Category Archives: instrument building - Page 2

careful study

Posted by on February 21, 2011 No comments

I came across a link to this video on the birthday of the great Andres Segovia. I was struck by a few things in his playing. How little his hands move. How each phrase gets its due. Each note is connected so beautifully. The piece is played so effortlessly, but the craftsmanship is clearly on display. It’s beautiful.

The first time I tried to learn this piece was in 1988 or so. Wow, that’s a long time ago. But as I sat staring at my laptop all I could think was, “where was YouTube when I was trying to absorb and learn this piece?” So many options now. So many resources. It’s embarrassing. Watch the video:
Andres Segovia performing Asturias(Leyenda) by Albeniz

back to projects and the studio

Posted by on June 10, 2010 No comments

I’m back to the studio grind. I find that I spend less time in the studio composing and more actually recording in the summer. This is not intuitive as I can’t run the ceiling fan in there when I’m recording and as I may have mentioned before, the ceiling fans are the way I get through the day during the summer. That said, things are moving along. I have come up with a few new tracks that have some hope in them but need a little time to ferment.

old wood

That might be the most difficult part of working in the summer: it’s slow. Everything feels slow. Nothing wants to move or disturb the air in any way. I sit on the floor and strum my guitar (the new one with which I have fallen completely in love). Sometimes I listen to the sound bouncing off of the walls in the dark. I can sit on a single chord for quite some time. It feels good to practice the varying textures that can be created with a single sonority. As always, there’s much to be gained by slowing down. But it doesn’t fill the pages of my notebooks or the contents of my recording collection.

I know it has been a long time since I released any music on the site. That will change shortly. I’m setting up to do a marathon recording session and get a new EP out. I have enough material for that and before I can really dig in on some of my collaborations I have to get it out of my system. Watch this space for new tunes!

Last weekend was the first in a long time where I didn’t do anything that related to building an instrument and it almost drove my crazy. I have come to depend on that activity as an outlet the way my wife uses sewing. It’s important to make things! A large package from Luthiers Mercantile showed up this week and made sure that my madness won’t be an issue in the coming months. Instrument 003 is off and running. This stuff is fun. It’s a wonderful hobby, not all that expensive (when compared with boats, hunting gear, and motor sports), and very refreshing. I almost always feel better after working on an instrument. It’s solving physical problems that matter to me. That last part is probably the most fulfilling. There is nothing like solving a problem that matters.

So there will be more pictures of the building process soon. More bells and whistles this time. More good fun.

keep moving

Posted by on June 3, 2010 No comments

Summer isn’t really a great time for me in terms of creativity. There’s too much daylight and way too much heat. I don’t function well. This is of course exacerbated in Texas. It’s really hot down here for a long stretch. The bad stuff is here and I will have to tough it out for a while. It makes me tired.

That said, a box of stuff is on its way to my house so I can continue on instrument 003. I can’t exactly shut my life down just because I’m too hot to make sense. I got back into the studio and did some recording. In fact, I have put down two new tunes this week. I’m also ramping up the latest album project and trying to get all of the necessary ducks in a row for that. So things are moving even if the blog is slow.

nice and cool...

I know that I push The War of Art by Mr. Pressfield a lot. But the fact is, it really saved me last summer. (I make the situation of toughing it out in the A/C sound so dire, don’t I? Well, it feels that way.) Pressfield makes the point that if you show up, good things happen. He’s right. Every time I go into the studio I record /something/. Any time I sit down with some wood and tools I make /something/. Even if the end product of that session isn’t great, there is more produced than zero. The experience of doing the work adds to that weird 10,000 hours that it takes to achieve some level of mastery. Experience is never a waste though it might be tougher to wrap one’s head around.

What is most important to realize in the times when the work is tough to get into is that the only lost time is the time we don’t spend doing something. I love the fact that my wife and I have given up the passive life. The TV is almost never on. She works hard sewing garments (I have some fantastic shirts as proof). She is using her mind. Being creative. I work on my guitars in the same room where she sews. Our son plays in that room the whole time. He helps a lot. I’m hoping desperately that he’s being imprinted. I want him to see that making things matters. Showing up counts. Someday he will find the thing that ignites his passions and I want to have provided him with a solid example of how to live a life where the things that are important to us are front and center.

