Its not the arrow, its the Indian.

I once told my son that skill has much more to do with the end product than tools. I asked him who would win if I played a round of golf with Tiger Woods and we switched bags at the first tee. Using the best clubs money can buy, I would improve my score by, I don't know, maybe one stroke. Tiger using my $400 clubs might cost him three or four. Tiger still whoops my butt all over the course. Tiger has skill, I am a hacker.

The same principal applies to music. When my son wanted a guitar, I wanted to start with an inexpensive model and he stuck with it, we would look an upgrading it. I started browsing music stores and eventually would up looking at Ebay. I found a Stratocaster copy made by Bridgecraft. It was $59 plus shipping of $19. What the heck, if he never plays the thing, it will make a nice wall hanger. He started playing and then it sat for while.

One day my wife's uncle Tom stopped by the house on his way back home to Arizona. Tom is one of those colorful characters who never quite fit into the world. He is a brilliant musician, but has some interesting ideas about life. He is basically an old Hippie, and I really like him. When he found out that my son had a guitar he asked to hear him play. After a few minutes, he asked if he could show him a few things, my son agreed and Tom started to play. My son looked on in amazement as Tom took that $59 guitar and make it sound great. Tom showed him a few power chords and my son was hooked. It took someone to show him that ability is what defines greatness, not the price of the tools you use.

My son has gone on to buy a another guitar, an Epiphone Les Paul Jr. He likes it, but he still plays his old guitar and has since cover almost every inch of it with stickers. It looks kind of cool, it gives it some character. He plays an hour or two most days and is becoming a pretty competent player. He is getting to point now where he can play a guitar and tell me why he likes it, the way the neck feels, the different sound that the different pickups make. We were playing a few makes and models at one store and I handed him a G&L strat, he didn't know about G&Ls or what they cost, but he loved it. That particular one cost $1,300 and so far out of his price range it might as well been 13 million, but he now can tell how well it is made and knows how a really good guitar feels.

He is looking at spending his Christmas money on a new guitar. We have been to all the local music stores and have been to Guitar Center over in Sacramento a few times. He is finding out that name brands don't mean very much, unless you are buying a high end guitar. Epiphone has several Asian manufactures who make most of their guitars, so why pay $100 more for the name if you can buy the same model under another name? I told him to play every thing in his price range regardless of name and find the one that feels right to you.

He now gives me a bad time because I bought an acoustic guitar just after he received his. I am not anywhere near his ability and he says its because I don't practice enough, he's right.

If I could only get him to study his school work an hour or two every day.