I wonder if anyone can spot the new guitar - a Taylor GS Mini 'hog' for travelling. Its one of the most astonishing instruments I have ever played, warm, and responsive and nothing like a travel guitar at all but more a 3/4 size one. And as a sit at home guitar it offers a fantastic contrast to the Martin next to it (which of course it would since they are meant to sound very different - and putting the side by side is a bit unfair to both of them) Pirsig, in his Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, has written that, 'The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there...' Now I not going to claim playing new guitar is going to improve the world, but what I will say is that in my own experience, that creativity and creative thought has always done more to raise my perceptions of inequality and world trouble than other political, spiritual or religious agenda. That's just what works for me and I can see it through all kinds of writing, poetry, songwriting and other artistic practices. I have always maintained that work is what we do in the world and art is who we are. So when we are creating art, at whatever level - and each reaches his or her own level (I wish I could pass a football like Craig 'rentboy' Dixon) - we are engaging with the world and its issues and are thinking about them beyond the everyday normality of life. Well that's what I was thinking as I strummed the little Taylor in the dark this Sunday morning in December - and I can already hear a new song forming. Happy Sunday. I hadn't heard this version of this song before - so I'm posting it here:
