Sound of greasy wood
Yesterday I took my shot at installing the neck gifted by Stefan onto the blank from China. Using charcoal from a life-drawing class to mark the existing boltholes on the neck to the heel, then drilled narrow holes through a neck plate.
It might be sycamore, the body is light but I've enjoyed wiping layers of oils onto the wood grain and seeing it gain a sheen. The bolts secured the neck, which has an eco rosewood fretboard that grates a little like a blackboard under bending strings.
The pickups are yet to be wired, so I've only heard the intonation by strumming and the action is still high. However, the sound beams in a way that's like an acoustic guitar. When I lift another electric guitar the body sounds muted in comparison to this greasy blank that I only just screwed a bridge onto.
While I trying to think how to describe it, I remembered an interview with T Bone Burnett:
It might be sycamore, the body is light but I've enjoyed wiping layers of oils onto the wood grain and seeing it gain a sheen. The bolts secured the neck, which has an eco rosewood fretboard that grates a little like a blackboard under bending strings.
The pickups are yet to be wired, so I've only heard the intonation by strumming and the action is still high. However, the sound beams in a way that's like an acoustic guitar. When I lift another electric guitar the body sounds muted in comparison to this greasy blank that I only just screwed a bridge onto.
While I trying to think how to describe it, I remembered an interview with T Bone Burnett:
"I don't allow any synthetic surfaces anywhere around (in the studio). I don't like modern guitars because they're laminated. If you get an old-time guitar from the '20s, '30s, '40s, '50s or even '60s – you can scrape the lacquer off.
"The new guitars are laminated, so you're already in a plastic age. You're already in an age of controlled sound, rather than an age of raw, free sound. And that's everything."
This guitar resonates in the planks that make the telecaster-shaped blank in a way that's distinct. I look forward to hearing how it sounds in front of an amp.
Naviarhaiku635 – can you hear the stars?
Originally my piece had vocals, but I thought it suited Naviar's sound to go for a more minimal instrumental.
Disquiet Junto 0740 Polychord Amorous
The assignment is to write a piece of music based on a chord progression of polychords.
Polychords were a new term and I explored combinations of three-note chords on the guitar before arriving at two progressions.
The first is a kind of A over E, I guess, which is followed by a C7 and something.
I recorded two accompaniments on guitar as I ran through lyrics, which riff on pairing chords.
One of the influences on my playing this week is Nile Rodgers, particularly the way he'll split a big chord.
Going deep
I've been recording responses to the Disquiet Junto for over a decade
Most weeks there are dozens of recordings and I've learned as much from how the members respond, as I have from undertaking the tasks.
These activities are often musical, sometimes other audio formats, and interpretation is a lot more flexible than one might initially expect.
Some weeks it turns out worse than one hopes, but some weeks the results are surprisingly sublime.
There's a lot one learns along the way, but one of the highlights is when one sees something unexpected.
Just as we have many roles in our lives, there can be many versions in our audio productions and I feel I've explored other lives.
And some weeks, I see the prompt and can't help but watch my mind race ahead with possibilities.
Like this week I saw the title and got a way toward having a track finished before the prompt was published.
However, then the assignment arrived saying "Make music focused on sympathetic strings, or something akin to them."
And I realised that I'd misread the title as "Deepest Symphonies"!
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