Oh the exquisite pain! It's here but I can't play it!

Well maybe the title is overkill, but it certainly is frustrating.   I finally got the message that someone of my advanced age has to be sensible about practicing to avoid injury. Hence,  I decided to reevaluate how I'm going to fix the tennis elbow problem : especially since the first approach, physical therapy and toning down the practice hadn't worked.  So next step - attack the problem from several directions.

First there was rest. I'm now on week 4 of guitar (and everything else) rest for the left arm.  With the addition of heat, ultrasound and massage I can finally open a jar with my left hand again.  Yeah! Can still feel it though, so I'm not there yet.

Second - I got really familiar with the use of a timer. Rest with the LH means I can still practice with my right hand, but I've learned my lesson.   The timer is set to 15 mins.  It's a signal - every 15 mins, check for tiredness or stiffness, take a short break, switch to something else for 15 minutes or stop!  Of course I'm not spending that much time with the guitar, (there's only so much time I can keep enthused about Tarrega RH exercises as found in Scott Tennant's Pumping Nylon or the devilish exercises in Ricardo Iznaola's  Kitharalagous), so it's not hard.

Third I reevaluated my guitars.  I am really fortunate to own 2 great guitars.  And I need another guitar like I need a hole in the head, but... ever heard of GAS (guitar acquisition syndrome)?   Anyway, justification came in the form of minimizing the chance of future injury.  Why? the short scale guitar fits me size-wise but has a thicker neck than I would like and is not enormously loud (can be a problem when trying to meet our orchestra conductor's outsize volume requests).  To remedy that problem I have a full size double top that makes a truly awesome sound and has the perfect neck shape.  It's the one I play most, but is a bit of a stretch, being longer in scale and wider in neck width and string spacing.  The solution?   Obviously get a guitar that is a combination of both!   Easier said than done, but then I heard a demo of a short scale double top guitar on this is classical guitar  by luthier Marcus Dominelli in Canada.  The exchange rate is currently very favorable to the US, so to cut a long story short he built me a double top guitar the same size and spacing as my 630 but with a neck shape carved from the template of the bigger guitar.  On time and on budget, (is this the only time I wish it could have taken longer?) and despite being delayed 2 weeks by customs, due no doubt to rosewood of all types being added to CITES appendix II in January 2017,  it arrived this week.

Hence the title.  I've noodled on it, it is definitely loud! but can't actually ♫♫♫ it.  If my guitar teacher wasn't on tour I'd take it for him to play, but in the meantime, here it sits........