too short days

"i still find each day

too short for all the

thoughts i want to think, 

all the walks i want to take, 

all the books i want to read, 

and all the friends i want to see."

-john burroughs

spending some time this past week going through my blog and leafing through my non-cyber journals, i realized that i have allowed my life to encroach upon me. i've allowed work to impose and gobble up my time. more recently, i've allowed loneliness and lethargy to rob me of moments that once were spent creating...cloth....dolls....music....instruments...whatever!

in an effort to turn this decidedly unhealthy tide, i spent some time in my workshop this last weekend working on a new cigar box guitar.  you may remember this one here, where i acquired this unusual (and quite rare, it would seem) skull and cross bones cigar box.  i've had a lot of fun playing that four-stringer over the past year! while i know that i have other cbg's (cigar box guitars), some with four strings, some with three strings, and even that lovely one from my friend in england that is convertible between three and four strings, i came across this companion to that skull and cross bones cigar box with black printing instead of red and fully two inches smaller and decided i needed (yes, "needed"....one can never have too many music makers) a three string cbg brother to keep the older one company.  some sawing and sanding and shaving and cutting and wiring and happily spent hours later, i had this beauty above! like it's predecessor, it is an acoustic/electric so can be played either way. it has wonderfully low, easy action so will be fun to work out swift blues rifts on!  unlike its brother, this one even has black skull shaped tuners and a volume knob with a tiny skull in it (which you can see if you click on the pic and zoom in).

i think i have a couple old wood wine boxes that just might be large enough if i put them together to create a nice hard cbg case that will hold both of them!  time to go rummaging around in the workshop again and see if this is so...

namaste'

cigar box guitar heaven

since i can't share with you the quilt i've been working on (it's a holiday present and i don't wanna spoil the surprise), i thought i'd share my latest musical acquisition instead. earlier this year i commissioned an extremely talented english luthier to build a very special cigar box guitar for me.

i asked him to use a vintage cigar box with an interesting design, electrify it, make it convertible from 3 to 4 strings (hence the two little brass screws above the base string and extra notches in the bridge and nut....very clever solution on his part!)...(also note back in the first pic the fret markers....those are made from salvaged vintage bone piano keys and a great amount of the wood is salvaged from old furniture)...

i asked him to carve a blossom and a skull on the custom bridge...

i sent him sketches and photos of my tibetan monk's skull tattoo and asked him to stylize it for the hand carved heel...

and to include some tibetan clouds and more blossoms...

then i asked him to carve some stylized tibetan clouds on the headstock...

he did some very creative layering of woods to give the instrument fine detailing.

now, we decided to not actually ship this beauty across the pond until after the holiday madness subsides (for safety's sake), but flatfoot johnny made this wonderfully teasing video to stoke the flames of my desire and longing... in it he describes the many features, gives a lot of close up views and plays it both accoustically and amplified!



ooooh.....i can hardly wait to coax my own music!!

namaste'

you can't pick up raindrops

"i always like

walking in the rain,

so no one can

see me crying."

-charlie chaplin

the weather here has been as changeable as my mood. perhaps one is responsible for the other? though i'm not certain at times which is which... each day this week has held beautiful sunshine, turned to looming, expressive storm clouds, turned to downpouring rains.

sometimes, looking up, i feel very small and just want to run and hide somewhere warm and dry!

but then the rain begins to fall, washing away the dust from the neighboring fields and taking the fears along with it.

the first carrots were offered up by the soil this morning, between the raindrops. these i can pick up. and eat.

i've been looking back through my many cloths and have decided to pick up mind flowers once again. it feels good to get in some thread chanting while the rains crash about outside and the fire crackles in the fireplace.

the latest cigar box guitar creation is complete! re-purposed from a vintage kildow's old stock cigar box, butternut neck with 100+ year old barnwood fret board, and three vintage flatware stems re-imagined into string holders strung up with the three lower strings from an old guitar set, this wondrous little gem has a great, booming sound that is perfect for throaty delta rhythms! the perfect counterpoint to the rolling thunder outside these walls...

time for some snuggling with the saint...she's looking somewhat lonely over on the davenport.

