Women VS Guitars (Round 1)

     Being a guitarist myself I often call my favorite guitar “My Love”. It might seem funny to most, but a guitarist (as much as everyone who plays an instrument) is usually in love with his favorite instrument. The reason? Simple. We get to accumulate a certain bond with them. They are the instruments of our inspiration. The extension of our limbs. The extension of our own existence and soul. Guitarists though have another reason. Guitars resemble to Women awfully a lot. Many will call that statement unorthodox. But take a closer look and you will see that there are many reasons that justify these “unjustified” words. Let’s take a closer look .


     a) The shape of a guitar, and especially the shape of electric guitars is pretty much alike the woman body. Curvy on the bottom. Thin as you rise. You can almost picture a beautiful woman as you stare at a guitar. Even variable woman bodies as well. In a funny way, throughout the evolution of the image of the perfect woman, the past 60 decades mainly, have changed the shape and even sound of guitars. From the fat-bottomed “Gibsons” of mid 50’s, to the more elegant and sophisticated “Fenders” of the 70’s, to the more rebellious and hardcore “Ibanez-es” of the 80’s. Guitars evolved in accordance to the kind of the ideal woman body of the era they were created. And strangely even the sound of them changed dramatically, following the general attitude of the women of that time. From bass driven voices, to beautifully weeping ,to elegantly melodically expressing , independently screaming. Yeah. Guitars surely had their special connection with women idols over those past decades.


    b) Not many women are known for their performance as guitar heroes. Furthermore there is only a handful of women known for their guitar playing and style (especially when it comes to electric guitars). Women today are privileged to music more than any other time. I could confidently say that the number of women who begin learning music (mostly classical) is increasing rapidly, and furthermore is closer to the numbers of their male “adversaries” than ever. But why haven’t we seen many women playing electric guitars? It is quite strange yet justifiable to the bone. Guitars have a gender and it is a “female” one. That’s why mostly men get to play with them. Guitars are being seen like their women, their girlfriends, their lovers. It’s a relationship. A guitarist has to spend hours with his guitar. He has to take care of her. Polish it. Re-string it. Change it’s broken parts. They get to spend a great deal of time together. So they become one after a while. The guitarist inevitably falls in love with the guitar. Just as he falls in love with his woman.

     c) Guitars are like women in character too. If you push your guitar to the limits, sometimes the sounds gets distorted. Push it further and you get a broken string. Aren’t women like that. You push them to the limit and they break. Cause they are as fragile as a guitar string. Of course on mens’ defence, we never want to see our women and our guitars “broken”. It’s only that we can take the best of our women and our guitars, only when we push them to their limits.


     d) Take every guitarist of the world (that being a famous Rock star or the boy who plays for fun downtown). If you ask them, how well do they know their guitar, in most of the cases you’ll get the same answer. “I still have much to learn”. And it is true. Cause guitarists (and all the performers as well) learn each day a new thing. They progressively become masters but there is always a place for them to get better. Always. Ironic though it might seem, women are not much different. Like we all men say, “We’ll never completely understand women”. So, we too, progressively get to know women. But we’ll never know everything about them just like we do with our guitars.


     e) Many guitarists use the same guitar over the course of years (and for some of them we are talking even for decades). Not always the same brand and model, but in many cases the very same guitar they used to play years ago. Two grand paradigms are BB King and his “Lucile” and U2’s Edge with his infamous “Gibson Explorer”. On the other hand there are player who change their guitars according to the color of their shoes. There are shows where guitarists would change guitar in every single song. Well, just rule out the word “guitar” and put the word “woman” in it’s place and what you get is the two stereotypical kind of men. One the one hand the typical family guy (the guitarists who has settled to one tune and sound and does not go in search of extravagant things), and on the other the man-hunter seeking new company every other day (the pompous guitarist who is everlastingly in search of new sounds and shapes and colors in his guitar). And just like real life, we either find once the woman of our lives and stick with her forever, or we remain in search of a new experience every day (meaning sometimes we end up with nothing but substitutes).


     f) Love at first sight. It happens. And it happens a lot. We watch a guitar on the showcase, and we fall in love with it. On first and only glance. Not caring for the sound or the way they play. It’s pure magic love at first sight. Well, the other place we can only find pure love at first sight are the eyes of a woman. No need for more explanations.


     g) How can we also rule out the fact that we feel safe, happy and reassured when we have in our lap our guitar or our girl. It’s the same exact feeling.


     h) Lastly, there are times where we don’t know why we love our guitars. No reason. No justification. We just do, just so. Like it was meant to be. Same there with women too. Sometimes we don’t know why we love them. We just do. Without any reason at all.