No story of my lifelong love for guitars would be complete without giving due space/time to the nicest guitar I own, a Martin HJ-28. So, I will delay the intended topic, “Hand the band and beyond,” for now to linger some on the story surrounding the acquisition of this fine instrument.
I had no intent of purchasing a guitar like it when Ron (see last post) and I went to look at guitars at a nearby shop with a tremendous selection of unique new and used guitars. I had my dreadnought Heritage, that, while not a great guitar by any means, got the job done and had a special story to go with it (again, see last post)—which always adds to its mystique for me.
I was turning 40 and playing out at open mics more regularly and even recording some of my own songs for posterity. I was certain I wanted a steel string guitar with a wider neck, a “fingerstyle” guitar—something more akin to the classical guitar, which has a much wider neck than most acoustic and electric guitars. My big hands always felt cramped on the Heritage, and with my classical background (classical guitarists only ever pluck with their fingernails), I found myself naturally doing a lot of fingerstyle playing and learning what’s known as “memphis picking,” where your thumb and index finger hold a regular flat pick while your middle and ring fingers pluck the strings as well.
I came hoping to find a good, fingerstyle, steel-stringed instrument, a cross between my dread and classical guitars. I had also fallen for the sound of Flammang guitars, which were still made in Connecticut then—and as with my Heritage, built in Michigan near where I had lived, I liked the idea of purchasing a guitar from my home state. And sure enough when I asked, a lovely, used Flammang was brought down from the rack and placed in my hands. Instantly my left hand felt more at home, and I loved hearing some of my own songs coming out of it with that complex, rich yet gentle tone. I would have purchased it on the spot had Ron not convinced me to try a lot of guitars before making a decision. “See which one really speaks to you,” he urged. “You’ll know it when you play it.”
So, I played a lot of guitars that day—00 Martins, which I’ve always loved the sound of, a stunning Collings that was far beyond my price range, a Taylor or two, though Taylor guitars have never given me that tingling at the back of my neck feeling I get when I play certain guitars. I even tried some cool, oval-sound-holed “gypsy” guitars that had a shallow, bright and unique tone. Then I was handed a 1994 Martin, the HJ-28. The shop owner explained that it was a unique model, a kind of “Franken-guitar,” half HD-28 dreadnought, half J-40 Jumbo, hence the “HJ.” And looking at it, the shoulder could be that of any Martin dread, but that big, rounded bottom didn’t look right…. But the sound.
A few strums in, and I didn’t want to put it down. It had that distinct Martin tone, but with something else added in, something I’d never heard/felt/played/experienced before. And this is particularly hard to describe. A good, all-solid wood, well-built guitar has a certain resonance to it, a range of overtones that reverberate out from the strings through the carefully chosen woods, so when you hit a note or strum a chord, through the spell cast by the luthier’s skill, those sound waves bounce around inside the body of the guitar, moving in and out of the wood before reaching your ears and vibrating into and through your own body. Every guitar has its own sound, just as every one has their own voice (and just as our voices rely on the shape of our head, mouth, jawbones). Even the exact same model guitar with the exact same spruce top, mahogany back and sides will sound subtly, but distinctly different than another “identical” guitar.
In a recent study by audiologists, some of the mystery behind the woods of Stradivarius violins was claimed to have been “solved.” They discovered through spectroscopic wizardy that the wood had been treated with a special solution, preserving certain elements of the wood while a third of the wood had decomposed, and postulated that the unique blend of these now forgotten wood preservation compounds must contribute significantly to their unique sound. While I find this kind of science impressive, it is trying to solve something that is ultimately unsolvable. All I knew for sure then (and all I know for certain still whenever I play this instrument) was that the glued and jointed together wood cradled on my thigh and pressed against my torso was—through some ineffable combination of tone woods and luthier skill and the way those woods had aged since the mid 90s and who knows what other magic— speaking to me.
The owner of the shop smiled as I smiled. “Yeah, I knew you’d like it,” he said.
“Wow,” was all Ron said. And when he gets a chance to play it, and I love hearing him play it, hearing it from across the room a whole different experience than hearing it in my own lap, he usually utters that same “wow.”
When the shop owner learned it was a 40th birthday present from my wife, he lowered the purchase price a little to make it exactly the year I was born, $1962, a gesture I greatly appreciated since it added to the story of this guitar—which also compensated some for it not being made in Connecticut. I have since learned that Martin only ever made about 400 HJ-28s between the mid-90s and 2000, and I consider myself fortunate to have owned one for these past two decades—though not because it is often described as “rare” or “unique” but because of the way it feels in my hands, the sounds I can conjure from it that fill me with such joy.
Would you believe…Since I completed the new album in mid April my chronic skin condition on my left hand has acted up and I’ve been unable to play either guitar…
Beyond frustrating.
You may inspire me to bring out my 1963 Martin someday…