Michael Peace

My First Guitar

My Mom was a single parent raising two boys with a secretary salary and there wasn't enough money to buy a real guitar. So…I bought my own guitar using money I made cleaning my Uncle's liquor bar on Sunday mornings. I was only 14 years old when I heard about a used guitar for $15.00 on the radio want ads. It was the first guitar I had ever seen up close that wasn't a toy. It was love at first sight. It looked beautiful. I still have that guitar today and it really is a piece of junk but in the eyes of a 14 year old, it was beautiful beyond words. The strings were about half an inch away from the frets most good guitars are 1/8 inch or less. So holding those strings down was really hard. Later I learned how to adjust the bridge lower so it would be a little easier. I would start practicing from the moment I got home from school until suppertime and then for a couple hours after that.

“I loved the guitar before I even knew what one was…”

The music lives inside of me. Sometimes when I am playing live in front of a large crowd, I may forget a chord progression in a bridge or chorus. I just can’t remember what it is but I know it’s coming up and now it’s only measures away. When it arrives, I still can’t remember but magically my fingers do and the music comes out all by itself.

Music is in my heart and soul and every fiber of my being. I was born to play.

My singing voice just followed the love I had for music and if I couldn't make my voice do what I wanted it to do, I would practice until it did.