SWEET - Ibanez Daytripper

I picked up an Ibanez Daytripper this weekend. This is a "travel" guitar, sort of a scaled-down acoustic with a pickup and EQ built in. I haven't had a lot of time to practice lately, since I have a very long commute and my son's hockey season started recently. I take jazz lessons once a week, and if I don't practice, I don't get much out of it.

I bought the Daytripper so I could bring it to work and practice in the morning. I get in between 6:00 and 6:30 so I can beat the traffic, and this allows me a solid half hour to play before I knuckle down to work. Kinda nice, because I share an office and my office mate doesn't come in until later, and there aren't too many other people around at that time of the day. I just shut the door and go for it. Just in a few days of playing, I'm feeling better and getting a lot more from my lesson this week. I am working on "God Bless The Child" by Billie Holiday this week. What a lovely song.

My teacher, Jay Ford, is the owner of Music Maker School in Acton, MA. He is an amazing teacher, a great guy, and a fantastic player. I feel like such a dunce going in there, but he always gets me cheered up by getting back to basics and providing simple, thoughtful advice on how to get past any difficulty I encounter. He is truly the man.

The Daytripper is a nice little unit. It doesn't sound great unplugged, but it doesn't sound bad either. Plugged into and amp, it sounds pretty nice. The action is pretty good, could be just a touch lower, but I'm not complaining. The cutaway body affords a nice reach to the upper frets. I tried the Martin Backpacker and was surprised at how lousy it sounded, how difficult it was to play, and how neck-heavy it was. It looked awesome, though. The Ibanez I got has a killer electric blue woodgrain finish, so it even looks cool. I highly recommend it.