The Collings Guitar Forum slowly becomes a Forum/Family for us Guitar Enthusiasts who loved high quality acoustic guitar especially those from Collings Guitar Co.

Please tell as little or as much as you wish.
Hopefully, this thread will last as long as this forum can be and serve as a history of this big family we visit often!

Ed

[This message was edited by Ed on August 12, 2002 at 02:21 AM.]

Hi, I was born in the 70s in Hong Kong. Finished University in Australia double majored in IS and Communications. Then back to Hong Kong for good.

I took a few Violin Lessons when I was little.
Started guitar in Grade 12 when a friend hanged me his Yamaha Acoustic during a church summer camp. That moment I knew I have to learn to play it!

Been playing on and off for almost 10 years now... I am now a Project Manager for an Insurance Company.... I started this Collings Forum shortly after I acquired my first Collings, an OM1A, I wish I still has it!

I used to play at chunch a lot when I was in Uni. Now I play mostly at home and am focusing myself in fingerstyle and Acoustic Blues.. I am a very slow learner but enjoyed playing guitar a lot!! Hopefully.. I can play better.

My other hobbies include Tennis and Scuba Dive, got my Rescue Licence and am now taking the DiveMaster Course.

Nice meeting you all here!!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Ed,

Dave Cohen from Chicago here, relatively new forum member. My first Collings was an OM1A that knocked my socks off. I sold it, because it was too plain. Well, I just bought a used OM1A Short Scale with a sunburst finish and I'm back in love. Just LOVE it. I play comtemporary fingerstyle, ragtime, modern rock acoustic pieces, celtic. I've owned a HUGE number of high end guitars, and have it down to 4: the OM1A, a Blanchard Bristlecone (eng/ei rosewood), a Baranik SJ in ad/koa, and a Goodall TROM ad/madagascar back/sides. I do have to admit, though, that Kim at Cotten has whet my whistle for a C-10 in ad/maple, as she sells a lot of those and claims it's to die for. Drop me a line if you get to Chicago.....Dave

Allen White, 38 years young, Design Engineering Manager, Austin, TX. I've been playing guitar for almost 4 years now. Went through several Martins and was never quite satisfied with them. Bought my first Collings off ebay November 2001. It was a 2000 model OM-1 cutaway. Just a wonderful little guitar. I sold my remaining Martins and ordered a Collings D-2HA in Feb 2002. Bought a mahogany/ad CJ from Cotten Music a couple months ago and sold the OM (I guess I'm just a dreadnought man). The D-2HA and CJ-1A are a great pair of guitars to own. Living 5 miles from Collings factory is great too!

I'm a little older than Ed. Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon on my 13th birthday.

I work as a computer geek, although these days more of a sales geek. I'm a Systems Engineer/Sales Engineer with an Internet security software company. Firewalls and stuff. I fly around the US trying to keep the sales reps honest and presenting, demoing, installing and training on our products. I have a home office when not on the road. It doubles as a recording studio and I have 13 guitars hanging on the walls. There are 13 guitars on the walls because that's all there is room for. There are also 7 computers in here, but I don't run all of them all the time. Most are for lab work when I need to figure something out.

I currently have 18 guitars and most of them are pretty good. Yes, it is a sickness, but I like it. I started playing guitar in high school and it sort of stuck. At times more or less serious. I always played acoustic and started performing a solo act in the Florida beach bars in the 1975 time frame. In the early '80s I started playing a lot more electric guitar, and for a while I played mostly electric guitar. A few years back I came full circle back to acoustic, although I still play electric a lot as well. My Collings was a great inspiration in this path back to acoustic guitar. I even have real calluses again.

I have been married for 14 years and I have a 13 year old son. My son is taking piano lessons and is doing pretty well. He can do something that I've never been able to do: read music. We live in Colorado, where I have been since 1979.

I'm overweight and I like loud shirts.
http://www.rockerbob.com/Ugly_Gtr_Shirt.html

OK, how's that for TMI?

David Ely, living in San Antonio Texas, 38 years old, and I just broke about every internet safety rule I try to teach my kids (10 and 6). for reference, I was in hospital recovering from being born just days after JFK's assassination.

Involved in music since junior high school (brass man, band and youth orchestras, which taught me just enough music theory to start to understand), with guitar seriously for the last two years. I moved quickly through three guitars (cheap Yamaha, Seagull, Taylor 810) before needing a Collings. I have a D2SH - like Alan, I'm a dred man. Still have the Seagull and a baby Taylor for camping and loaning.

I don't post often, but I am a junkie for reading guitar forums. I like to think that I'm smart enough to know that I know very little, so I just come to class here every afternoon. Here's a big thanks to everyone for teaching me so much.

