Fairy Dust Luthiery
I think it was Einstein – or maybe some other Bright Guy – who famously said Insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. What others might call Magical Thinking. What a quantum physicist would explain as the observer influencing the results of the experiment simply by observing.
When it comes to the definition of insanity, I guess I’m no stranger. So when I tell you I’m embarked on building one more acoustic guitar, you can certainly invoke Einstein and I’d probably concur. But … I have a small sliver of superstition in me, a sprinkle of magical thinking, that makes me believe, maybe, just maybe, this next quixotic luthier attempt will succeed where the others fell short. I admit, I lack the skills, I lack the tools, I lack the patience … but if at first I didn’t succeed, why not flail again?
For you folks who ask not what goes into creating a wooden box capable of making noise, count yourselves the fortunate many. A guitar for you exists merely to make music in the same way a sailboat catches wind to move through the water. You don’t need to build one, you need only set the sails. People like myself hear the siren call to build one, lashing ourselves to the mast.
This is my fourth guitar. When friends ask how many I have already, the unspoken question is Why? I don’t know why is the unspoken answer. But here I am, knee deep in shavings, glues, clamps, designs, various woods, lost in a quest for a sound I think I’ll know when I find it. And probably will never find it.
My maple guitar plays rockabilly, bright, hard, no nonsense, not very sweet. The walnut one is sweet, but the trebles not so much. The last one, the bubinga, is loud, balanced, a little hard to play but close to that sound I’m after. But only close.
This one now is African-American. Black limba body. Jobota and padauk neck. All African hardwoods with an old growth redwood top and a birdsye maple fretboard. The design is different too, retro-deco, two soundholes to match. Which means the bracings beneath the soundboard are a guess. And they make a world of difference in shaping the sound that the instrument projects.
If I were 20 – which I’m not – I might imagine 200 guitars, each a lesson in tonewood and design, each a learning curve, each a step toward another sound. A person could dedicate a life to that pursuit only to discover the ‘sound’ was as elusive as ‘truth’ is. Maybe that’s the definition of insanity. Or maybe just magical thinking.
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Tags: Guitar Building for the Insane, Luthiery Lunacy