One more shot

I've had another weekend revelation: I've decided to give the guitar one last shot, one more chance to see if I really want to be a guitarist, before I make a potential shift to drums as my main instrument.

This revelation came from my first trip to my new neighborhood Guitar Center. My wife was getting her hair done, which is usually an hour-long affair but in this case would last at least two, and fortunately for me the Guitar Center in Des Moines was on the same street as the hair salon, a quick 5-minute drive. So after a quick check-in with the wife, I headed out.

I gave the place a quick look-around and then averted my eyes from the guitars and headed straight for the drum room in the back. And I do mean this literally - I looked down at the floor and avoided looking at the wall of guitars on the left side. I was hoping they had some electronic drum sets set up, which they did. I had two goals on this trip - to check out some electronic drum sets and to see if I still enjoy playing.

They had about five electronic drum sets set up. Most were of the freaking expensive variety, but they did have a Simmons SD7K, which interested me because it's an entry level set and that's the category my budget will allow. I borrowed a set of sticks and went to work.

The first thing I noticed is that I didn't totally lose it - my drumming was still there, if a bit rusty. That was good. The second thing I noticed is that the Simmons set really blew. That was bad. The sounds were horrible and the pads were not very responsive.

The second set I tried was a Yamaha DTX520K, which was a hell of a lot nicer but was also a hell of a lot more expensive - a cool grand, about twice as much as the Simmons. I spent most of my time on this set. The best thing about it was I could forget about the set and just play, which meant I could explore goal number two. I discovered that, yes, I did still enjoy playing the drums. I also discovered that the rust was pretty thick and it would take a while just to get back to where I was when I last played.

Further confusing the issue was what I did next. I took off the blinders and went to the guitar wall. I just can't resist a wall of guitars. I briefly played a few of them unplugged. I played a used Mexican HSS Strat which felt really nice. I played a Sterling JP6 that proved I made the wrong decision (I chose my red Ibanez over the JP6). I played a Blacktop Stratocaster that was incredible. I played three Telecasters - a Classic Player series Tele that had a painfully thick neck, a standard Mexican Tele in Alpine white that felt really good, and another Mexi-Tele that I saw as I was leaving that I just had to pick up because it was in one of my favorite configurations - brown sunburst with a white pickguard and a maple neck. Despite being severely out of tune, it was amazing, surprisingly better than the relatively identical white one.

All this guitar playing confused me, because although I enjoyed drumming, I didn't enjoy it any more than playing guitar. On the drive home, I talked about it with my wife and came to the relevation stated above. I'm going to try again to be a guitarist. I have a lot of frustrations with the instrument, and maybe by overcoming them I can enjoy it more and forget about being a drummer. If not, though, it's not like there won't be drum sets to buy in the future. Heck, maybe someone will even figure out how to make a good entry level electronic set by then.