When is the right time...

[UKRuss]

To hand on your "heirloom" to your children?

I was at my kids school Xmas fare last weekend and there was a competition to win a guitar. An epiphone les paul, quite nice starter kit.

I had a go but of course didn't enter the competition and my playing, heard by the assembled crowd, sparked interest and got the compeition going for which the kids running it were grateful. (they were struggling to get people interested).

And for 20p a go all sorts of kids started playing and my son who is 5 had a go and put his name down. One of his little friends from his class had a go too. and some older kids etc.

The staple to play, and can you believe this after all these years, was Smoke on the Water. (I mean these kids were like 10 years old!!)

Anyway, I decided to leave before the award was made to avoid any polssibility that my son might win the guitar. Now before you say, "Mean Dad!!" I did it becuase I have a number of guitars anyway and my son is already playing on them and for a 5 year old that's enough.

However, it turns out that his little friend won the guitar and she is coming round (organised by my wife and her Mum) to have a go in my studio this weekend because the little thing doesn't have an amp and she doesn't understand why the guitar is so quiet.

They are a single parent family unit and can't afford an amp this Xmas and so I have decided to give her a lead and my little Marshall Micro stack (which I never use) so she can play at home as a little Xmas present.

It makes me feel good as that's a Xmassy thing to do so I'm cool with that.

BUT!

My son is going to be a bit miffed and I feel a little guilty that I didn't think of giving the kit and maybe one of my older guitars i don't use so much to him instead.

It's a dilemma...he has access to my kit whenever he likes but he doesn't possess it and there is something in the act of handing it over that matters.

I have been hanging on to my old tele (which again despite the fact I love it, I don't play it much anymore) and I wonder if now is the right time to hand it over and make it my sons guitar.

Or should I wait until next year when he will be 6 ( a better time to start guitar cos of hand size etc.) and buy him something he chooses. Kids have there own ideas of whats cool and whats not.

What should I do?

[phantom]

Ohoh Russ.
Even though i got no kids i think i understand the dilemma.

Hmm.. what to do.

Fact is, your Tele is special to you and i guess you are afraid that you give it now to your sons hands and he won't be able to give it the right apreciation.
I mean, you know, it all stays in the family and the guitar will not be moved and still you can play it and all that, but it is (i suppose) a big thing for you to give that guitar to your son and i doubt he would be able to appreciate it.

So, might sound wierd, but i wouldn't give it to him yet.
Make it something that he has to achive first, like earning the priviledge to get that guitar.

Of course your dilemma is that you did those favours to his friend and that she won the guitar and such and that your son would like to posses one as well.
I don't know how much a 5 year old is capable of understanding, but i would try to talk to him and try to make him understand that a guitar is much more than winning one or possessing one. That it is rather a tool of expression than a "oh i have one as well"-gimmick. He should understand that the fact he has the possibility to play all of your cool guitars should be much more amazing to him.

Tell him that next year he will get his own guitar, one that fits him better, one that is selected especially for him... and not just won piece of epiphone.

As always Russ, i could be totally off, misunderstood your whole situation and my post consist of irrelevant rants.

[UKRuss]

I'm thinking your right, that is the right thing to do.

He will learn that everythig comes at the right time and with effort not just on a whim to pay off the emotional balance of the parents.

Tricky stuff!

[phantom]

Yeah.. take your time to build up some hype about that tele.. and then think of the sparkle in his eyes when you will finally give it to him!
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When he is 32.

[ashc]

I didn't get my first electric until I was 32 (truly) - had to buy it myself though. But, I agree with the phantdude.

But, then again, there is always these:

http://www.guitarampkeyboard.com/en/squier-mini-guitar/9318?s=5534x$$9dfZbHaW$2PviHO4klGfwQqvO87jgj/x0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o1010270

[UKRuss]

can't make link work...

But if it's kinda what i think it is then I was thinking of maybe a little ukelele to start with...

Nice easy chords and nylon strings.

[phantom]

vvvrrrrRRRRROOOO


http://www.guitarampkeyboard.com/en/...ni-guitar/9318


OOOOOooooooommm

[phantom]

oops.. dammit i postet gear.

