It’s a bit strange seeing as how I already have an acoustic guitar (well, an acoustic-electric). It’s a pretty blue sunburst Ibanez. It was also the first guitar I bought.

I got it as part of the promotion they had while signing up for music lessons. They had a limited option as far as guitars to get, but even though I’d been eyeing a Squier stratocaster (sea foam green color) for a while, I went with the acoustic they were offering.

It’s the Laurel Canyon brand, LA-100, full sized acoustic.

I love the fact that it’s one of the few guitars I have now that’s got a matte finish on it, not uber glossy. I get tired of wiping fingerprints off the darn things when I try to play with them.

And though it looks simple, more like a toy than an instrument (probably because of the matte finish) it feels good to hold.

I just had one issue to deal with when I got home–there was only one strap nut, on the base. Every other guitar I have has two on the body so I can just hook the strap holes over the nuts and get playing.

I had to learn fast about this guitar, how to put the strap on the head-stock when there is no nut.

By the way, after reading several articles and getting confused, I went to YouTube and voila: the easiest explanation and demo for how to put it on.

This is the video for it here, in case you’re wondering like I was.

I’m a klutz, so before I could just tinker with it, I wanted to make sure I had the strap good to go, otherwise I’d risk dropping it.

And I don’t want to do that.

I started with an acoustic electric guitar, went to electrics all the way, and now am rounding out my string collection with a true acoustic guitar.

Frankly, I figured I had plenty of guitars as it is, so why not get one from a brand I never tried (and was free) and would get some mileage out of.

Admittedly, there was another reason I wanted an acoustic.

When I get practicing and get better at playing my instruments–especially the guitar–I’d love to have one around that someone could practice on if they wanted to learn. Not that I think I’d be a great music teacher (too novice for that), but better than somebody playing around with my amps and plugging in my electric guitars to learn.

I have been thinking about acoustics more as ways to learn to listen, to train my ears to discern the notes before playing with settings, volume and any effects.

I want to get the feel of different guitars. There’s a heckuva difference between my Ibanez acoustic-electric and this Laurel Canyon already in terms of feel. I’m going to work with both in the coming months (and probably swap them around as far as which I take with me to lessons.

In that promotion, the only other options besides the full size Laurel Canyon acoustic were the 3/4 one, a Squier strat, a ukulele, or $150 off a digital piano.

Well, I didn’t want to get a different sized guitar in that respect, I already have my bullet strat and regular strat, I got a Luna ukulele a couple months ago during a massive guitar sale, and I got a digital piano before Christmas.

Yeah, another acoustic sounded like a great idea. I figured I really needed to understand the basic instrument and what it could do before I started plugging into amps during my lessons and figuring things out that way.

My hope is that I can learn to listen and keep the instruments in tune, to know what to look for. I suspect that will be easier to attempt without worrying about feedback and volume knobs.