I played guitar as a child, even performed at my primary school’s festival. So why did I actually stop playing guitar?
At a time, guitars were really expensive and my parents bought me a beginners acoustic guitar which was quite bad even though it was still relatively expensive. The action was too high and this started being worse during the time. I figured out I could fix this a little bit by inserting a folded paper between the neck and the body which helped but it was still not good. I had quite some pain in my finger so I slowly stopped playing.
Then my grandfather bought me a used electric guitar with home amplifier. The action was much better so I started playing again. I was probably like 15 or 16 at the time. It was quite difficult to learn playing some new song in the non-internet era, but I was still trying. After a year or two, under the influence from heavy metal guitarists, I wanted to reshape the body and the headstock so that it looks more like the ones played by my idols at the time. I disassembled it and started reshaping. I finished the rough part but then I got pneumonia followed by severe fever. I saw a mouse in my room and tried to kill it using the guitar’s neck. Unfortunately I broke the neck without killing the mice. Even worse, the day after I really couldn’t figure out did I really see the mouse or it was just an illusion because of the fever. At the time there was no way for me to get a new neck so this project was cancelled and I was forced to stop playing.
Later I became a software engineer, I got married and started getting children, one daugter and two sons at the end. Like 15 years ago, my older son showed the interest to play guitar so I decided to get him a decent beginners guitar. Under advise of a salesman in Belgrade, we got Yamaha F310P. He started learning but I still played his guitar very seldom, maybe 2-3 times per year. Some years later he wanted an electric guitar, so I again got him a decent instrument, Fender Squier Classic Vibe Stratocaster ’60s and Fender Mustang I amp. But, I still played very seldom.
Earlier this year, as a 51 years old, I started thinking to restart playing. The idea literally came out of nowhere and I kept the secret for some time. I was looking for guitars, amplifiers, pedals and other equipment and got a feeling that I need a really good instrument which will motivate me to play. After a month of two of discovering the world of modern instruments, I told to my older son that I am considering to buy a real Fender Stratocaster and restart playing. He told me that this was the best idea of my life, so with his support there were no further barriers to get a relatively expensive instrument. Which one, you will find out in my next story.