namaste'

don't leave home without one

anymore it seems i never leave home without something with which to make music! this little catfish rambler by shane speal has been one of my new favorites to toss up into the gun rack whenever i go for a ride. it's smaller than the others, and a lot more "rough and ready", has a great low growl to its voice that's tons of fun since its strung up with the lower 3 strings from a normal guitar set. almost reminds me of the saint's cat purring contentedly in her paws as they nap on the davenport. between strings and threads, there's always something creative to contemplate...

now it's time to go do some more idea mongering and see what rises out of the chaos in this mind!

namaste'

nightshift blues

one of the advantages of working nightshift is that everyone else is asleep and you have more free time to mess around with stuff. or to wander the world wide web and become entranced by things you may never have been exposed to before. i've seen cigar box guitars around before and always dismissed them as a poor imitation of a mountain dulcimer (an instrument i've loved and played for years). i now realize that i was sadly mistaken!

this little baby went together much faster than i expected and i still have a few modifications that i want to make, like finding a nice vintage bakelite knob for the volume, some abalone fret marker dots to inlay on the ebony fingerboard (instead of the little red stickers), and i have a set of skull-shaped tuners on order that will replace those garden variety ones in it right now. i even found a cool metal plate for the hookup jack that i am thinking of installing. but for now, he's got a sweet acoustic sound and a killer electric beef that i get to play with until those other parts arrive!

i've never played a four string guitar before, so i'm still learning the fretboard layout and discovering the chords (which are surprisingly different than on a regular six string guitar). at the moment, i'm just using a basic glass slide by fender for the slide work, but i have found instructions for making a genuine (that's pronounced, "jen-you-WINE") bottle slide from an old wine bottle that i plan on giving a try. i recorded this little noodle session through a line 6 pocket pod which is an ingenious little speakerless amp with hundreds of tube and filter combos built right in which gives me a direct line to record from on my laptop, could be plugged into a headset for practice, or be plugged into an amp and used effectively as a pre-amp. hope you enjoy hearing a little something on my latest obsession!

meanwhile, back to some needle chanting on community at large in between noodling around on my new geeTAR!

namaste'

music boro?

they said, "you have a blue guitar,

you do not play things as they are."

the man replied, "things as they are

are changed upon a blue guitar."

-wallace stevens

i have been aware of the existence of cigar box guitars for some years now. how could i not? i mean, i play the mountain dulcimer, a not so distant cousin of the cigar box guitar (one might even say, kissin' cuzzin's). i've been to folk music festivals here and there (and even a few way over there and elsewhere). but i never really heard one played properly until most recently. by properly i mean, in the depression era blues style it was meant to used to create...

the other day i ran into a man downtown sitting on a transit bench. though he was definitely not waiting for an errant bus. he was instead taking advantage of the shade and the not-so-comfortable place to sit and make music on the most ingenious instrument.  a cigar box guitar. i was hooked! totally and utterly mesmerized!

i began chatting with him...and then with anyone on the world wide web who would respond...about these ingenious instruments and found out how amazingly simple they can be to create (granted, i found many marvelous and head-spinning examples of creativity and skill as well) so i set out to find the perfect cigar box with which to make my first guitar. i saw this skull and bones box at a local smoke shop and new i had found the one (remembering that i have a penchant for bones and the personal symbolism of skulls to remind us that time is fleeting and we must make use of every moment while we are still here).

i had hoped to talk them into selling me the smaller box as well, with a mind to turning it into a coordinating cigar box amp, but it was still half full of cigars and the shopkeep declined. sigh. i hope to find one (or this one, when it is empty) some day as i love the idea of the coordinated amp!

piper is busy licking his chops in anticipation of finding me at home for a while any chance i get so that i can work on my new cigar box guitar (of course, he could care less about the guitar. he's more interested in the fact that he will have a nice warm lap to sleep on while i sit at my workbench).  i pick up the electronics, hardware and strings for this project tomorrow. this bit of music boro. cobbling together bits of this and that to breathe new life and dimension into sound.

i'm so excited, i don't know how i am going to sleep when i get off work in the morning...

namaste'