A lot rides on those nights in the studio and the hot weekend afternoons in the garage. So that’s where I am. I’m not batting 1000, but I’m swinging.

guitar 002 complete

Posted by on May 24, 2010 No comments

This weekend marked the completion of guitar 002. It got its strings Sunday afternoon and a few minutes of playing before the reality of being a parent closed in on the fantasy of being a luthier. That said, I did get a good deal of assistance from novice’s apprentice in history. Some of the results of that help are still visible on the finished product.

The picture is from my phone and thus lacks some detail, but here it is!

all done!

It’s easier for me to pick out the things that went wrong than to talk about what went right. The truth is, this is my second build and I really don’t have a good handle on what I’m doing correctly. The stuff that’s wrong is glaring (to me) but the stuff that’s right is, well, elusive for the time being.

Lessons learned:

1. Take more time when routing the channels for the binding. Make sure it fits perfectly all the way around and makes a uniform surface on both sides. It can’t be fixed later.

2. Check the thickness of the headstock veneer before getting creative instead of after.

stripey!

3. Improvise. It’s fun, makes cool effects, and generates points of interest. Besides, this isn’t life or death. It’s a guitar. Live a little!

ooooh...

4. Buy as many stupid rulers and templates as there are. It’s the difference between 30 minutes and 2 minutes for many processes. When working with an assistant who might not appreciate the nature of certain objects and must be supervised at all times (“Daddy! What this? Uh oh! I drop it!”), the time savings is crucial.

5. Take pictures of every step. Not some of them or most of them. All of them.

dramatic clamp effect!

6. Set aside 4 to 8 weeks for finishing. Suck it up. That’s the only way it’s going to look good.

7. Enjoy being an amateur. It’s wonderful to enjoy doing something well. Have fun with it and relax.

8. For every fault or failure in execution, find a point of interest or something that was done perfectly.

9. Play it!

The next instrument is already in the mold. I have some more materials to acquire and a couple of tools have gone from “nice to have” to “dammit, if I’m going to do this more than once I need that thingy!” Most importantly, the temperature outside is reliably above 90 most days. That means that the ambient temperature of my garage is probably in the upper 90s to 100. That’s not really conducive to doing much of anything with tools or nice wood. So I may piece a few things together in the coming months or just shelf it all until September. It’s unlikely that I’ll let it go that long, but I have things to record and an EP that I promised myself would find its way to the world before the end of June.

It feels good to have so much to do.

starting and finishing

Posted by on May 17, 2010 No comments

On the advice of my diminutive future Power of Attorney holder, I took a personal day on Friday to hang out with my family and work on my guitar a little more. In the process of looking for something (ebony end pins! I KNEW they were in there!) in my closet, I discovered that I have enough wood in good condition to start another instrument. I have a top and back that are joined and roughed out. I have a pair of bent sides (from my first bending attempt) that aren’t badly burned or horribly misshapen. There was even a neck that I had roughed out. That sounds distinctly like a pile of expensive kindling waiting to make music!

shiny!!!

The current project, 002, is still in the finishing stage. I made a few errors with the French Polish that some alcohol (denatured, not Bourbon) solved and I should be ready to buff the finish later this week and get to the business of mounting the bridge and neck. A little time with the belt sander will have a nut ready to go and I can string it up!

The next project, 003, got some work too. I cut out the joint for the neck and routed out the block. I’m a little short on kerfed material, so a little time with the saw will be in order before I can get the stuff glued. I have a few things to order (bindings, purflings, tuners, and bone pieces) but I think I have wood for a rosette lying around waiting for me to get with the program. Plenty to do! The build will be much slower as the temperature of my garage is inhuman most days as we head into the summer.

On top of the projects I mentioned in the last post, this is quite an addition. Exciting stuff!