Of everyone that I'm acquainted with, I can rely on nobody more than I can rely on Cora. No matter how long I leave her alone, no matter the time of the year, I can come back to her, hold her in my arms, stroke her gently, and she'll sound the same as she did the last time we played together. It's hard to describe how remarkable that is to me.
I wish I knew her better, though. It pains me to say, but for how magnificent Cora is, I have neglected our time together far too much. I've vowed to change that fact, and I can only hope she'll remain as patient with me as she has in the past, as our one-year anniversary steadily approaches.
Cora arrived at my house on the 25th of February, 2011, around 10am. An early birthday present.
After some dispute over her unprecedented arrival with my mother, I was finally allowed to remove her from her over-sized box. It was love at first sight.
Cora is a pristine, shimmering and sparkling silver-bodied Ibanez brand electric guitar. She's a bit on the heavy side, even for electrics, but that's part of what makes her have such a beautiful sound. It's more than the vibration of the strings; there's a certain resonance that takes place inside of her whenever a chord is struck. And it's heavenly.
I was first interested in playing the guitar back in middle school. For a while, I'd borrowed one from my uncle. A Fender Strat (basically the first thing you imagine when someone says "electric guitar"). He said I could keep it if I got good at it, but, big surprise, I barely picked it up.
Back then my interest was probably due to the fact that I wanted to depict myself as ridiculously romantic as possible. On top of my only electives being French and ballroom, I aspired to walk about the school with the guitar strapped to my back, able at any time to pull it around and start serenading some lucky lady. One day, I actually did bring the Fender to school, with the excuse that I was having it tuned by the music teacher, but I was obviously just trying to show off. I don't think anyone was impressed.
The appointed time arrived and I, without much reluctance, said goodbye to the ugly thing. My uncle has since given it to his daughter, who is taking much better care of it than I did.
A few years later, my desire to play a musical instrument resurfaced. This time it wasn't about being romantic. It was about being good at something, having a talent, and understanding an art form; or even, dare I say, learning another language. For a time, it was a viola that I wanted. Something elegant, and deep, something unique, something that can strangle and knot up someone's heart-strings whenever it's played. But they're too expensive, and probably too advanced for my untrained fingers. Besides, and although this is contrary to my own experience, music isn't just about communicating an indecipherable feeling of unfathomable yearning.
One day, I was talking to a friend of mine that I was currently having a bit of a fling with. (I put it that way to make it sound silly and fun, but in reality it was a very difficult and emotional experience. In what insane world wouldn't it be?) Somehow, the subject of me wanting to learn an instrument, possibly the guitar, came up. Out of what was apparently a strong desire to see me happy and help me follow my dreams, she promised to buy me one. A really good one.
The way she tells it, she was at a pawn shop when she saw her. The perfect guitar for me, and, if I remember correctly, even relatively inexpensive.
After I unwrapped her, I held Cora to my chest, and may have even kissed her neck in the heat of the moment. I took a couple of pictures of me holding her, and boy did we ever look like the perfect pair. There really was no question; she was my guitar. Always had been and always will be.
But not everything started out perfect. She needed tuning, naturally. Even if she'd been tuned after the purchase, there was the change in climate and altitude to consider. After that, though, she and I hit a major snag in our getting acquainted. The bottom two strings had a tendency to buzz against the frets ahead of the ones I pressed on.
I tried to ignore it and just keep learning. After all, I had no idea what the expense would be for fixing the issue. But while I was practicing with my friend, who had graciously dug up his dad's acoustic and an old lesson book, it started getting on my nerves. He, I, and another friend of mine immediately set out to find the nearest establishment that would be able to adjust poor Cora, crossing our fingers that it wouldn't cost me an arm and a leg.
We found a place that wasn't too far downtown that, to put it lightly, specialized in guitars. I find it odd that this fascinated me so much, but seeing the guitars (which, by the way, had been created on a table near the front of the store) lining the walls was almost like stepping into a greenhouse full of exotic and unique plants, or even that room in the hospital where all the babies are put on display after being born. Hundreds of quiet, beautiful babies, just waiting to be picked up and taken home, waiting to sing.
