Returning to Old Pleasures Can Renew Your Spirit

I retuned my old acoustic guitar the other day.

Not to get too geeky on the music side, but this was not a retuning to the traditional approach, adjusting the tone for each string to the standard E, A, D, G, B, E. This was alternate tuning. It’s referred to as “Nick Drake tuning.” Many great artists, mainly singer-songwriters, have changed the tuning of their six strings to alternate notes to produce a particular sound. Joni Mitchell was famous for it.

The Nick Drake tuning is specific to his style. Drake, if you are unfamiliar, was a genius who never found the recognition he deserved when he was alive; one who died too young after a long struggle with depression. I liken him to the Van Gogh of modern music. His songs are timeless, enigmatic, and gorgeous.

“Pink Moon” may be one you know. It’s been used on countless TV shows and in film scores, and even in a Volkswagen commercial. Not sure how Drake would feel about that. Probably wouldn’t approve.

Finding New in the Old

What the retuning did for this guitar, and for me, was to give it new life, a life of playing in a new way, with new fortitude, and for what one might term a new generational experience.

The Yamaha FG-160 is over 50-years old. It’s a somewhat coveted guitar these days. I bought it new when I was 17 for somewhere around $150, if I remember correctly, with the money I had saved from my newspaper delivery route. It has the nicks and bumps and scratches of age, but it has served me well, accompanying me at coffee houses all around Central Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh back in the day. Somewhere around 1972 through the early 1980s.

It was there in times of sorrow and joy. I strummed and sang songs to all kinds of audiences, and then to my kids when they were quite young. And now my 3-year-old granddaughter strums it with awe, smiling and laughing as she plucks the strings.

“Can we play the gitter, Papa?” she says, struggling a bit with the pronunciation.

A Guitar for a Lifetime

I’ve written about my guitar many times. There’s a reason for that. It’s one of the few things in my life I have held onto since my teenage years. I don’t think there’s a single thing of mine tucked away in a nightstand drawer or a closet or a box in the basement that has been personally mine for so long.

The guitar carries with it – seeped into its natural wood grain – all the songs I’ve ever sung, all the bars and parties and stages I’ve ever carried it into and onto. And especially all the people I’ve ever played in front of – my children, old girlfriends, other musicians, drunk college students, bar patrons, my father, my mother, my wife, and now, my grandchild.

This old Yamaha has been a thread running through a life; the heart pumping blood through my existence.

Old Songs, New Tunes

However, the guitar hasn’t always been an active participant. There have been long stretches of time that it sat silent in the corner of a room, leaning against a wall, waiting for me to reclaim it. But, always, I have returned. The patience it has shown me is that of a good friend, one who knows you may have lost touch with them but that you will, eventually, reach out again. That’s what old friends do.

I have another guitar, a newer one. It’s a Taylor. It has a brighter sound than the Yamaha and I love how it feels in my arms. The Taylor will stay traditionally tuned, mainly because the Nick Drake tuning takes time to create. Tuning to standard and then to alternate tuning is kind of a pain. So now, my old Yamaha has a new purpose, a revival, a rebirth.

And with its renewal, comes my own.

Finding Newness Is What You’ve Held Dear

In many ways, I have reclaimed the old Yamaha and given it youth again, and it, too, has discovered a new place in my life, a revived existence, a kind of symbol of what we all need, a repurposing, a “retuning” that allows one to find new joy, new avenues, most of all new hope.

Over the last month, many of us have seen the world and America drastically shift, move, and change at breakneck speed. Some like what they’re seeing; others do not. Regardless of where you stand, the world needs a retuning.

I am watching our world today, wondering where we are heading; knowing that each of us needs a retuning in our most troubled times, an adjustment of our strings so that we can hear the music differently, sing our songs with new power and reverence, with new purpose, new determination, renewed meaning, with revitalized hope and courage; songs that sing of kindness and compassion. Retune so that our worlds, and our beloved “guitars” will keep playing songs of resolve.

My old Yamaha is going to stay in its new alternate tuning, and I’m going to play it over and over again, louder and louder, until the world hears every single note.

Reflection Questions:

What one item has been with you for most of your life? How has it supported you through the years? Does it need special care and love, given how old it is?