The 28 and The Path

 

Martin OM-28

About two years ago, I was in an acoustic string shop in Lexington, MA.  I had some time, so I sat down and picked up a Martin OM-28.  I like OMs, though I've never owned a Martin OM.  As an artist endorser for Santa Cruz Guitars, I had a Santa Cruz custom OM which they built for me; it was essentially a Martin OM-18 with a cutaway and a German spruce top.  I did have a Martin 000 for a while; it was special and I still have fond memories of it.  The 000 has the same body as the OM, but a narrower nut at 1 11/16" as opposed to the OM's 1 3/4" nut, and a shorter scale length (24.9" for the 000 vs. 25.4" for the OM).  Both the Santa Cruz OM and the Martin 000 had mahogany back and sides.  The OM-28 has Indian rosewood back and sides, so it's a very different voice.

For 6-string steel-string instruments, I always prefer dreadnaughts.  I discussed my deep love and admiration of the venerable Martin D-28 in this blog post.  The OM-28 is essentially a D-28 in an OM body in that they both have the same tonewoods, scale length, nut width, and so forth. 

I'd never played an OM-28.  I picked it up out of curiosity.  Before I'd realized it, I'd been playing it for over a half-hour. Its voice was unlike any OMs or 000s I've heard.  It certainly resembled the D-28 voice in more ways that I would have expected.  A notable difference is that the OM-28 was far more balanced than the D-28.  As I sat there playing it, I realized that I was playing things I'd never before played.  It unlocked a portal for me.  I thought its voice was exceptional, and I completely enjoyed everything about the experience.

That was almost two years ago, and I'm still thinking about the experience.  Not because I'm looking to acquire an OM-28.  But because I still have recurring thoughts of acquiring a D-28.  The one thing stopping me is that I'm uncertain how a single-course instrument would fit in or if it would work at all in my double- and triple-course world.  

A couple of days ago, I was on a drive, and the OM-28 experience popped into my head.   The thought occurred to me, "I wish I had recorded that."  And instantaneously I had the thought that if I had recorded it, I could have added layers to it with my double- and triple-course instruments to complete the composition.  With the OM as the first voice and the one that "wrote" the composition, it would certainly be in a direction unobtainable with any other instrument.  Again, not that I want an OM-28, but the same concept would apply to a D-28.

In compositions where I'd want a 28 voice: instead of adding a 28 to a composition, which was how I previously considered it, maybe the 28 leads the compositional direction, and the other instruments are then added.

Maybe that's the path.

-kk