Acoustic Guitar Shopping

Considering that Evan might be moving soon (more on that later) and that I had been using his acoustic guitar for teaching for the past year, it made sense to start looking for one for myself, one that fit my teaching style a bit better than his instrument did. To begin, I teach both acoustic and electric lessons with an acoustic, so I knew it would be best if my instrument felt like an electric and had similar fret access (i.e. a cut-away) but sounded loud enough to be played acoustically. I wasn't really too picky about buying a super high quality instrument, I just knew I wanted it to feel and sound right.

So, after doing much research into thinline acoustic/electric guitars with thin electric-style necks, I ended up trying out the ESP Xtone PA-1 semi-acoustic guitar. The trick though was that I never got to play it in a store, as none of the stores around had one on the floor, so I had to order it online. When it came, the biggest disappointment was that it simply wasn't loud enough; I even took it to a couple lessons and found that both my students' electrics and acoustics were louder than my unplugged guitar. Plus, I wasn't entirely convinced by the pickups in the guitar's body, which emitted an annoying hum only when you were playing a note, kind of like a microphone turning on and off.

Fortunately, I had a 45-day no-questions-asked return policy to take advantage of, so just before sending it back I decided to hit the guitar stores once more to see if there was anything there I really liked. To my surprise (despite the fact I had already checked out my local Guitar Center), I found a moderately-priced Taylor guitar (a 114ce) which sounded and played better than any acoustic I can ever recall playing. Add to this the fact that the neck actually kinda felt like an electric neck, and I was sold (I bought it that night).

And let me just tell you...I'm extremely happy with this guitar, possibly even more so than my Ibanez Iceman, even despite being more of an electric player. This is most certainly the first acoustic I've ever played that made me WANT to play acoustic, sometimes even more than electric. At this point, I've taken it to a few lessons, and every time thus far I've had a moment where I just looked down at my instrument and smiled at how much fun I was having. Taylor really does make an incredible product, even though I wasn't expecting to find something I loved like this. Big smiles.