Starting Again

    I went to see some old and dear friends this past weekend.  We went to see Orrin Evans with a group called Tar Baby.  It was in Durham at a small private club.  The show was excellent.  It was the kind of jazz that I'm starting to love.  I don't confess to understand it, but there is something freeing about it.  The compositions are written and structured, but the solos are open to a great deal of interpretation.  Sometimes, and always when Oliver Lake was soloing, it was free form; from the Ornet Coleman school of thinking.  Sometimes Orrin would play out, and sometimes almost old school bebop.  Shaking his head with a big smile like Ray Charles.  Eric Revis was very charismatic and did most of the speaking.  His bass playing was very sold and funky and his compositions were my favorites.  I was disappointed that Nasheet Waits wasn't there, as he was on the billing.  But the drummer that played was excellent.  I have come along way playing jazz, but I see how much more there is.  What I play seems difficult to some, but I understand it.  Those that I would like to play with on the local scene, I understand, but am a year or more behind the curve.  But this music I saw this weekend was beyond my understanding.  I would try, if I could, to sit in with them, but I don't have a reference point of where to begin. I love the mystery behind what they're doing.  Maybe to fully understand it would make it mundane.
      While I was there I went to a very upscale music store.  The kind that locks the door and you have to knock to be let in.  They had a special room of acoustic guitars.  Two walls of flat tops and one wall of archtops.  I was able to play a used $15000 Buscarino.  It was perfect!  Not a flaw.  Working with Brad Nickerson I've seen perfection first hand.  I realize I still have a long way to go.  There is no substitute for 30 plus years of experience.  But I will say that Buscarino's guitar looked better than mine and played as well, but I think my last two guitars sounded better.  Of course that's my biased opinion.  Eventually I'll begin to make them as cosmetically perfect as they should be, but then they won't be as cheap as they are now.
      Having said all that, I have a new commission.  So, tomorrow I'll start working on the next guitar.  This one looks to be a 16 inch.  The details haven't been worked out yet, but I'll post them and pictures as I find out.
      Thanks for listening and here is another Rumi poem to give you insight and hope.

There are guides
who can show you the way.
Use them.

But they will not satisfy your longing.
Keep wanting the connection with presence
with all your pulsing energy.

The throbbing vein
will take you further
than any thinking.

Muhammed said, do not theorize
about essence.  All speculations
are just more layers of covering.
Human beings love coverings.

They think the designs on the curtains
are what is being concealed.

Observe the wonders as they occur around you.
Do not claim them.  Feel the artistry
moving through, and be silent.

Taking a Break

     I'm taking a little time off before I start the next guitar.  Maybe a week or so.  I had Michael's guitar in for a set up Friday.  I adjusted the truss rod, filed a few frets, and made a knob for his volume control.  I had to cut the stem off the volume pot to make a low profile knob.  I think it turned out nicely.
      I've seen two movies worth noting in the last couple weeks.  They are both movies that speak of life as we get older.  The first is out on video.  It is Robot and Frank.  A story set in the near future that deals with what it's like to begin to lose memory.  It asks the question, "What is family and what are real friendships?"  The other movie Donna and I went to see yesterday.  We are celebrating our 30th anniversary this year, so we went to Asheville to eat and see this movie.  It is Amour.   It's a French language film that is up for best picture at the Academy Awards.  It is a devastatingly beautiful picture.  It is one of the most heart wrenching, horrible things I have ever sat through, and will go into my top ten list of best movies.  It is a very slow, quiet film.  You can hear the bombs going off in the theatre next door and the people in the rows in front and back quietly weeping.  It is a story of two retired music teachers and the gradual deterioration of one of them.  There is almost no music in it, except for the occasional, beautiful, solo piano piece, which is always cut short, almost immediately.   I don't recommend the picture for everyone, but for those of us who've been together for decades, I think you should see it.  And for those of you that wonder what love is all about, this is it.  It's as close as I've seen to being a physical demonstration of I Corinthians 13.
       The prayer for the day comes from one of my favorite books.  I read it every year at Christmas time.  Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol."

"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.  I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.  The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me.  I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.  Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on the stone!"

Test Drive

       Yesterday was a crazy, long day.  I had to work in Asheville at a jewelry store.  It is in that new little village they built off of I 26 where the new Biltmore theaters are at.  We had a very complicated, carpet installation to do and ended up working until 5:00.  I had to be at City Lights Cafe, in Sylva, ready to play by 7:00.  I made it home by 6:15 and Donna told me our son, Lukas, had totaled his car that afternoon.  That's right, I don't have a cell phone.  They cost too much.  Anyway, he was fine.  Just a little sore, thank God.  I left home and got to the gig about five minutes before we started.  Needless to say I was exhausted.  I had decided I would test out the new guitar and see if it played and sounded good.  It took me a few tunes to get my focus, and then the sound of the instrument caught my attention.  The sound is very large and rich.  It has a darkness to it like Fall.  The way you feel when the summer air first turns slightly cool and the humidity is gone and you know a change is coming.  It seems to love to sing sad songs.  Don't get me wrong, we played plenty of fast swing tunes, and it's voice was wonderful, but I can hear this guitar in a year as an instrument that has a voice to sing ballads.  What I mean by that is, it takes a year or so before the guitar opens up and becomes what it will be.  And to play a ballad properly you need an instrument that will sing; like a voice.  That's why a sax, or a piano is such a good choice for a lead instrument.  I think this instrument is just as good.
           Having said all that, there's a buzz on the G string on the fifth fret that I need to fix.  I could raise the action and be done with it, but I love the way it plays, so I'll file some frets and fix it.  Maybe tomorrow.  Chris, you better come get this instrument before I fall in love and decide to keep it.

