So may good buddy Astra and I are at it again. Here’s a tune that we whipped up a week or so ago. I really love the way her voice telegraphs the unbalanced nature of the narrator. Just love this tune. Enjoy!
He’s Gone by J.C. Wilson and Astra Hemming is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at othertime.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://othertime.com.
One of my favorite things about collaborating with cool cats like Jason and Astra is that sometimes we start something, life gets busy, we forget, and then some magical piece of music shows up in the old Inbox. That happened this weekend!
A long time ago, Astra came to Houston to hang out and we played some tunes. One of them was Johnny Cash’s I Guess Things Just Happen That Way. Out takes were, um, rough. After the original meeting, I put down some guitars and sent it out into the ether. Apparently, Astra got some time and threw down some vocals. I love it.
Check it out: Guess Things Just Happen That Way
The odds are very, very good that I will never be a master luthier. If I ever build a truly magnificent instrument, it will likely be a function of luck and repetition. But that has nothing to do with my quest.
I don’t want to buy the perfect guitar. I do want to have it. I want to play it. I want to know that it’s mine for a while. But buying it seems like a cop out. Building and playing shouldn’t be related in any way, because they aren’t, but that’s the quest. I believe that we create our own challenges – if we didn’t, what else would we do?
I look at my workbench every day when I pass through the garage and I think about the things that I could do on it. I think about the half finished guitar in my studio closet. I run my fingers over the plane on the bench and consider spending an hour or two on finishing up that OM. Then the sweat begins to collect on my spine and I remember that it is 100F outside and probably warmer in the garage. I abandon the thought, or try to, and go inside.
Recently, a chunk of my time was spent looking at guitars. Flipping through the portfolios of great builders and digging through the catalogs of different companies. The price points are painful. All of the instruments that I identified as being in my range were serious compromises. For example, I don’t want any plastic on my guitar. That’s a tough one. A lot of bindings on instruments under $2000 are plastic. And no composite necks. One piece of wood, not fragments, please. For a quarter of the price of an instrument that barely meets my specs I can have the makings of one that has no compromises in material – but I have to build it myself. That is to say, I get the enjoyment of building it. That’s still only half of the quest.
I can picture very clearly tuning up the guitar that I’ve built myself. I can feel the strings. I imagine the action of the instrument. The way the neck feels as my thumb slides over its length. It is perfect for me in every way. The most important detail is the flare on the headstock. The indicator that it is my instrument. Made with and played by my own hands. That’s the quest. It’s important.
Why is it important? Because it’s the sum of all the traits and desires that make me who I am. There are thousands of reasons not to do it, but ignoring the urge won’t make it go away. I like to think that everyone has that itch somewhere and that we all take a swipe at scratching it. I shouldn’t be so optimistic, maybe, but as long as we’re alive there’s a chance.
So I have a quest. It’s now a plan. I’ll start my next instrument in September. By then I will have all of the bits and pieces necessary for the project. The important thing is to remember that this is The Plan. No more catalogs or reviews. No more day dreaming about a custom Collings guitar. There’s only me, some wood, the tools, and the time. That’s The Plan.
Thinking about the state of the world as it relates to the important things in your life is an exercise worthy of consideration. How do the things that you love impact the world around you and how does that impact agree or disagree with your values? I ask this of myself whenever I start in on a new instrument building project. The thing is, a lot of the wood that is used in building a guitar isn’t managed the way it should be for maximum sustainability. I derive a great deal of pleasure from building an instrument, not just from playing the final product and I’d like for others long after me to have that experience. So I check myself.
There’s a documentary being filmed right now called [LINK] that talks about the wood that goes into the instruments that I love so dearly. They are digging into the supply chain starting in the forest. I can’t wait to see it and to hear the analysis of the filmmakers. I’m sure that this is just one of a million problems that fly under the radar when we talk about conservation, but since it’s important to me and my values, I really want to get down in the mud and think about it. After all, it’s my responsibility to think critically about the things that I do. I have an example to set.
This of course comes back to acquiring a new instrument. My dream is to someday build the perfect (for me) guitar. Right now, I have a couple of instruments that are clearly early first drafts. Not too shabby for a guy who learned from a pile of books, but a far cry from a wonderful instrument. As a result, I’m looking.
I’m looking for an instrument that inspires me. I’m sure that I could order one and drop a few grand on it. That would be fine (assuming I had a few grand to drop), but I’m more interested in finding the right instrument. A workhorse that begs to be played. I would prefer a used guitar to a new one if only for the history and to have a more settled instrument. If I do buy new, I have to consider what I said above. Luckily, there are a few makers that are building with sustainably harvested materials. I need to do more research on that, but if I go with a new instrument I pretty much have to do it that way.
There is a lot to think about and having a price constraint makes the game more interesting. It adds a bit of chance. Walking around with a bit of cash makes every trip into a music shop dangerous. Who knows what I will see and where that might lead? There’s always something to buy. But this is more of an artistic quest. When and where will I find the right instrument? What will it look like and will I know it when I see it?
Sounds like it’s time for some deep research.
I remember being in college and hearing a quote from Elvis Costello or someone that referred to just “doing The Work.†At the time it sounded like the most pretentious thing in the world. It still does. But the more thought I put into what I do and the more I value my creative work and time, the more I begin to see that it’s more than a hobby or something I do for fun. Making music is a calling. It’s my calling. I need to take ownership of that and respect it. And that brings me to The Work.
I’ve taken to writing essays that no one will ever see. In fact, I have an entire manifesto in the works that might be read by a dozen people when it’s all said and done. In it, I rail against the common misconceptions around creating art and what an artist needs. The thesis comes from a stream of invective that goes back nearly two decades and still rings so true. As a result, I’m skeptical. Anything that I thought at 18 is suspect at best. But the more I roll it around, the more truth there is. Hey, blind squirrel, nut, and all that.
The more respect I have for what I do, the more respect I have for myself, time, and priorities. So it’s not ironically that I have started to referring to my creative output and process as The Work. Yeah, complete with caps. At first it felt corny and overwrought, but after some time it seems right. There’s a lot that goes into every piece that I create and acknowledging that fact contributes to my momentum. I wish more people could find that respect for the things that they do. We’d get a lot more cool stuff.