Classical guitar is an interest I have had for a long time but have never pursued until recently. For those of you who share an appreciation for this beautiful instrument, I will be placing various pieces of information here from time to time that will serve as milestones of my progress (assuming that there is progress). This is a new page, as of March 2004, so feel free to stop back often.

I've been working through some books on classical guitar technique from the usual suspects - Alan Shearer, Frederick Noad, Scott Tenant, etc. I'm making what I refer to as incremental progress i.e. progress is slow but steady. It's obvious to me that I have some very real performance problems that I think are related to scales so today I ordered Segovia's Diatonic Major & Minor Scales and Sor's Twenty Studies for Guitar. Hope I haven't wasted my money.

And speaking of money, I guess I got carried away while I was in my buying mood today as I also ordered a new Paulino Bernabe model 5. Click here to see it. I've also placed links to some close-up detail pictures at the left. Now, if I sound bad, it won't be the fault of the guitar!

It appears that there has been a substantial price increase for some of the Bernabe line (like they weren't expensive enough before!). The US dollar has been loosing value against the Euro for some time now and imports from Europe are starting to reflect the change. If you're interested in learning more about the problems with the US dollar, visit my Gold Page. Fortunately, the model 5 has not been effected by the increase...yet.

Stay tuned (pun intended) because after the guitar arrives and I'm able to assess my level of satisfaction with it, and the vendor, I'll post some comments regarding the both of them.

Well, my guitar arrived a couple days ago and I must say, it's a beautiful instrument. The close-up pictures of it from the links to the left, simply don't do it justice. The craftsmanship is impeccable. Interestingly, the rosette is as used on the Bernabe 10. I guess they're randomly selected.

Compared to my Takamine, the upper bout is smaller so it's playing position is slightly different. It's a heavier guitar and I think most of the weight difference is from the ebony reinforced neck. The guitar is louder and the sound is beautiful, and, I suspect it will only improve as the spruce top ages.

I ordered the guitar from The Podium in Minneapolis, MN. I spoke with John Ashton, a very nice gentleman who was very helpful. He discounted the price of the guitar, picked up the cost of shipping and threw in a couple packages of Savarez 520 R high tension strings. I ordered the guitar on a Saturday and it arrived the next Thursday. Not bad.

It will be a long time before I'm in the market for another classical guitar but if that were to be the case, I wouldn't hesitate to do business with John at The Podium.

My scales and studies arrived today and it's time for me to get to work. Sheesh, if I'd spend as much time practicing the guitar as I do publishing material on my website I'd probably be pretty good by now.

Well, I said I would report on my progress and the following is not what I had expected.

While I have made significant progress on material from Bert Alink's Media Luna (great stuff) , LZ's Stairway to Heaven, a finger picking of Amazing Grace and a few others, unfortunatly, I've done most of it on an old Takamini classical guitar I bought 25 years ago.

Within the first year of owning my prized Bernabe 5, I noticed a problem playing the D string when pressing on the lower frets. If my finger was not immediately behind the fret I experienced a buzzing sound.

I contacted The Podium where I purchased my guitar and they gave me an RA number and suggested I ship it to Tornavoz Music for evaluation. On March 3, I shipped the guitar to Tornavoz at a cost of $68.00 shipping and insurance. What follows is nothing less than a nightmare.

After several weeks, I contacted Tornavoz to enquire as to the status of my guitar. They indicated they could find nothing wrong with it and shipped it back to The Podium.

I contacted The Podium and they said they received it and didn't know anything about it so they shipped it back to Tornavoz. Ughh.

I contacted Tornavoz and they didn't know anything about it.

I went back and forth between Tornavoz and The Podium in an effort to determine the status of my guitar and finally Tornavoz indicated they had received it.

When I enquired about the problem for which I originally sent the guitar to them, they said that, in fact, they were able to reproduce the problem and it wasn't a string buzzing problem but rather a harmonic effect from within the guitar. They also indicated that this phenomenon was not unusual in the Bernabe 5 product line.

So here I am, four months later, owner of a classical guitar that I paid a great deal of money for and it is somewhere on the other side of the country and apparently has a problem that can't be fixed.

After talking with The Podium, I was assured they would do whatever it took to make me happy.

Now here's the bottom line. I'm told this guitar has a lifetime warranty. OK, that's cool, but, unfortunately, a replacement is not readily available. It might take months to get one. When The Podium finally gets one, they would verify that the guitar doesn't demonstrate the same problem I had with mine. But if it does, they would order yet another one for me which could take more months to get. And even if it doesn't have the same problem, my guitar didn't demonstrate the problem for almost a year. Personally, I can appreciate the concept of a warranty that offers a replacement but if a replacement is not readily available, then a refund should be forthcoming.

The Podium responded that it would not be possible to issue a refund given that the guitar was purchased over a year ago. Well, actually I had the guitar for less than a year when I sent it back for repair. And it's been four months that I have been without what I paid for and there's no telling when I'll have something comparable to what I paid for if ever.

Stay tuned as I will certainly post how this debacle is resolved and who, between Tornavoz Music and The Podium rises to the challenge of customer satisfaction, regardless of the circumstances.

I apologize for being late with a follow up on the status of my Bernabe classical guitar debacle but her it is. The good folks at Tornavoz agreed to reimburse The Podium who in turn agreed to allow me to return the guitar for a full refund. That's customer service!

Now I'm left with my Takamine that I bought about 25 years ago but, truth be told, it sounds great and it serves my needs.

While waiting for this to be resolved, I picked up an electrical guitar "package" on the 'net. It's a Washburn that came with a small amp and a bunch of accessories for less that $200. That's an incredible value as it is flawless. I'm currently working on a piece by Eric Clapton from his days with Cream.

I know, your wondering how does someone go from classical guitar to electric and back to classical? Well when I break a finger nail or two that puts a damper on my classical practice so I revert to the electric until the nails grow back. This way, I always have something to play.

Later...