's a simple home recording, nothing pro, but it shows off three things. my guitar, Sashas voice, and Sasha herself (in a clean and wholesome way!!)

http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?i...5685&ref=share

just in case you CAN't link in, heres a pic!!

gotta get her a set of pliers to cut those string ends!

SOTC1987 · 05-20-2009, 08:03 AM

Wow that's so cool!

***Art*** · 05-20-2009, 10:23 AM

Freaking awesome.

cheyguy426 · 05-20-2009, 02:17 PM

That is very awesome!