Builder

My son’s birthday is next month. As he is rather enamored with music and sound making, we bought him a ukulele for Christmas. It seemed like a good idea to buy one that we had to put together (thus adding some love to it) rather than an already assembled, generic ukulele. When said ukulele arrived we were admittedly a bit stunned to discover the amount of work entailed, which includes staining, sanding, assembling the neck and bridge, mounting tuners, etc. With two days until Christmas, this was seemingly impossible. Of course had he been older, I would have been out in the single digit temperature garage, working into the wee hours of the night. Fortunately, we had the luxury of postponing this gift given that the entirety of Christmas is at this point little more to him than any other day when we sit around the house and play. Perhaps we can always keep it as such.

So with warmer temperatures (low 30’s) out to the garage I go to put the thing together. I figured I’d document the process as I’ve often thought about building guitars and this is, well a first step. Maybe this is unknowingly sending me down a new path. I am somewhat excited about this endeavor.

I know that all of this work will quite possibly end up a pile of smashed rubble on the floor, but that too has validity. Perhaps that is the real exercise. You should see the instructions.

No More Shuffle!

Currently reading a piece by Chris Cutler in the new Arcana Vol. IV edited by John Zorn. The piece is about how at one time not so long ago, music could only be experienced live. As soon as the technology was developed to record, our understanding of and relationship with sound was inextricably altered.

As much as I love music, and have for as long as I can remember dating back to my first fisher Price turntable during my single digit years, this troubles me. I don't feel like writing my own long treatise on the matter at the moment, (perhaps in time) but suffice it to say that the more "available" and "accessible" music becomes, ie: always present on the internet with little search needed, and so often present in our cars and our ears and.....etc., the less I find myself really listening.

I have for a long time felt quite a distaste for iTunes for many reasons, the two primary being that digital music allows us to listen less attentively and the existence of shuffle.

So for now at least, I am done with shuffle. Must our lives always be shuffling? Have we that little patience and focus left? So far these last few days, I've really been enjoying listening to entire records again. I suggest you try it.