Acoustic guitars have been in my family for as long as I can remember. We used to play as a family almost every single night since I was old enough to actually make music with one 
. Needless to say I had several instructors right there in my household to mold me into the musician I am today.
There were several models of Gibson acoustic guitar that sat in our music room. Those along with a piano, a drum set, numerous horn style instruments and even more various guitars; basses included. The Gibsons were by far my favorite. The J-200 is the most memorable that we owned and it was my personal instrument for playing acoustic songs. My second favorite in the house another top Gibson model named the Hummingbird. Again, this was an extremely high end acoustic guitar that was a workhorse for us.
The J-200 was one of Gibson’s top end models of acoustic guitar. In my teen years I worked in a guitar shop in the repair and tune-up department. I really learned the ins and outs of literally hundreds of different models of guitars. This is where the quality of the J-200 became very clear to me.
When you see so many different models of guitar and you get to compare the quality of construction side by side it really becomes clear which instruments are superior and which ones are not. In fact, pretty much all of the USA made Gibson acoustics were miles above most of the guitars I worked on in this particular shop.
I play with my own family now and my young son is getting very good at the guitar. It’s amazing to watch someone so little trying to master this big guitar. It looks twice his size but he can maneuver it pretty well. Some of the neighbourhood kids that are learning will stop in and jam with me and my wife on a weekly basis. I’m not a formal teacher and I have no interest in charging the kids any money. I do it out of the sheer enjoyment of playing the instrument and helping others to learn it.
For any young person growing with dreams of playing the guitar or any musical instrument, my advice would be to take up a part-time job or full-time in a guitar shop. You will learn so much about the instruments and get to play them as well while you’re getting paid to do so.
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