My humble guitar collection: Part 2

The second guitar I bought, which was around 1988-1990 was a Stinger X12 electric guitar with a little amp.

This guitar was bought at Steve’s Music Store in downtown Montreal. I bought almost all my music equipment there. These guitars were entry-level instruments sold in Canada (might be related to the C.F. Martin Stinger line from Korea although I doubt it). If I remember correctly, everything cost me around 200-250$ CAD. A copy of the popular Fender Stratocaster, this guitar didn’t give the best experience but for a first purchase, it served me well and kept the desire to continue playing. I remember on the night were I finally convinced my father to drive me to the store so I could buy the instrument, we got a flat on highway 20 eastbound near Lachine. You can imagine how happy my dad was bt anyway, a couple of hours later I was in my room driving my parents insane.

Insane, I say, because that was the period where I was heavily into Metallica and my goal in life was to play all the songs from the first 4 albums. I never pushed the solo aspect of music playing and was more into the rythm part so James Hetfield’s part was my goal. So I played and I played like crazy trying to get to the speed and accuracy that I was hearing on the songs. At one time, me and a friend decided to try guitar lessons so we could improve. We went to our first joint lesson where the guy was mostly in “impress-mode” so he could hook us I guess. He gave us a couple of exercises and asks us he there was a song we wanted to learn. Master of Puppets was submitted.

So I went back to my place and tried the exercises that were given to me. Man was it boring! I was not cut out for it. I was learning more and more by ear and this teary approach did not help me move forward. We went to the second lesson and lo and behold, Master of Puppets was played to us. Boy were we amazed! Anyway, I don’t remember that much a part from the fact that I never went back after that second lesson.

This is about the time where I discovered the wonderful world of guitar tabs. To be able to buy an entire album in tabs was amazing and before I knew it I had a couple of books at home helping me getting the songs right.

One of my favorite songs to play by Metallica, was Four Horsemen:

So the end of the 80s was mostly centered around that.

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~ by MrStrings on August 16, 2009.