probably the single most important thing i have ever done creatively was giving myself permission to not be good at everything that i do. in school i was a part of the nerd brigade. advanced this, a.p. that. the expectations were high and my performance was generally pretty good. the downside of this was that i didn’t encounter a lot of failure and when i did, there was such a negative reaction that i quickly found myself in the mindset of “if i’m not good at it, i won’t do it and then i can’t fail.” this is not a very useful way to get through life.
no one person is going to be good at everything and trying to be must lead to a painfully neurotic sensibility that can’t be much fun to be around. we have to be free to try new things and make mistakes. without mistakes, there is no learning. after all, when was the last time anyone learned something from doing it perfectly?
this all leads to my instrument building. taking things down to the bottom is a lot of fun. sometimes it’s not enough to simply play the guitar, one must build it first. it all sounds silly, but it has brought unforeseen levels of satisfaction. i started with a kit a long time ago (or so it seems) and now i have a lot more than just a pile of good looking kindling.
starting from a kit has taught me a lot. i can see how everything fits together and without having to fabricate the parts i can focus on construction. there has been time to build jigs, acquire clamps, and fashion a workspace that is flexible and functional. the way i’m thinking now though, it will be guitar number four that will be the first “good” instrument. maybe.
this first guitar is from a kit and it has some issues. i made several mistakes from which i couldn’t really recover. the next guitar will be from scratch so who knows what i’ll screw up when fabricating the parts. the third guitar will likely be more shaking out of bugs in my process. but number four should be something decent. or maybe it won’t. it doesn’t really matter because i’m just excited to be doing it. and that’s the way things should be.
here are some pictures of my current progress:
braced top
clamped top
side braces
clamped back
music is coming up this thursday. i have a sketch that feels pretty good and i’m expecting it to come together nicely by then.
0 Comments.