Q: Which instruments can you play?

In middle school band, I played french horn, and I’ve been playing piano since I was three.  I formally learned guitar and the basic stuff in middle school.  Last summer, I took a few lessons for guitar … We have a violin; I can play a few notes on that.  I can play trumpet a little bit, but that’s mostly by ear, not like piano sheet-reading stuff.  A little bit of drums; my friend has a drum set that I play on a little bit sometimes. So it’s a lot here and there.

Q: When did you first start playing guitar?

My uncle had a guitar in his room when I was little, and I used to hear him play.  And it is really cool, something I have wanted to learn since I was really, really little, and I wish I’d taken more lessons on it, but it’s just the choice I had to make – I’m better at the piano, I’m more interested in the guitar … and I just had to make a choice on which one I wanted to pursue.  [For me,] guitar is kind of like a fantasy thing in your head – sometimes you can see yourself doing things, and guitar is just one of those things – I just saw it, you know?  I’ve always been fascinated by this instrument and no matter how horrible I might sound when I play it, I can’t let it go.

I started trying to teach myself the chords and everything on my eleventh birthday, when my uncle finally bucked over and gave me that guitar.  I think it was around the seventh grade when I started taking lessons in school.  And then I bought some chord sheets … but mostly I experiment, I go online, and I find sheet music and tabs and I experiment a little bit by myself.  It’s not like I’m going to play in the concert hall for anyone, but it’s fun, and I love it, so it’s worth it for me.

Q: What made you want to build your own guitar?

I got an email.  You know, it’s one of those spam emails from a guitar store, you can build your own guitar.  And I was laying in bed, bored out of my mind, I was watching the ceiling fan go round and round and round … and I just wanted to make one [a guitar].

Q: What is the process of making the guitar?

A lot of YouTube videos.  When I started doing this, I started out on the neck [of the guitar] because it’s a smaller piece; it’s easier, and I had an idea of how to do it.  For my guitar, I use a wood finish – I want a more natural look, so I got a more natural-looking stain … I picked out the colors for the body of my guitar, which is green and gray-silver – I couldn’t really find silver.  And then there’s the electronic components of this stuff.  That’s the part of this I really dreaded putting together – me and electricity and power tools – me and anything that could be mildly dangerous to me or anyone else – that scared me a little bit.  Because when you’re doing the electrical stuff, you need soldering irons and my mom likes it when my house is not burned down … But, honestly, that stuff wasn’t that hard to do – I obviously did more research on that, but it took me a solid hour, hour and a half to figure out.  What was really interesting for me was finding out that painting is actually the hard part, especially spray paint.  I guess I could have brushed it, but I thought, ‘Spray paint: faster, human [application]: slow,’ so I decided, what better way to do this than spray paint?  So I started spray painting, and I can’t get it even.  It’s been a solid month, and here I am, still spray painting and sanding edges and trying to make sure everything’s even before I put on a polyurethane coat … It’s fun, and I’m learning, and this is my first guitar … so this is a trial-and-error process.

Q: Is this something you want to continue doing in the future?

Yeah, definitely … I’m going to try to do another one over the summer, maybe.  I think this is going to be a pretty permanent thing for me, making guitars.

Q: How has music played a role in your life?

Music, you know, it’s always there for me. Since I’m not so great at the guitar, this is just a hobby for me.  But with the piano, it’s part of my soul now.  If everything goes crappy in life, I know that piano is going to be there, and on those days, it depends on how often you play and how often you practice – and that’s how good you are.  It doesn’t lie. It’s there, you have it, and so that’s what I do when I’m upset.  When things get hard, you just bury yourself in something else.  That’s what counselors call denial.  And my denial level is pretty big, and pretty high, and it’s full of music.  I’m always going to need that.  That’s not something I can get away from – believe me, I’ve tried. When I moved here, that’s when I stopped being trained in it, being taught.  You don’t realize how much you miss something until it’s gone, and that sounds overdone, overused, but it’s true … I’m not going to lose it again, and I know I need it now, I know how much I need it now.

Q: Have you always enjoyed building things?

Yeah.  I like being good with my hands; I like being self-sufficient.  And I know that’s weird for a girl … [but] it’s something I do.  It’s something I like to do, building this guitar – I like knowing I can change my own oil filter, I can change my own tire, I can drive stick if I have to.  And I like knowing I can do things, fix things … I like knowing that I don’t have to call someone to come in and do it.  It’s part of who I am.