00:00Hi, I'm Maya Delilah and I'm with Guitar.com and this is My Guitars and Me.
00:14It all started when I was eight. I had begun to play the piano but hadn't done very well at it
00:20because I hadn't realized that I was dyslexic and the kind of dyslexic traits that I have mean I
00:27can't easily read black on white paper so when I was reading the sheet paper each note would
00:32disappear when I got to it but I didn't know why because I was eight so then my sister started
00:37playing the guitar and I was like that's really cool I'm gonna give that one a go so I said to my
00:42new guitar teacher I was like can we just do songs by ear and like songs that I like and not do exams
00:47and stuff and he was like yeah that was like completely his vibe so I just picked out really
00:52quickly and fell in love with it very fast I kind of felt bad at everything except for guitar as a kid
01:06my parents would be like try and like read a few chapters after school like me and my sister would
01:11kind of need to read practice our instruments and I think because I found school quite difficult I
01:16found the reading part quite difficult it was like my escape of like kind of felt like a loophole of like
01:20I can do this thing and not feel bad at it for once I was also very into dance and thought I was
01:28going to be a dancer for a while and then I got very into the thought of medicine and wanted to be a
01:34paramedic and a surgeon and that kind of like came into my mind more as a job weirdly than guitar I think
01:42maybe because it I I don't know maybe subconsciously it was kind of a thing of not wanting it to become
01:48work because it had never felt like work maybe I'm kind of epiphanying this right now I still only got
01:55diagnosed with dyslexia late into secondary school so I still was struggling with school and I heard
02:02of the Brit School which is a performing arts school in South London and I was like I know I want to change
02:09school I know I'm not enjoying academia maybe I'll go for that school and just like try music I reckon I
02:14could probably get in with the level I play guitar at but I'm not really sure I still was really like
02:20unsure if I wanted to go when I got in it took quite a lot of convincing from my parents weirdly
02:27but I think it's kind of the whole thing of putting all your eggs in one basket because when
02:31you're at the Brit School you only study one subject but I was just like it kind of clicked and
02:36I was like why wouldn't I do this and it was like the best two years of my life I have never been
02:48one to shred I don't know how to use a pick I've never been interested in learning how to use a pick
02:53because it doesn't make me feel as close to the guitar I bought an Ibanez as my first electric which
02:58is hilarious and I'm never going to get rid of it because I think it's so funny and it's black and red
03:03and it literally looks like ACDC would play it and then I bought this guitar I knew I wanted
03:10something warm so I I kind of gravitated towards hollow bodies but um I just wanted to go feel
03:19that I kind of get emotionally attacked to objects and I was like I know I'll find it I went with my
03:24parents and my mum spotted this one and I stayed in the shop for seven hours they were very kind to me
03:30I know them very well now because of how long I stayed in that one day and it's still to this day
03:36my absolute treasure um it would be the one object I'd save in a fire and it's a very rare guitar
03:43actually it's an it's a Mayton which is an acoustic Australian brand and they make very limited amounts
03:49of electrics and I believe this is one of two in Europe um and maybe of like five or ten in the
03:55world I'm not sure it's just like the best feeling to play ever I don't use this I haven't really
04:04figured out where it sounds best yet because I don't use it enough this I tend to have on the
04:09warmest tone any guitar that I use I tend to have on the warmest tone but I'll occasionally switch
04:14here and there yeah I kind of love how simple it is and I love that the pickups just have words like
04:18cool and hi-fi and because that's kind of how I know guitars I'm not a gear person I don't really
04:26know about pickups or anything I just like the sounds and I go off what I like to hear I'm yeah
04:32I'm very nervous to bring her around and also because it because it's hollow body feels really
04:38fragile as well um she's got some chips but that I like that as well I'm not very precious about things
04:45looking damaged I'm just precious about losing them
04:56This is a rubber bridge guitar that I bought in LA um in this shop called Old Style which is run by
05:05a man called Reuben Cox I believe um and he has loads of instruments loads of guitars loads of kind
05:11of normal guitars um but he also makes these rubber bridged acoustics um where he finds kind of old
05:20vintage acoustics and nylon strings and he makes them into this kind of rubber bridge craziness and
05:29it just sounds really nice and it kind of dampens all the strings in it it's got a really nice unusual
05:34sound um I had wanted to buy one for years and yeah last time I was in LA I was like
05:41now's the time um and a friend of mine called Mason Stoops who's worked on the last two songs of mine
05:47um helped build these as well he's kind of behind them as well so that feels really special to kind
05:54of own something that he worked on too it just works really beautifully with simple slightly focused
06:00songs which is a side of music that I love to dabble in I think it's got such a perfect sound for what
06:06I'm hopefully going to go for next especially when I hit it that's the kind of sound rather than a folky
06:12sound but um yeah it can do lots of interesting things so I'm excited to experiment with it with
06:18writing I don't like to just have all my guitars in the same way one of my acoustics has Nashville
06:25tuning strings on them so that they're all in a higher range and that gives something different
06:29and then when I bring this I know it'll give something different when I'll use one of my
06:32normal ones that will bring that so yeah this is was a perfect addition because it is very different
06:38and you can't really get the sound from and well you can't get the sound from a normal acoustic
06:43I think that this album's really like allowed me to explore so many different realms of myself
07:00musically and like I say with wanting to have so many different types of guitars that do different
07:04things like that's what I love to have in music as well and different songs that have different genres
07:09and different messages and all that um and I think having made the album over the last three years
07:18coming back to do the deluxe was really special because it let myself go back into the mindset of
07:24being able to make music kind of however I want to make it and with whatever genre because now
07:30I'm going to start writing in a slightly different sound but it was really nice to dip back into that
07:35feeling and making those deluxe songs and with the group of all the mason musicians was like perfect for it
07:51thanks so much for checking out my guitars you can listen to the deluxe version of my album The Long Way Round
08:09it's out on January 9th
08:21the song you
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