Haffta go and delete myself.

[UKRuss]

Problem solved! nice one Ash!

£79 a small price to pay to off load parental guilt.

Happy Xmas tiny tim and here's a rockin' mini axe!

[UKRuss]

oops.. dammit i postet gear.

Haffta go and delete myself.

Oh ya! Whoops, bad mods, bad!

Release the puppets!

[ashc]

Yeah, I was thinking of getting one for myself - ten fret stretches - I can the do all that tapping stuff with just my left hand!

I'd better stop before I mention those 18 inch long basses with the rubber strings - sounds like an upright (damn! seasonal gear posting - I'll take the firing squad, not the chair).

[UKRuss]

oh, we've moved on from those old school penalities (barring US citizens where "The Chair" is still "trendy" )

No, no. Now we've gone back to the "ducking stool" and "burning at the stake".

Better for the crowds and if we find you innocent at a later date, well we'll post a thread saying so.

You can't ask for more than that!

[ashc]

"breaking on the wheel" has always been my Tudor punishment of choice

[jade_bodhi]

Old Dick’s Grammer

Billy Grammer built the guitar in Nashville
out of Brazilian rosewood back in the day
when he could get it: slotted headstock,
wide mahogany neck for easy finger-picking.
How the Grammer got into Uncle Dick’s hands,
Dick never would tell except to say
Billy owed him and the Grammer settled it.
When I was a girl in pigtails,
Old Dick showed me how to walk
the bass for twelve bars.
I fell for that guitar & the way Dick played it
but had to settle for a cheap classical sold at auction;
it sang me from Joni’s blue songs
all the way to Neil's needle.

In college I jumped on a deal,
small cash for my first steel-string,
a finger-blistering Japanese knockoff;
but loved the twang it gave my funkified
standards during late night rendezvous
in my bedroom with dead blues men
spinning on the turntable,
tracking infinite revolutions per lifetime.

I gave the Japanese knockoff to my best friend
after she slept with my boyfriend.
On the rebound I held a honeyed Aria
in my arms & lit out for the Appalachians.
Didn't take long to meet Doc, who told me,
“Live the song when you sing it.”
I did & found love & death
in the country of the blasted oak.

One day Old Dick came to visit me
on his way to New Orleans & traded me
the stately Grammer for my second-rate Aria.
I always wondered why he did it,
like trading a Town Car for a Tercel.
Later I understood
he was handing it down,
but by then Old Dick was dead.

One night at a river jamboree under big hemlocks
I left the Grammer in the bed of a pickup & it rained.

It rained hard.

Wouldn’t have been so bad with the guitar in its case
but the case was lying upside-down
& water ran in it.
The next morning, hungover & sick,
I drained rainwater out the sound hole.

The Grammer dried but was never
the same. Next spring it must have thought
it was going back to the rainforest
because its mahogany neck started twisting
about like it was trying to find some
sunlight under a jungle canopy.
I laid Dick’s Grammer in its black case
and stashed it in the closet,
like installing a casket in a mausoleum.
I glutted my grief on a string
of anonymous electric guitars:
an ash blond fake Telly bought from a pawnshop,
a hulking Peavey unloaded years later on eBay,
an Italian hollow-body that loved feedback.

Old Dick was dead for ten years
when I met this twelve-year-old
kid who wanted to learn
but had no money & no guitar.
I dug out the Grammer, still unplayable.
When the luthier saw it he whistled,
“Haven’t seen one of these in long time.
They didn’t make many of these
& Billy, well, he’s been gone a long time.”
The luthier started to remove the neck;
I couldn’t take it; I had to leave the shop.
He carefully removed the abalone,
planed the neck straight, fixed the cracked face
with pliant spruce braces inside & reset the neck.
The Grammer still looked like hell,
like it was left in the rain & sun,
like an old sailor, but it sings like an angel.
I gave it to the kid and showed him how to walk
the bass for twelve bars.

[Obivion]

Truly beautiful poem (wipes eyes)