I see I'm the only 800+ year old on the Forum. Feels a little weird, I guess.
I don't remember the date of my birth. Even if I did, it wouldn't matter, because the calendar was different in those years in Constantinople, where I was born. You see, it started on September 1, and the year the Church figured was the year of creation, 5509 BC. And it was based on the Julian calendar, that gained about three days every four centuries. Anyway, it's a little difficult to remember, but if you're thinking, "Fall, 1195 AD," you're probably pretty close. Anyway, I left to join some sort of crusade, and subsequently found myself in Europe, where I picked up my first guitar around 1210. Here's a picture a friend painted of my first band. I'm playing the Guitarra Latina on the left, and my buddy Andronikos, who came with me on the journey, is playing the Guitarra Morisca, that's more like a Moorish instrument. By the way, those band outfits were pretty hip at the time. I mean, sure, the cloaks were long, but there you see the precursor to Spandex, i.e., joined hose.
Man, those things were bloody heck to tune. We didn't even have tuning forks. We had a pitch pipe. Try tuning a guitar to a pitch pipe.
And there was no acquiring more than one guitar back then. First of all, they cost a year's wages. Second, you waited for more than a year just to get yours built. Everything was private stock. So you basically worked like a dog for a year to buy the thing, and even then, the hard case was extra. Lots of guys just used a gig bag. Back then, we called them "sacks." I opted for the hard case. Took me an extra six months to get it. I played that thing for...gosh, I don't know...150-175 years.
Hey, Guitar Center was a little tiny lutheir's shop in some town where you walked down the street and people emptied their chamber pots on your head if you weren't careful. The guitar sounded better as it got older, and never needed a re-fret, because the strings were gut. Although I'd been trained in law to serve in the Imperial Court by the time I got out of school at 12, I liked music better, and was glad to have left Constantinople. By the time I was 8 or 9, my parents were dead from plague, and honestly, Constantinople was a pretty restrictive environment. Going to Spain was like being set free! No one knew who ruled anything, you could pretty much go and do as you pleased. Great times. It was like the 60s.
It's not so bad being the oldest person around, actually. I have a lot of musical influences, and have lived in some interesting times. One day I'll have to tell you about the time I did a gig at the Marquis de Lafayette's. Awesome dude, great party. Ben Franklin got absolutely loaded, and was one heck of a lot of fun, dancing with the French women. But that'll come later. Anyway, by then I'd switched to keys, and had a very nice harpsichord to write on, but since you're guitar players, it's probably a dull subject around here.
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