Fernando

Music has always been a strong presence in my life. It has always been around. There are lots of musicians on both sides of my family: my paternal grandfather played acoustic guitar; my mom's youngest brother plays guitar, there are professional musicians on both sides of the family, my parents are very decent singers, so is my sister, I consider myself very musical, my wife is a classically trained pianist (and she plays a lot, too), our children are very musical as well. I grew up with a ton of music: Beatles, Stones, Motown, Samba, Rock'n Roll, Jazz, Reggae, Flamenco, Zydeco, Fado, Gospel, Tango, Blues, Bossa Nova... My paternal grandpa played fun songs on his acoustic, Italian songs mostly, and I enjoyed his music, but it was my uncle, my mom's youngest brother, who really made me want to know more: he had an electric guitar, I can't remember which make and model, probably not a good one by today's standards, by I was fascinated by the buttons and controls and how loud that thing got! My uncle had a cover band, mostly Beatles and Stones, some other 60's stuff, really, really cool stuff. I watched a couple of Beatles movies and bought my first album (Help) at 8 years of age. At 10, I decided the Beatles were always going to be cool, but the Stones won my preference as my number one band. Along with Mick Taylor, Keith Richards, Ron Wood and Brian Jones, my two other main influences are Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix. I am not talking about who I have ultimately come to admire and learn from. I am talking about those who inspired me to pick up a guitar. By the way, guitar was my second attempt at music. I first started at 12, playing the piano, but I could not find one single blues/boogie woogie piano teacher anywhere, and my "classical-music-only-do-not-insist" teacher was strict and I left after a year, without having learned what I wanted. But I managed to learn something, and I did have fun. I found out I could figure out melodies, right hand in piano talk, and I also decided that I liked piano a lot, but it wasn't really the instrument I wanted to learn. That's when I started to listen to a lot of guitar music again, after a progressive rock period. All of a sudden my life was full of high gain music: Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, AC/DC, JHE, Zappa, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Van Halen...so I got myself a guitar. It was a Giannini (Jazzmaster replica) that was actually pretty decent; not great, but a good beginner level electric; got a teacher that was very cool, my friend to this day, and took lessons for three months, then I moved, sold my guitar and bought a guitar that was too much of a hype and almost ruined my musical life. It was the mid-eighties and EVH was all the rage if you were a guitar player. Quite frankly, how dumb of me, what was I thinking? I really liked VH (and still do), but never wanted to play that kind of music. I never liked the Floyd Rose and for 15 years I had only that one Kramer (still have it), a guitar that never really stayed in tune. I removed the tremolo bar pretty much as soon as I bought the thing. But I never wanted to sell it, and I lived in a place where having a second guitar is almost unheard of, so I was kind of stuck with a bad guitar, and so my playing was very off and on. Had a few bands, but never liked the ego thing, I am more for balance and harmony and prefer to stay from unnecessary conflict, so never really got into the band thing too much, but jammed a lot with friends' bands, which always seemed to work well. Anyway... I bough a Schecter in 1999. Once again, I wasn't paying attention: I wasn't aware of the "shredder guitar" thing, didn't know about Korean-made guitars. The fact is that I developed a skin irritation that seemed to have come from the strings, but my fingers looked corroded like an extreme case of being under water too long, nothing was ever diagnosed but the thing was painful and I didn't play from 1999 until 2009. Until then, all I ever knew were the three months of beginner lessons and some failed attempts at re-starting. Too busy raising a family, working too much, no time, maybe you know what I am talking about: excuses. I felt bad one day, after answering "yes, I play a little guitar" to the casual conversation question "Do you play an instrument?" and decided that I did love playing music and playing guitar, and that it was important to me to keep doing it, but I also came to the realization that I would have to decide whether I was a guitar player or a guitar owner. I would not have to reach any specific level of playing, just do my best to

