My guitar journey began when I was ten years old (I think) and got a ukulele for Christmas. I played it constantly, until I got a bit bored of it and decided I wanted to move on. So, I started playing my Dad's old acoustic guitar that he didn't really use anymore.

My grandmother got me an amp that she found at a thrift store, and since my Dad's guitar was an acoustic-electric, I was able to mess around a bit with the built in overdrive and reverb that came with the thrift store amp. It was then I decided that I really wanted an honest-to-god electric guitar- and by saving up all of the scraps of money I got from chores, birthdays, and holidays, I was able to walk into the music store and get the cheapest electric they had. (In retrospect, I should have done a bit more research.)

It's been around three years since I bought that guitar and I know more about them than ever! I own a ton of electric guitar books, have pictures of them all over my walls, spend my free time going through r/electricguitar and old archive sites... safe to say this is my favorite instrument of all time. This page is mostly for me to document all of my guitar-related thoughts!

My favorite guitar of all time is Fender's Jazzmaster model. The funny thing about this is that I typically prefer guitars that are made for tons of distortion and crazy heavy rock, but the jazzmaster isn't really for that. As it's name suggests, it was originally desinged to appeal to jazz players, but since then it's taken on a life of it's own.

I love basically everything about this guitar: the visual aesthetic, it's unique pickups, and the wide variety of tones you can get from the rhythym/lead switch configuration. Once I get rich, a genuine Fender Jazzmaster is the first thing I'm buying.

This is my personal guitar! Her name is Marianne. (She's named after the song Marian by the Sisters of Mercy, but I spelled it differently.)

Marianne is a passion project of mine. She was only around $180, and it definitely shows. She originally came with really shitty noisy pickups, and the frets/neck are really poor quality. The frets stick out from the board so much that they tear up my pointer finger a bit when I play.

Since getting her, I've swapped out the pickups and tuning machines. The pickups she currently has installed are Seymour Duncan Invaders. I really love the neck, but the bridge is slightly to high-output for me. I plan on putting a different kind of pickup in the bridge, as well as an SD Psychedelic pickup in the middle.

Her current tuning machines are these Fender Locking Tuners. These are a HUGE upgrade from the stock tuners. They make changing the strings way faster since you don't have to wind every string all the way around the peg. If you want to try your hand at a guitar upgrade, try putting in locking tuners! It was a really easy swap, it only took me around an hour.

My main goal with Marianne is to turn her into a complete all-rounder, able to handle every style and genre you could think of. I'll be updating this page as I make adjustments and add more parts to her.