Tangier Sound

When Dear Old Dad and I first started teaching music over the Internet most of our students already owned instruments. We didn’t really worry about recommending instruments because our early student base was largely made up of folks who had bought a banjo or guitar at some point in the last thirty years and were having a hard time figuring out how to make music before they found us.

Sure, there are always folks who are looking for a shiny new guitar or banjo but as I have pointed out before, there is a difference between wanting a new instrument and actually needing one.

Now things have changed. Every day we receive calls and letters from people around the world who found us by accident and are now searching for their first banjo or guitar.

In cases like this the question of what to buy is not easily answered because there are so many variables to consider in recommending an instrument. Even if we decided to endorse a specific brand or store we could not be certain that you would wind up with a fair deal or a good setup.

With that in mind, Dear old Dad and I have decided to begin offering select guitars and banjos.

Understand up front that we are not opening up a music store. There won’t be any advertising campaigns or commercials spliced into our workshops. We don’t want to sell you your fifth banjo or your third high-end guitar. We want to sell you your first guitar or banjo – and we want to make sure that your first instrument represents the best possible value for it’s intended purpose.

The first guitar we are offering is the Morgan Monroe Vintage 32. This is not a particularly fancy guitar, but it has the best elements of the instruments made by Stella and Gibson in the 1930′s including a solid spruce top with scalloped braces, laminated mahogany back and sides and a wonderful neck with a graceful V-profile that makes it easy to wrap your thumb around for the bloody agonizing chord of death – all wrapped up in a glowing tobacco sunburst finish.

Sure we looked at cheaper and fancier guitars, but this guitar stuck us as being the best value of the bunch. It’s cheap enough to start out on and made well enough to use for twenty years. I really like this little guitar.

We will have more instruments soon. There are banjos on the way (we are still looking for a decent lefty) and maybe a surprise or two.

So if you are starting out and don’t know what to buy give us a call. We’ll help you find the best value and I will personally set up your instrument before it ships. We won’t push you into buying anything. Our only goal is to get you playing.