Things You Learn When Your Son Takes Guitar Lessons . . .

After brief stints into various musical instruments: the violin, the clarinet, the acoustic guitar, the recorder and the mandatory piano and realizing my older brother had a natural aptitude to all things musical; I begrudgingly acknowledged the fact that I would have to actually work hard at acheiving the same level that he was at. So I bowed out in "defeat" which is really a nice way of saying: I quit. And now, I am pretty much clueless to the musical world and all that it entails.

And so when I bought my son his electric guitar, I had no idea what a pickup or humbucker was, or what the nut is or that the tuning pegs were called tuning pegs and that the headstock was called the headstock.

Ever hear of the Robot Guitar? I didn't, until the other week at my son's guitar lessons and it's description prompted further investigation, on my part.

The Robot Guitar is a self-tuning guitar that is made by Fender. It can be tuned with the touch of a button, or knob really, which has the star-wars-esque name of Master Control Knob, or MCK.

Just look that that MCK, in all it's LED glory:

There is a Neck CPU, located on the back of the headstock, that picks up the vibrations of the fancy dancy nickel and silver alloy fret wire. It then translates these vibrations from the strings and sends a signal to each corresponding Powerhead Locking Tuner.

And this is the coolest part: the Powerhead Locking Tuners each have teeny tiny motors which makes each peg turn itself. So all you have to do is touch a button and the guitar will automatically tune itself.

This guitar is pretty cool, but it has got one dorky name. I'm sure if it was 1986, or even 1991, the name Robot Guitar might have been a cool name. But c'mon, its 2009, throw the word nano into the name and we are back into being one cool guitar, or get Apple to make the Neck CPU and call it the IGuitar.

And now I know what the headstock and tuning pegs are. And I know what a pick-up is: its really just a transducer that turns the vibrations in the strings into an electrical signal, so that we can hear the music being played. Oh yeah, and a humbucker is just a double coiled pickup.

But alas, knowing how the electric guitar works will not turn me into a guitar player, so I will have to be content in living vicariously through my son.

~b~