Also like Alan, I'm very lucky to live so close to the factory - part of the mojo of Collings for me is that it's homegrown. I graduated UT Austin with degree in education, UT San Antonio with a master's in ed psych, and am now a middle school counselor. I've organized a guitar club at my school, and I try to ifluence kids to go acoustic, but it's mighty hard to fight the adolescent impulse to be LOUD!!! At least the kids are playing.

I'm looking forward to the gathering next summer - one beauty of my career is the time I have in the summer. This forum has offered so much learning, so much help when I chose my guitar, that like Ed, I feel a real sense of community. Can't wait to put faces, voices, and guitar playing to all the names.

David

Another good idea, Ed. Let's light up the fire and bring the chairs in a little closer - see who's who...

Oh, my turn? OK... Well, I guess I'm more of a guitar 'enthusiast' than a true player. Not that I don't play often, I do, but I'm not about to be considered 'great' any time soon. It's enough just to play my own thing when I get the time to do so. In the last couple of years it's become one of my favorite things to do, and this brand of guitar we've all huddled-up to talk about is largely the cause.

I'm one of those lucky people who get's to do exactly what he want's during the day - make music - and they actually PAY me for it! What fools! Heck, I'd pay them (please don't repeat that). I work for a company that produces music for television commercials and film. In all the years we've been doing this we've managed to compose music for about every major company that advertises. It's really quite a feeling to watch network television and hear your music on 3 of the 6 commercials that air in a row (this did happen one time and it might have been the pinnacle of my career). And I get to work with some amazing musicians along the way, always trying to pay close attention to what they do and how they do it. I think it's one of the best way to learn.

Almost every day is something different - a different style, a different song, different musicians. Boring isn't a word that gets used often. We make a living doing what we would probably be doing in our spare time anyway if we had other jobs. I'm thankful for the luck I've had because it's a difficult business to get into and almost more difficult to stay in, but three different locations and 10 years later we're still going strong. I've been playing keyboards for years and somewhat recently started with this sometimes frustrating 6-stringed instrument we all love. Although, in my business, the keyboard is certainly more practical because of the variety of sounds it can generate it will never grab hold of me the way a guitar does. Is it just me or does there seem to be some faint lifeforce somewhere inside a guitar that prevents you from walking by without picking it up? "OK, maybe just a strum or two."

I have no official musical training but I've been a huge fan of music and musicians for as long as I can remember, so I guess that's my training. And every year growing up I would ask my parents for a drum set for Christmas. Never got one. I used to think that they just forgot, or maybe never heard me ask, but now I realize that a drum set is not the ideal gift to put in one's house, especially one without a basement. So I've forgiven them, but I wonder if not getting that drum set is responsible in some way for the fact that I've made a recording studio my office. Maybe it's some sort of compensation for all my years without that drum set. Maybe...

What do I play when I play? I have a D2H, a Taylor 814 Brazilan that's surprisingly amazing, a Fender Strat - because sometimes you just want to be LOUD - a keyboard with a million sounds, and a whole slew of recording equipment in my project studio. But I never get to do anything fun for myself - whenever I record at home it's work-related (I use the term losely), but I hope to change that once my D2H comes back from Austin.

Hello all, Brad here. I'm 37 years old living in San Diego, CA (East County). I'm a Naval Officer with 19 years service as a cryptologist. It has been wonderful time in the greatest Navy the world has ever known but my time is about to draw to a close. I plan to retire for the first time next year. Looking forward returning to the civilian world. My wife is a Naval Academy graduate and currently a LCDR (also a cryppie) serving in USS NIMITZ. She has 10 years of service left. She supports my music and guitar passions.

I have always been a fan of traditional American music. I started playing guitar in '92 and it has been non-stop ever since. I really dove into playing once I had the bug. Old acoustic blues are my forte but I also play some hillbilly stuff. I'm not a flatpicker, purely a fingerstyle player.....no picks. Started playing with bare fingers and find it too hard to make a change!!

I fully understand GAS, but I feel I have the instruments that will take me to the grave. My instruments are:

OO-2H
OOO-28EC
OOO-16SGT
OO-17
5-28 (Mini-Martin)
*** I hope you all don't mind my listing the Martins!! Interesting note, I live about five
miles from the Taylor factory.

R/Brad

My name is Jay, I live in Columbia, MD, and I have Guitar Acquisition Syndrome....

