When most of us look at an acoustic guitar, we simply see a musical instrument. If this is a higher-end guitar then we tend to appreciate the workmanship that went into building such a beautiful instrument. The truth is however, that we don’t look far enough back in the history of how that instrument became a guitar. And no, I don’t mean the people who built it or the particular construction or bracing.
I’m talking about the trees that sometimes have grown hundreds of years before they finally become pieces of lumber that end up in a builder's hands. Each tree is a living breathing organism that, through a process of multiple steps, almost magically becomes a guitar. The thing to realize is that when any acoustic wooden instrument is initially built, I don’t believe that the tree yet knows that it’s a musical instrument.
It has been heated, bent and sanded into submission. But in the DNA of that wood, it still thinks it’s a tree. But now that you have it in your hands, you have the gift and opportunity to bring those pieces of wood to life once again by making your own special music together.
It’s a bond that forms between the two of you, and just like no two people are identical, there are no two guitars that are the same either. How you play it, how you communicate with it, how you care for it—is all going to work together to bring to life an instrument that now understands its new purpose.
I hope you’ll think about this the next time you pick up a guitar or bring home a new one, and that you’ll realize that this beautiful instrument is so much more than merely a combination of its pieces.