Music has always been a strong presence in my life. It has always been around. There are lots of musicians on both sides of my family: my paternal grandfather played acoustic guitar; my mom's youngest brother plays guitar, there are professional musicians on both sides of the family, my parents are very decent singers, so is my sister, I consider myself very musical, my wife is a classically trained pianist (and she plays a lot, too), our children are very musical as well. I grew up with a ton of music: Beatles, Stones, Motown, Samba, Rock'n Roll, Jazz, Reggae, Flamenco, Zydeco, Fado, Gospel, Tango, Blues, Bossa Nova... My paternal grandpa played fun songs on his acoustic, Italian songs mostly, and I enjoyed his music, but it was my uncle, my mom's youngest brother, who really made me want to know more: he had an electric guitar, I can't remember which make and model, probably not a good one by today's standards, by I was fascinated by the buttons and controls and how loud that thing got! My uncle had a cover band, mostly Beatles and Stones, some other 60's stuff, really, really cool stuff. I watched a couple of Beatles movies and bought my first album (Help) at 8 years of age. At 10, I decided the Beatles were always going to be cool, but the Stones won my preference as my number one band. Along with Mick Taylor, Keith Richards, Ron Wood and Brian Jones, my two other main influences are Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix. I am not talking about who I have ultimately come to admire and learn from. I am talking about those who inspired me to pick up a guitar. By the way, guitar was my second attempt at music. I first started at 12, playing the piano, but I could not find one single blues/boogie woogie piano teacher anywhere, and my "classical-music-only-do-not-insist" teacher was strict and I left after a year, without having learned what I wanted. But I managed to learn something, and I did have fun. I found out I could figure out melodies, right hand in piano talk, and I also decided that I liked piano a lot, but it wasn't really the instrument I wanted to learn. That's when I started to listen to a lot of guitar music again, after a progressive rock period. All of a sudden my life was full of high gain music: Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, AC/DC, JHE, Zappa, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Van Halen...so I got myself a guitar. It was a Giannini (Jazzmaster replica) that was actually pretty decent; not great, but a good beginner level electric; got a teacher that was very cool, my friend to this day, and took lessons for three months, then I moved, sold my guitar and bought a guitar that was too much of a hype and almost ruined my musical life. It was the mid-eighties and EVH was all the rage if you were a guitar player. Quite frankly, how dumb of me, what was I thinking? I really liked VH (and still do), but never wanted to play that kind of music. I never liked the Floyd Rose and for 15 years I had only that one Kramer (still have it), a guitar that never really stayed in tune. I removed the tremolo bar pretty much as soon as I bought the thing. But I never wanted to sell it, and I lived in a place where having a second guitar is almost unheard of, so I was kind of stuck with a bad guitar, and so my playing was very off and on. Had a few bands, but never liked the ego thing, I am more for balance and harmony and prefer to stay from unnecessary conflict, so never really got into the band thing too much, but jammed a lot with friends' bands, which always seemed to work well. Anyway... I bough a Schecter in 1999. Once again, I wasn't paying attention: I wasn't aware of the "shredder guitar" thing, didn't know about Korean-made guitars. The fact is that I developed a skin irritation that seemed to have come from the strings, but my fingers looked corroded like an extreme case of being under water too long, nothing was ever diagnosed but the thing was painful and I didn't play from 1999 until 2009. Until then, all I ever knew were the three months of beginner lessons and some failed attempts at re-starting. Too busy raising a family, working too much, no time, maybe you know what I am talking about: excuses. I felt bad one day, after answering "yes, I play a little guitar" to the casual conversation question "Do you play an instrument?" and decided that I did love playing music and playing guitar, and that it was important to me to keep doing it, but I also came to the realization that I would have to decide whether I was a guitar player or a guitar owner. I would not have to reach any specific level of playing, just do my best to

Welcome Monk. You're right about the mojo, it's quite a guitar. Congratulations.

I thought I had already posted something here, but apparently I had not, so here it is: Hi everyone, my name is Fernando, and that's my real name. I bought my first Heritage (a beautiful, used, H-150, you've seen her here before, because that's how I found her advertised) a year or so ago, and it gave me such a bad case of GAS that I am almost embarrassed to tell you that I own now 5 of them: my first H-150 (wine color; good wine color, by the way), a Little One (natural), two H-555 models (one in "burnt amber" and one in "antique natural" with split pickups, push-pull knobs) and a Black Beauty H-157. My favorite? I love them all, they all sound great and look awesome. Thanks. Fernando

Ciao, Enrico! Benvenuto!

Hey Fredzepp, thanks for the welcome. I was going to disclose which models when they arrived, but since you asked, here it goes. One is a black H-157, with chrome (instead of gold) hardware. I ordered the H-157. The other one was a bit of a surprise for me. I managed to find a Little One in mint condition. It has one pickup at the bridge and one volume control.

Hello Everyone! My name is Fernando here, there, and everywhere. I decided to join this wonderful community a few weeks ago, when I ordered two Heritage guitars from a local guitar studio. I’ll tell you about them once they arrive, in a few more weeks. My first Heritage is a different one, however, and has already arrived here. I’ll explain. Once I placed the order, I registered here and started visiting this site. I didn’t want to post anything, because I was a member without a case. I started coming here every day, however, and that’s when I came across the wine red H-150 on sale by Cryoman, just after he decided not to sell it anymore. I asked him about it (if he would still consider selling it) and he agreed to sell it to me, fortunately. Let me say this about the experience, before I say anything about the guitar: Cryoman is a super nice guy and it was a pleasure to do business with him. I wish the world would have more people like him. Now, about the guitar: simply wonderful. What an instrument! It looks perfect and it sounds perfect! I am so happy to finally own a Heritage and I am planning to attend the next pilgrimage to Parsons Street, this coming summer. So, I am no longer lurking. Here I am. It’s a pleasure to meet all of you! Fernando