I've been playing the guitar for, sheesh - almost 30 years? I started out playing classical violin when I was a kid. One day I heard Jimi Hendrix' "Foxy Lady".... Violin was never the same after that. I'm actually fairly new to the acoustic guitar. I've owned one for a number of years, just to say I own and acoustic; it was (is) an Ovation Custom Balladeer. I just didn't know, did I? AnyWho, I played electric guitar, bought and sold some really great ones, and still own/play them in my present band (AWESOME 1961 Stratocaster, and others). A few years ago I joined a friend's band (World Without Fear). The frontman (who is now touring the country with Jewel) of the band played acoustic, pretty much exclusively, so I took an interest. After that band split up (sore topic) I went into a pretty deep depression over the instrument. I didn't touch my guitar for months. My wife (God bless her) bought me an acoustic guitar to get me out of my funk. She realized that the very thing that I turned to for pleasure - what had been a life-long friend, was a source of pain for me. If I was ever to get back to being me, I had to get beyond that. She's a wise woman; that was good medicine. Although I'm back to playing electric guitar in a band, my first love by far is now the acoustic. If I wander into a music store to goof around with guitars, I head straight to the acoustic room. There's nothing out there in the electric guitar realm that I really crave. Actually, I pretty much only go to stores that sell electric guitars and amps when I need a patch cord or something electric guitar related. Otherwise, my fav haunt (Appalachian Bluegrass Shoppe) these days sells only acoustic instruments. I play my acoustic(s) every Sunday morning in church (my Sunday gig - giggin' for Jesus), take fingerstyle guitar lessons and give lessons on electric rock/blues (I can shred on an electric with the best of 'em, but playing a complicated Martin Simpson or Pierre Bensusan song is a challange - acoustic is still new to me), play weddings and the like, etc. I never tried alternate tunings on my electrics (not counting tuning down a 1/2 step). There are a facination and obsession now that I've started playing acoustic. My electric guitar buddies flip out when they pick up my acoustic guitars - they're not quite sure what to do with a Csus2 tuning. For me, it's as if a whole new world opened up. After years of Hendrix, Santana, etc, I now find myself relaxing with Celtic fingerstyle. Go figure.

peace,

jb

Hello, I'm fairly new here. I live in Shreveport, Louisiana, married with 2 children (8 & 10. I'm 49 years old and have been playing since I was 15, although my playing is being limited these days by Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. I played my first Collings about 10 years ago at the Dallas Guitar Show. It was a couple of years before I could get a D2H, but when I did, I sold my '54 and '60 D28's. Since then I've owned a couple of maple SJ's that were really nice, and a mahogany/Adirondack SJ that was exceptional. I've had an Om2H and an OM3, but always ended up going back to the D2H. I've just bought a C10 Deluxe that will be here in a few days. I'd like to try a CJ in rosewood, but there don't seem to be many used ones around.

My other interests are my church, and hunting, along with just about any other oudoor activity. I work in the Medical field. I look forward to being here more.javascript:void(0)
Smile

I'll pitch in here - maybe others will follow.

I'm 43, married 23 years, have 3 (great!) teens, and am self employed as a residential designer. If you want to live in it, we can design it and draw the plans for it, from the mountains to the beach!

Started seriously playing guitar about 3 1/2 years ago, after 20 years of off/on. Have been through about 15 guitars since then, from most makers and in most body shapes and wood combinations.

And all of 'em lefties!

After spending time trying to figure out what kind of music I wanted to play, I've narrowed down to my first love, gospel music, in bluegrass style. That has meant that I'm learning to play bluegrass music, and the traditional fiddle tunes, in order to learn how to play this style.

That decision has also helped me pare down my search for guitars, and narrow it down to mostly dreads. My current guitars are:

'75 D-18, bought from the original owner, with factory neck reset (done under original warranty, before our trade), bone nut and saddle, bridge plate replacement, and top bracing shaved by Jim Grainger - now a great instrument, in near mint condition!

'93 0002hBA - I'm the 3rd owner, have had it about 3 months. It's serial no. 721, was built before the CNC machine era (which is cool, to me), and is the first guitar I've owned with either brazilian OR adirondack.

'02 Burkett AJ - a custom ordered guitar currently being built by James Burkett of Dothan, Alabama. It's a lefty copy of a late 1930's Gibson AJ, in brazilian/adirondack, with the old style Gibson 'burst, and flamed koa body and fingerboard binding. Should be finished by October/November!

These will all be played at our various informal church gatherings, where we jam and sing. As well as at the now infamous "Atlanta Jams" that are held from time to time with a group of 13th Fretters and friends that are mostly local in the Atlanta area.

Ain't life grand?

Gary Collier
Atlanta

Great idea Ed!

