Hi gang! Let me start this one off by saying that this review will not be so much about the particular guitar we are giving away but what has been done to modify it. We won’t be going through the normal steps of a guitar review like we usually do here. What I will attempt to do is to explain the Zager EZ-Play String Science System. The modifications used in this system make this guitar the easiest playing guitar I have ever played.

I wish all of you the best of luck as you enter to win this guitar. It has been modified by Denny Zager with this patented system, is hand signed by him, and has a retail value of just under $600.00. As I mentioned this review is not really about the guitar so much but what the Zager Guitar system has done to the guitar to make it what it has become. We at GRITZ want to thank Zager Guitars for giving me the chance to test this new system, and for giving you our readers a chance to win this amazing instrument.

First let’s talk a bit about the man behind this new design, Mr. Denny Zager. Denny Zager is part of the legendary recording duo "Zager & Evans" who wrote "In The Year 2525," the number 1 World-Wide smash hit of 1969 and the biggest one-hit wonder of any artist at any time in recording history. You may have seen Denny featured in magazines such as Time, Newsweek, and The New Yorker. Denny has been asked to make numerous television appearances including The Tonight Show, and he was also asked to perform at the original Woodstock. For more on Denny Zager’s biography see this page.

Now let’s talk about the Zager EZ Play "String Science" modification process. Without getting too technical and into the geometry of what happens let’s just say that Denny Zager takes an existing guitar and does a couple of really neat things to it. The ease of playing comes from two distinct processes that Mr. Zager applies. The first process is to lower the strings to a height that seems impossible to accomplish without creating tons of fret buzz. He has figured out how to lower the strings, or the action, on an acoustic guitar so low that you have trouble slipping a piece of computer paper under the strings! This makes the guitar so easy to fret you feel like you aren’t applying any pressure at all. Imagine if you had had a guitar like this when you started playing. Can you imagine giving a guitar like this to a new student just learning to play? The confidence level of the new player would shoot through the roof!

The second thing Mr. Zager does is to widen the distance between the strings. The distance between each string on a Zager guitar is wider than on any guitar you have ever seen or played. This widening of that space is crucial to the ease of playing these guitars. If you play, you know that sometimes your big old fingers get in the way when making a chord and sometimes you hear the dreaded thud of a string that has been muted by an adjacent finger that is too big to fit in the narrow space between the strings. That spacing coupled with the normal strings on a student guitar being too high and feeling like steel cables is especially frustrating to beginners. By changing these two fundamentals, Zager’s system will allow students the time to stick with that learning process and will give them a better shot of reaching some basic goals without giving up. The Zager E-Z play "String Science" takes all of the early worry and hassle away. The extra distance between the strings also makes finger picking much easier as well. If you thought you could never master a finger picking style on guitar before, I’m here to tell ya Brother’s and Sister’s if you win this guitar be ready for all that to change.

Mr. Zager recently was asked to go to a very well known and major guitar manufacturer’s facility in the USA, to demonstrate the "String Science" to them. I really am not at liberty to name names, but let’s just say if I said the name you’d all know who they are. I will give you a hint; the name of the company has two initials then a name. The result of that visit was a proclamation by the company that no guitar they had ever produced or even seen had strings that were so low to the frets with no fret buzz at all. Let me tell you friends, this company has a reputation of making easy to play guitars and they had never seen anything like this.

Mr. Denny Zager’s new E-Z play "String Science" has made playing an acoustic guitar 10 times easier than it ever has been before. I urge all of those who read this that play guitar already or are interested in learning to play to enter this contest right now. If you do not win, and I certainly hope you will enter and try to win, I urge you to visit Zager guitars on line at www.zagerguitars.com and order a Zager E-Z play acoustic guitar for yourself or as a gift. They offer a couple of brands in different color and option combinations for sale on the web site. If you are serious about becoming a better acoustic guitarist or have always wanted to try to play the guitar, give yourself the edge that only Denny Zager can give you. Mr. Zager offers on line instruction as well at www.zagerguitars.com. I highly recommend these guitars and the exciting new breakthrough that Denny Zager has developed.

Making the guitar easier to play is a giant step in bringing many more people to the instrument and music. It is also a huge advantage to the existing player, as you will have confidence you have never felt before. Mr. Denny Zager has done the world of guitar playing a tremendous service in developing his "String Science" and I applaud his efforts! Mr. Zager does each modification himself on each instrument sold on the website. He pays a great deal of attention to each guitar and stands behind his work. Denny also follows up each purchase with e-mails or phone calls just to make sure the guitar is performing to his high standards. He takes so much pride in his work that he hand signs each and every guitar that he modifies. His commitment is to make us all better players, with a much easier instrument to play is a great thing. What excites me the most about this Zager system is that beginners now have a real chance to make progress on the guitar before they become frustrated from the pain of trying to fret painfully high strings on poorly set up entry level guitars. With the Zager system, a new student can take one of these moderately priced guitars and start playing almost immediately!