An old man with long, white, wavy hair greeted us. This man, whoever he was, Kevin or something, was clearly a weathered master of his trade. His lean body and mildly wrinkled visage told a tale of a life of devotion to the guitar and its every aspect, and it was plain that this tale was far from ending. If there had been any doubt after just looking at this man, this guitar guru, that he was the go-to guy for any guitar-related issue, it was immediately swept away by what he spoke next: "What've ya got there, an Ibanez?"
For as long as I could have been without allowing the pause to become awkward, I was dumbstruck. Cora was still in her carrying-bag on my back, her beautiful shape hidden by a more generic one. No normal human being could have known her brand with the amount of evidence available. My response to his question probably sounded really dumb, but it was something to the effect of, "Spooky you should say that, because that's exactly right."
(Today, I'm willing to believe that it was just a lucky guess. Ibanez is a rightfully popular brand of electric guitar. Or maybe I just struck him as an Ibanez kind of guy. I'll probably never know for sure, but I'm content with believing in magic for now.)
I described the problem as best I could, and he repeated it back to me using proper guitar terminology, to show that he knew what I meant. He also said that it was an easy problem to fix and that he'd do it for free. A bit thrilled, I consented to leaving Cora at the shop with some contact information so that I could come and pick her up when the adjustments were finished. One of my friends took a complimentary pick (the one I still use) and gave it to me, and then the three of us left, myself chattering wildly about how awesome the whole store and that man was.
The weekend passed. I still hadn't heard from the shop, and so, with my concern for Cora uncontainable, I resolved to walk down there and check on her.
I was only a bit relieved to see her still in her bag, stood against the corner behind the register. It appeared as though the master hadn't yet had the time to work on her, and that he wasn't in the shop at the moment. I talked to the available employee, who was also clearly a guitar player, but not in the same league as the old man.
He explained that he'd seen my guitar there, but didn't know what needed to be done since there weren't any instructions left and the old man was out. I repeated the problem to him, thinking that perhaps he'd be able to do it just as well, but I was extremely dismayed when he summed up the necessary process as a "twenty-four dollar thing". My mood was so shaken that I didn't have the will necessary to inform him that the old man had promised it for free. This was his shop now, his domain, and who was I to protest? What was my knowledge of guitars compared to his? Once I'm as good as him and have his job, I can be the one to make unnecessary charges to people who don't know any better. I might have that option some day, but I know I'm too nice a man to take it.
Not only was he clearly trying to take advantage of my lack of experience, but when he pulled out Cora to verify my words, he started playing her right in front of me (on the twelfth frets to avoid the issue), demonstrating his expertise and superiority. My face didn't show it (I hope), but I felt almost as indignant as I would if I saw someone giving my girlfriend a non-professional massage, coaxing noises of enjoyment and pleasure out of her. I refused the service and asked for my guitar back. He packed her into her bag, and, on top of all the other things he'd done, nonchalantly moved the zippers to the bottom, probably hoping that she would slip out on my way home and that I'd be required to come back for repairs far more dire and expensive.
I haven't set foot in there since.
On my way home, an acquaintance recognized me and drove me the rest of the way, giving me a chance to talk a bit about Cora. It was a good conversation, and while I don't remember what it consisted of, I get the feeling that I needed to have it.
I didn't wonder for very long on what my next move should be. I'm extremely privileged in that several members of my family are at least acquainted with musical instruments, a few of them even experts on them. I talked to my cousin about having her father, my uncle (different uncle than the Fender one), coming over and seeing what he could do with it. Not too much later in the week, their little family showed up at my house. My uncle had some tools, and my cousin brought her amp so we could check on the electrics.
I wasn't watching him too closely, but I swear it didn't take him more than five minutes of tinkering before the problem was fixed. We plugged her in to see if there were any internal issues, and she sounded divine. My uncle played on her a bit (which I was still just a tad uncomfortable with), packed everything up, and they went home.
For about an hour, I held Cora in my arms like a lover.
Having overcome a major obstacle in our path, I've done my best to practice with Cora using the internet and photocopies of my friend's lesson book. (He himself had left for his mission soon after the whole fiasco.) It's been what you might expect from a relationship between a novice self-taught musician and his only instrument that was a gift to him; that is to say, on and off. But I can safely say that she and I get to know each other better and better every time I pick her up.
I'm even starting to believe that I might have been born to play the guitar, if I may be so bold. Not only is my left index finger slightly longer than the right one, but whenever I play a song, I can't help but feel that I'm getting closer to becoming the person I was meant to become.