I am 42 years old and live in upstate NY only about 75-80 miles from NYC. I've been married for 11 years and have 3 great kids. Two Daughters 9 and 5 years of age and a 7 year old son.

I grew up in NYC and started to play Acoustic Guitar at the age of 16. At the age of 15 I started to get into what is now classic Rock Music. What really turned me on to the Acoustic Guitar was the first Hot Tuna Album. There was something about the steady alternating bass that Jorma Kaukonen was playing that just drew me to the music. Of course, discovering Jorma, led me to discover the whole Genre of Country Blues. It was not long before I was listening to Rev Gary Davis, Blind Blake, Mississippi John Hurt et al.

I had a little Stella guitar with impossibly high action. I took a summer of lessons, about 10 of them where I learned basic chords etc. I learned some pattern type fingerpicking things which my teacher called "Travis Picking." This really started me on the road to playing an alternating bass style.

I gave up the lessons and started to teach myself how to really play. I also was into playing Neil Young, Paul Simon, the Beatles etc. My Dad saw I was into it and went out and let me pick out a great and funky Gibson J-50. It was purchased in 1977 and I just loved the thing. There were a bunch of like minded people musically and some of them played the guitar also. I am not a "Great singer" but have been told that at times I have a nice voice and got very into singing as well. One day while in NYC, I was at a Bus stop standing with my case upright. I was leaning on the case with my elbow and it was secured. I was not paying attention as I was talking to a friend who was across the street waiting to come over. A very large man was walking down the street glancing at his new youk Post. He bumped into me and knocked me over and my case over. The case fell hard and when I opened it up the headstock was in two pieces. I almost cried, I was heartbroken! Well my Dad being the stand up guy he is took me to buy another guitar. I played many, but I picked out a rather large Bodied Guild G37BLD. A really nice guitar that due to its sheer weight has wonderful sustain.

I ended up going to college in upstate NY. I got my first paying gig for $75 playing at an on campus coffee house at the State University of NY at Binghampton. It was a blast. I continued to play coffee houses and some bars as a solo acoustic act all throughout college and while I was also in Law School. Obviously while in law school my playing suffered as I ws studying constantly.

When I graduated and passed the bar I moved back to NYC and became a criminal prosecutor. This was in the late 80's and NYC was really like the wild west back then. It was a great job and I was very busy learning to become a trial lawyer. I was still playing but had not had the gas urge yet.

I got married, started a family and went to work for a big law firm of 300 attorneys in NYC. I worked like a dog for 2 years and did not play much. Eventually I moved out of NYC and started practicing where I ultimately live now.

In 1998, I had an experience that changed my guitar life. I went to the Fur Peace Ranch to take lessons from my guitar Hero, Jorma Kaukonen! It was the first lessons I had taken since 1976! I have been going to the FPR now for 4 years. this October will be my 5th year there. My fingerpicking has improved more in the last 5 years, then in the 22 combined years that I had been playing before taking lessons from Jorma.

In the year 2000, I got my first attack of Gas. I had been playing my Guild and only my guild since I was 18 years old. I wanted a new and great guitar. I found a Gibson that I loved, a CL-50 which has since been discontinued. Unfortunately, I had about 8 months of problems with it and many fights with the people at Gibson Montana. It was shipped back to Montana about 3 times. They would not give me my money back {Which STILL drive me nuts} but they worked out a swap deal with Mandolin bros, where I got a store credit to be used towards the purchase of a new guitar. For the next two months, I went to Mandoling Bros about 6 times spending about 2 hours there each time. I played Martins, Goodalls, Santa Cruz and of COURSE Collings. The Collings just Blew me away. I thought the only thing that came close were some of the goodalls that I played. I was stunned at the consistency of the Collings product. I was on the verge of buying a D-1, when I saw this beautiful D2H that the store had just recieved that week. It was sunburst and stood out from the rest. From the first time I layed my hands on it, I knew that this guitar and I were destined to be together!

It has now been two years and I love my D2H more with each passing day. It is just a perfect instrument. Well balance and loud and equally suited for flatpicking as well as all the fingerpicking I do.

Recently, I played a friends Gibson Advanced Jumbo 1936 re-issue and I had a MAJOR Gas attack. But after my BAD experience with Gibson, I am leery about buying one. The other thing I have my eye on is a BABY COLLINGS. I could NOT BELIEVE what a great guitar this is. Talk about a travel guitar..... WOW...

Well, with three kids and a mortgage, not sure if I will get to live out my GAS fantasies, but we can dream. I would love to make it to Austin for the gathering, but I have a HUGE trial scheduled for the target date so I don't think I will get there. But we can always dream................

Owning a Collings though has been a DREAM COME TRUE!