A personal Musical discovery, The Strumstick.

I am starting back in to "rennie" mode with Spring approaching and I'm having to edit more Ren Faire video to produce 3 TV show episodes by the time May rolls around. I was looking around the goodwill auction site when I found a set of what I though were medieval lutes. Looking for things to "accessorize" and make the look of the faire more authentic and a good deal I bid on them and won. 2 weeks later I get them and was initially disappointed. One had cracked from being in subzero temperatures and zero humidity during shipping and they were far smaller than I though they would be. So I strummed them a bit though they were quaint and I might be able to sell them at the faire to get my money back... This morning I decided to inspect hem further and discovered some writing inside the sound--hole. I used the almighty google to look up the info found in the hole and discovered what these things were.

What I had were two things called a Strumstick and are one of the easiest to play stringed instruments ever invented. I have owned a really expensive Ovation Celebrity guitar for 5 years now and still have not learned to play it. Guitar is not a pick it up and play something in 10 minutes kind of instrument. This strumstick though... I was after tuning it and going through the first 2 lessons on the website was playing something that was pleasant and even my wife enjoyed. When learning my guitar there was not much of the smiling and enjoying myself during the first lessons, it was all disappointment and frustration, only by the 10th lesson did I start to play something that actually sounded like music and it was only 3 chords.

This strumstick had me playing the first bars of "piano man" and a couple of sing along rhythms in the first 30 minutes and then my fingers started to hurt.

This is one of those very VERY few instruments that are a perfect thing to give to those that want to learn an instrument but cant learn something complex. It looks very exotic, I was surprised by the quality of it's build. The neck and body are carved out of a single piece of exotic hardwood which makes it look very upscale.

The neat part is these things are cheap, you can buy them new for under $200.00!

I still am going to learn the guitar. This strumstick has renewed my desire to learn it, but I'm going to master this little guy in the next 3 months so I can play some tunes at faire!