Making music is a wonderful thing to do for yourself or to give as a gift to someone you care about. I really love to see new people pick up a guitar and make music and I believe that’s what Denny Zager is all about as well! That is what this column is all about folks! We LOVE to see people pluckin the plank we love!

The Gritz Guitar Review

This is an American made guitar, manufactured in May of 2009. It is a full size dreadnought acoustic guitar with no electronics. The guitar has 20 frets and is made entirely of wood. NO LAMINATES. The body has a solid Spruce top, a rosewood fretboard and the sides and back are made of Mahogany. It has the inlay design and a tortoise pick guard. The top is a natural color with a gloss finish. The tuners are sealed Grover tuners. The guitar came with a couple pics and a stand and it came strung with genuine Martin strings and an additional set of Martin strings.

The guitar is excellent for my style. I am a beginner and was looking for a great sounding guitar, one that sounds full and resonates well. I wanted to make sure the guitar sounded great so I could concentrate on my abilities. This Zager fits the bill. And because I am a beginner, an acoustic was the least expensive way to go. The sound is full bodied and has impressed a all of my frends that have been playing lots of other guitars for many years.

The guitar was ready to play right out of the box(it was shipped through UPS). It only needed a couple minor adjustments to bring it into tune. Nothing that was not expected. This guitar is a Zager E-Z play guitar wich means that it has been hand made to have a very low string action and the strings have been spread to help improve the ability to play. It is exactly as described on the website. I did actually purchase mine as a "second" (at a discount) and I was told there was a mare in the finish on the back. When I opened the box up, it was just like it was stated to me.

As an acoustic guitar it is well made. It has the cross members and is entirely made of wood, which allows it to breathe, expand and contract with the enviroment it is in. The all wood design and the great Grover tuners are above what I was expecting to get as my first guitar. I expectd to end up getting a guitar that was barely finished and felt like a thin piece of unfinished balsm wood for my beginner price range, but I found this guitar on the web and decide to spend a little bit more than a "starter" guitar would cost me at my local shop and got a well made, extremely well finished(this thing has a lot of coats on it)with excellent sound that I will be able to play and enjoy for a lifetime without looking to upgrade to a better guitar in a few years! The strap button is the only thing I would change, because there is only the one on the bottom of the body. The other will have to be added by a shop(at my expense) or by myself(which they do provide a video on their website to walk you through the process). The guitar is solid and very light!

I had many interactions with the Zager Guitar Company, through e-mail, before I purchased the guitar and each and everyone was answered in a very quick time line and the responses were not "pre-fabed" answers. They were complete answers to my question and not just a response by a salesman. Since I am a beginner, I was very concerned about investing in a guitar that I may not be abe to play or wouldn't want to play for very long. I was asured by The Zager Guitar Company that I would be satified with the guitar and that it was not only a great guitar for long time guitar players but it was also the best guitar for a beginner. They assured me that if I did not agree after I received the guitar they would take it back and they would pay the shipping of it(no cost to me). That says a lot about a company. The guitar also offers a lifetime warranty. I have not had any reason to take advantage of this warranty.

I have been playing for a short time and this is the only guitar I own. I asked ALL the questions I needed to ask (Zager, guitar shops and my friends) before I purchased, probably more than I needed to. If this guitar was stolen or lost I would buy another Zager E-Z Play guitar, although I would invest in the electric acoustic model. I did not buy the electric acoustic to begin because of the additional cost and the fear that I may not be able to play the guitar or stick with it, but after just a short period of playing this E-Z play guitar, I am sure I will be playing the rest of my life. It really is easy to play and the sound is what you want to hear coming from something you are investing your time and energy into. I was not able to do a one on one comparison due to the fact that Zager's are only available on-line, but I did look at a lot of starter guitars and some solid wood guitars from Takamine, Taylor, Yamaha and Washburn and all of the solid wood models were in the same price range but were not designed as an "E-Z Play" guitar. That is what drew me to the Zager and it was the right decision. This guitar looks good, sounds great, plays great, my friends are impressed and I don't have to look for an upgrade now that I will be playing for a long time to come!