Ants on the Melon
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I received my first guitar as a birthday gift from my parents when I was 8 years old, and although I learned to play several parts of songs, I didn’t really get serious about it until I was 12 or 13. I played guitar for several hours just about every day from the time I was 13 until 18, when I went to college. At college I still play a lot, but there were plenty of other things to do as well, so my guitar skills did not quite get the same amount of attention as they previously had.

Around my senior year I started playing again, but it didn’t seem as exciting. I wanted to try something new. So one day I was in Richmond with my roommate Andrew and we stopped by Guitar Works, which was my favorite music store. I checked out several guitars, and then I noticed the mandolins. I knew a little bit about mandolins, as Gramps would put on a show every Sunday afternoon (when he wasn’t burning up the strings of his Martin). I bought a mandolin that day, and I ended up having a blast learning how to play it. It was like starting all over again, and there were so many directions that I could go in. This was the beginning of my fascination with other instruments, and I’ve since bought a second mandolin, a fiddle, a harmonica and, of course my Taylor guitar.

After playing around with alternate tunings I became more interested in playing with a slide. I knew what I needed to do, I needed to buy a dobro. So last Sunday I added another instrument to my collection, I bought a Gibson Hound Dog Dobro on eBay. I noticed it on Saturday and saw that it was starting at a great price, set to end at around 3pm on Sunday. I watched the auction and ended up winning it with 3 seconds to go. Best of all its almost brand new and I got a terrific deal on it.

I haven’t had a whole lot of time to play with it yet, but so far its been extremely fun. I just love the bluesy-steel sound that this thing makes. After I had played around on it for a little while I noticed a hole for a cable on the bottom of the dobro. I couldn’t believe it when I plugged it into my amp and it was also electric/acoustic, woot! Anyway, you can bet I’ll be spending plenty of time learning how to play this thing.

Recently I’ve been giving more thought to trying to put together a (mostly) acoustic blues band.