It Came!

I've always been interested in esoteric stringed instruments but the cost, and the fact that lace spinners need to not have callused fingers, meant that I never actually got one.  Until now.

About two years ago, I guess, in a weaving group on Ravelry one of the posters showed a strap they'd woven for their "strum stick" that they really liked.  The weaver said that this instrument was very easy to play and of course I was interested.  They were kind enough to give me the website info and that's pretty much were things stood, that price and callus thing, even though it turns out that one of my guild mates on DDO was familiar with strum sticks and thought they might be a good introduction to music.

And then...about a week ago I decided that because it was almost my birthday, and because I want to have various instruments around for the kids to try, and because...well, because...I would order one.  After listening to the various samples I decided to go with the grand strum stick, instead of the standard, both because it can be tuned to "C" and because the lower tone is less irritating to my nerves than the higher one that too closely resembles the high pitched random noises certain of my children like to entertain themselves with.  I even went so far as to order the accessories so that everything, except the electronic tuner it turns out.

Yesterday there was a knock on the door as I was reading to the kids, who of course all went running to see.  They were nearly as thrilled to see the two, one of yarn to finish a project because Wal-mart doesn't carry the colors I'm using anymore, packages as I was and in fact I had to be quite firm about their leaving the boxes alone and letting me open them when the reading was done.  I have to say, the website was correct.  In about fifteen minutes I was able to pick out a couple of , fairly, recognizable songs and with practice will probably even be able to know what notes I'm playing instead of just following the fingering instructions in the book.  So, first impression is quite positive and I'm looking forward to finding out if that impression holds up.