A battered old Yamaha acoustic guitar was put to an ultimate test of endurance last night as it waited patiently for local ‘musician’ Nate Brock to take it for a spin at a Paddington birthday party. Even though Brock had previously gone on record saying he “only knows a couple of tunes”, the Yamaha was adamant that Brock would eventually give it a go.
Purchased in the 1980s by the home-owner and family matriarch Winona Jansz, the Yamaha spent most of its short career in a Blondie cover band; with a brief resurgence in the early 2000s when Steph Jansz, daughter and yesterday’s birthday girl, used it to craft pale imitations of Avril Lavigne’s back catalogue in her bedroom. The Yamaha now spends most of its time gathering dust leaning against the living room wall.
The Yamaha suspected Brock might be building up to a performance when he made a joke about “plucking the G string” but that was a false start. It’s easy to see why the Yamaha was intoxicated by Brock. It’s in every guitar’s DNA to yearn to be touched by someone who half knows Vance Joy’s Riptide, who can struggle through the finger-picked intro to Stairway to Heaven, who can recall four of the six chords required to play I’m Yours by Jason Mraz.
By the time speeches had finished and cake had been served, the Yamaha began to resign itself to the fact that it might not be touched by the dreadlocked jack of all trades, master of none. As the party came to a close, it was all but certain.
A source close to the guitar claims that as Winona Jansz was cleaning up after the party, she gave the strings a nostalgic strum as she walked by, allowing a dissonant open chord to ring out through the empty house. Other sources claim she just bumped it.