Well, Guest Stim, I feel truly and profoundly sorry for YOU!

You've obviously never appreciated the sound and feel of a top-quality concert classic guitar such as a José Ramirez or an Ignacio Fleta. Or an Arcangel Fernandez flamenco guitar. Or heard the sound of a Ramirez fill a large concert hall, such as the Seattle Opera House (3,600 seats) to every corner, with crisp clarity, purity of tone, and without electronic distortion or tinkering.

This kind of clean, pure tone comes from fine tone-woods, well-designed fan-bracing under the soundboard, and very fine, careful craftsmanship. NOT from twisting knobs and routing current between wall-plugs and a half a ton of gear that you have to lug around. With the actual sound being produce by the strings you pluck (or pick), not by the undulations of a rack of speaker cones.

I don't know the make of the rig that I was playing that afternoon in the tavern, but I DO know that it was totally inappropriate for the music that I prefer to play. Among other things, with the exception of working with Bob Nelson from time to time, or singing a couple of concerts with Judy Flenniken before she graduated from college, got married, and moved to Florida, I work alone. And I have no desire whatsoever to play lead in a group, rock, folk, or otherwise.

Roger McGuinn gets a helluvalot of music out of his Rickenbacker and I enjoy his music generally. But—the collection of songs he posts on "Folk Den," although some good stuff per se, is grossly overproduced—which is a major flaw with otherwise fine musicians hooked on electronic gadgetry.

YOU, Guest Stim, have obviously never experience the sheer joy of filling a concert hall with the cascade of sparkling, glittering notes of Tàrrega's "Requerdoes de la Alhambra," (Tremolo Study) or the simple, flowing beauty of "Romance de Amor," a Spanish folk song arranged for guitar solo by Vincenté Gomez—and played with the fingernails on a fine quality classical guitar—unencumbered by electronic amplification and distortion. Pure music.

Not to mention accompaniments for several hundred folk songs and ballads, played on the same guitar.

By the way, I carry the guitar around in a good, stout, hardshell case along with a spare set of strings, a 440-A tuning fork, and a polishing cloth. I don't need a whole road crew.

Don Firth

P. S. And "Travis Picking" works perfectly well on a classic guitar.

P. P. S. On the tube a couple evenings ago, I saw a young Asian woman playing Irish music on an electric violin. Sounded kind of haunting. I didn't know there was such a thing. Here's an idea, Stim. Why don't you write to Itzhak Perlman, tell him to chuck his million dollar 1743 Guarneri del Gesu into the Dumpster and get himself an electric fiddle? I'm sure it would open up a whole new world to him!

But—would he want anything to do with that world?