Standing with the Martin

I got my babies back from the shop today, and I couldn't be more pleased with the work. I mentioned yesterday that I've been standing up all week while playing the Recording King, and had really enjoyed it. Today, now that I had the Martin back with a strap button installed, I would see if I could also play the Martin standing up.

I'll confess now I was a little nervous. It felt so good and natural playing the RK standing up - what if the HD-28 didn't feel as good? It's a bigger-bodied guitar, and maybe too big to stand up with? I tried to reassure myself as I drove home - I've seen countless pictures of countless guitar players standing up playing dreadnaughts, and looking natural and comfortable.

It turned out not to be a problem. I took a leather strap off one of my basses, put it on the Martin, put it on and played it - and it felt *perfect*. So I spent the rest of the day playing - strumming, flatpicking, and fingerpicking. I suppose I could be biased, but you won't convince me it's not the best sounding guitar in the entire history of the world.

In all seriousness, I don't think I will ever play an acoustic guitar without a strap again, whether sitting or standing. As I noted yesterday, all the posture issues of hunching over the guitar simply disappear when you stand up with it. But when I sit down with the strap, the guitar is still in the same position as standing, so the posture issues also disappear then. This is a nice little discovery.