Maple syrup is wonderful stuff, isn't it? Maple trees seem to have a personality too, but it's their wood that really amazes me.

Several times lately I've been very impressed with maple (back and sides) guitars, especially a Larrivee parlour style, a nylon string, and a recent Gibson (seemed a smaller body). There has been a certain un-rosewood tone to them which really tweeks my ear. Somehow now I'm "getting it" with maple where before I knew I liked it but couldn't fully open my heart to it or something.

Now, I have (and have had) maple instruments, and currently play a maple jumbo baritone guitar, maple mandolin, and fiddle (all solid with killer flames). For some reason they are now somehow speaking to me differently, or rather I'm hearing them differently. More complex, but more pure and vital. Is it the weather, has my hearing changed, has my mind changed, has my brain changed?

Why do I hear them so?

Peace, Mooh.