Introducing Yahaira…my new flamenco guitar. :-)

I was so tempted to rip open the box, but I resisted so I can take pictures for you, my readers, as well savor what I had been waiting a long time to receive.

If you read my previous blog entry, you already know what I went through to get this guitar. So you'll understand why I'm devoting a blog entry to a bunch of pics of my new instrument, which my dancer friend Cindy christened as Yahaira. You can laugh if you want, but I actually do have names for all my guitars. I just don't tell people about it.

Don't get me wrong I'm a musician first and foremost and not a guitar collector. So while I do love a pretty guitar, ultimately what matters is the sound and the way it feels in my hands.

I can remember one time more than ten years ago when I went shopping for flamenco guitars at the American Institute of Guitar in New York. The salesman picked out four guitars that he thought I might like, took my credit card as collateral and locked the door to the studio so I couldn't run off with the instruments.

As I tried out one guitar after the next and making a conscious effort not to look at the brand label, I came across one with a slightly warped soundboard and a crack. Despite the cosmetic defects, it sounded amazing. All I had to do was wait for the salesman to come back, point to the guitar I wanted and with a swipe of my credit card, I'd be the new owner within minutes. But alas, I didn't buy it. It just wasn't in my budget.

Anywayz, here you are for your viewing pleasure: the unboxing of my new guitar, Yahaira!

My new flamenco guitar is on the way!

flickr photo by Mr. Austin Frothingslosh

Yes, you read correctly. I am getting a brand new flamenco guitar—it's a very generous birthday gift from one of my biggest fans and supporters.

According to the concierge of my palatial crib (yeah, he's well aware by now that I'm expecting a very important delivery) the FedEx truck comes by for the afternoon delivery around 4:00pm (it's 3:18pm as I type these words). And of course, I've been waiting with so much anticipation judging by the number of times I've been refreshing the delivery status page on the FedEx website (see below). Since I'm unable to sit still I might as well put this nervous energy into cranking out a blog entry.

To be honest, sometimes having all this information makes things worse. Don't get me wrong: I truly appreciate FedEx (as well as the US Postal Service) and their usually timely deliveries in the past. But I'm not just being unreasonably impatient. There were a couple of snags this time around...

My transition from classical guitar to flamenco–the short version

It's 1:45am on Friday as I type these words. I arrived home a little more than an hour ago after seeing Woody Allen's latest movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona starring Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall. Fun film with lots of gorgeous shots of Barcelona but the soundtrack, which featured quite a few classical guitar pieces, transported me back to my days as a classical guitar major at Cal State Fullerton.

[Editor's note: if the YouTube link isn't working try this one.]

In case you didn't know that about me before, yes, I did study classical guitar in college with a focus on performance. Eventually I got my Bachelor of Music degree—not that you really need such a thing to work as a musician.

The classical portion of the soundtrack to Vicky Cristina Barcelona included:
Granada and Asturias from Suite Española by Isaac Albéniz,
El Noi de la Mare by Miguel Llobet,
all of which I learned way back then.

Nowadays as a flamenco guitarist, I spend a lot of time practicing just to keep up my technique. So much so that over the years I've forgotten most of my classical repertoire—not that I couldn't pick it up again with some effort. But as I enjoyed this 90-minute movie set in Spain, the piece Granada was used as a recurring theme every time one of the female characters reminisced her one unforgettably romantic night in Oviedo.