I have no idea what got me to start learning to play the guitar. The musical upbringing I got was close to zero. Well, maybe it´s not quite right to say that I did not get any musical upbringing. I always had the radio.

 

In those days there was only one radio station in Iceland, channel 1. Every week there were only three radio programs where you could hear pop music. The first of them was called Music for patients, the second was called Music for seamen and the third one was Music for the young. Each program was about an hour long.

In spite of this I got the idea that it would be fun to learn to play the guitar.I took the bus downtown and bought myself a Bjarton classical guitar. For a while I struggled to get decent sound of this horrible instrument. To be honest, it was not good. I could not even decide which way to turn the neck, left or right. When I finally decided that right was the way to go things started to get better.

In Dallas, Texas I found a luthier, Christopher Carrington, who builds a high quality guitars at an affordable price. I contacted him and he was willing to build a left-handed guitar for me. He did not charge extra for that. The only difference for him, he said, was that he had to think upside down. No charge for that. The guitar was in my hands at the beginning of the year 1997 and what a difference. Now I could interpret the music I was playing with dynamics. The guitar responded wonderfully to my attacks. This guitar has been my loyal companion since I got it and will be for years to come. Having a quality guitar makes all the difference.

 

Here is an interview with the luthier.

The original post in Icelandic is here.