John's weekly update - what I've been doing since the review

Hey everyone, just thought I'd check in at the ol' blog. I haven't done much here since the big Contender review, so what have I done for the past week?

Well for one thing, I've been playing. Another big plus in the Contender's favor is that, even after I pulled all my guitars out of the closet (save for the Hondo) and cleaned them up, I still grab the Contender first. I think I've officially been won over by its short scale goodness. In fact, when I played my Strat for the first time after using the Contender for so long, it felt absolutely huge! I got used to it and remembered just how nice of a guitar it is, but I found myself missing the shorter scale. I had planned on putting the Contender away for a while so I could rotate my guitars, but I couldn't leave it in there. I had to take it out again because I missed playing it so much.

I also decided that I want to make playing fun again. My biggest shortcoming on the guitar is (still) my lack of song knowledge, so to compensate for that I went out and bought the Humongous Guitar Songbook. Sixty-four songs, and I actually like most of them. Sure, there are some duds, but for the money it can't be beat. I plan on loading up on these types of songbooks and learning as many songs as I can. I'm still going to do some of my exercises and maybe go over some of my theory and scales, but I think learning these songs will make me a better player. It did once before, back in my Amethyst days, so I'm sure it'll work again.

I fight the urge to look at/want to buy new guitars every day. With the addition of Triumph and Shorty, I should be focusing more on playing and less on gear, but I love guitars so much and there are still more that I'd want. I think back to the unlucky loser, the Sterling JP50 that nearly won the Short List, and I wonder what it would've been like if I bought that one instead. I also still would love to get another Les Paul style guitar, not to mention a hardtail Ibanez, or even the Schecter Omen 6 I liked so much. Then there's the ever-present pull of the Chapman Guitars ML1, which is getting closer to sold out every day, and that's a limited run, so after they're gone, they're gone for good. In fact, if I had the money lying around, that would be the first guitar I'd buy, just to make sure I got one while I still could.

Anyway, I digress. I have a great set of guitars that should last me a while. Many people only have one or two guitars, but I'm lucky enough to have four good ones and one chock full of sentimental value (if nothing else). I want to work on my playing for a little while now and possibly look to upgrade the rest of my rig - i.e. amp and pedals - at some later date.

Isn't playing guitar just all kinds of awesome?