            Here is the prayer for the day.  This is another prayer I have spent months meditating on.  If you spend time with a prayer, or poem, it becomes something else.  It becomes a part of you, or you become a part of it, or you become a part of the person who wrote it, or they become a part of you, or perhaps you catch a glimpse of what we're really all a part of.

This morning, as I kindle the fire on my hearth,
      I pray that the flame of God's love y burn in
      my heart and in the hearts of all I meet today.

I pray that no evil or malice,
      no hatred or fear, may smother the flame.

I pray that indifference and apathy, contempts and pride,
       may not pour like cold water on the fire.

Instead, may the spark of God's love
        light the love in my heart,
        that it may burn brightly through the day.

And may I warm those who are lonely,
         whose hearts are cold and lifeless,
          so that all may know the comfort of God's love.

from The Ortha Nan Gaidheal

Happy Valentines Day

     It is finished!  I spent the day Saturday sanding the guitar with 1200 grit sandpaper, which is like sanding with a rag.  It took me all day to sand and polish it.  My neighbor was putting decking boards on his new deck and finished up about the same time I did.  It is amazing how long the sanding and polishing process takes.  I bought some foam pads for my drill and used them to put on the three different polishing compounds.  I think it turned out better than what I could do by hand.
      The evenings this week were spent fitting the pickup to the finger rest and then wiring the pickup to the volume control and jack.  I always forget how to do that and it takes me longer than it should.  Yesterday I cut the hole for the jack and installed the pickup.  Today I made a volume knob and set the action.  I hope to play it tomorrow night at City Lights Cafe for their Valentines weekend dinner.  I thought that would be a good way to make sure everything is working properly and the action is set comfortably.

       Here is the prayer for the day.  Another thought by Rumi.

There is a path from me to you
that I am constantly looking for,
so I try to keep clear and still
as water does with the moon.

Finished the broken Martin

      Well I fixed the Martin and got it back to the owner today.  The pictures will show how bad it was. There were two cracks that ran from the bottom all the way to the bridge.  The top was loose from the end pin all the way to the waste on the cut away side.  One cross brace was broken in half and loose all the way past where it crosses the other brace.  I glued the top cracks in stages and pulled them tight with the mop string I use to hold the binding on the guitars when I make them.  I also had to pull the sides in to align them with the top when I re -glued it.  I had to make a clamp to hold the brace in place inside while the glue dried.  It's very tedious working on the inside of a guitar.  You can't see what you've done until you pull your hand out.  Then you have to have a good light and a mirror.  It takes a lot of patience.  When I finished all the cracks I made a bone saddle for it and strung it up.  After adjusting the saddle I got the action just right.  I plugged it in only to find that the Fishman system didn't work.  I took the strings back off and took the jack out of the bottom.  I had to re- solder the connections and that fixed it.  So, this turned out to be a nice guitar, for something that was found in the dumpster.

       The prayer for today is one that I've spent quite a bit of time with.  When I first started doing passage meditation I started with this prayer and probably spent everyday for several months on it.  It feels like a part of me now.  It's by Saint Francis of Assisi.

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.

More Prayers

   I just got back from a wonderful evening of jazz at JJ's with Tyler Kittle on sax, Joe Fowler on bass, and Michael Collings playing one of my guitars.  Check it out some time.  It is the first Friday of every month with a different jazz configuration each time.  And you can sit in with them on the second set if you like.  Tomorrow I start on a broken down Martin that I need to fix for a customer.  I'll try to post some pictures so you can see what I'm up against.  Here is the prayer for the day.  One of my favorite Bruce Cockburn tunes.  Definitely a prayer from the heart.

Heavy northern autumn sky
Mist-hung forest -- Dark spruce, bright maple --
And the great lake rolling forever to the narrow gray beach

I look west along the red road of the frail sun
Where it hovers between shelf of cloud and spiky trees, 
Receding shore;

The world is full of seasons; of anguish, of laughter
And it comes to mind to write you this:

Nothing is sure
Nothing is pure
And no matter who we think we are
Everyone gets his chance to be nothing

Love's supposed to heal, but it breaks my heart to feel
The pain in your voice --
But you know, it's all going somewhere
And I would crush my heart and throw it in the street
If I could pay for your choice

Isn't that what friends are for?
Isn't that what friends are for?

We're the insect life of paradise:
Crawl across leaf or among towering blades of grass
Glimpse only sometimes the amazing breadth of heaven

You're as loved as you were
Before the strangeness swept through
Our bodies, our houses, our streets --
When we could speak without codes
And light swirled around like
Wind-blown petals,
Our feet

I've been scraping little shavings off my ration of light
And I've formed it into a ball, and each time I pack a bit more onto it
I make a bowl of my hands and I scoop it from its secret cache
Under a loose board in the floor
And I blow across it and I send it to you
Against those moments when
The darkness blows under your door

Isn't that what friends are for?
Isn't that what friends are for?
Isn't that what friends are for? 

Prayers

       I finished the wash coats on the guitar on Monday.  Now it will hang for two weeks and I'll polish it.  It should be ready by Valentines Day.  I've been thinking a lot about prayer lately and I thought I would print some of my favorite prayers by some of my favorite saints and sinners.  I'll try to do one a day until I run out.  Some of these are from well known saints, some are from obscure singer-song writers, and others are from mystics of other cultures.  I would welcome your own favorite prayers if you would like to add them to the comment section, or send them to me in an email and I'll add them myself.   This first one is from a character, played by Jimmy Stewart, in a movie called Shenandoah.

Lord, we cleared this land.  We plowed it, sowed it, and harvested it.  We cooked the harvest.  It wouldn't be here; we wouldn't be eating it if we hadn't done it all ourselves.  We worked dog bone hard for every crumb and morsel, but we thank you just the same anyway for the food we're about to eat.  Amen.