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From: Ross
Remote Name: 67.8.51.18
Date: 15 Feb 2007
Time: 08:00:00 -0500
Luthier Blog 2/15/07 The first thing I do each day when I walk into my shop is to remove the clamps from any gluing project that I have going. It may be a simple flattop bridge reglue or glue-up of braces on a new top, but I can’t wait to get those clamps off and check out the job. It’s really one of the most fun parts of the job. I feel like I’m really accomplishing something. Like life, if you keep taking one step at a time, no matter how small, eventually the destination is reached. Some mornings, there is nothing to unclamp. I should probably make a point of having something or other clamped up each night, just to get that buzz in the morning. Like setting up the coffee maker so your first cup is ready when you stumble out of bed into the kitchen. I’ve been walking my robot luthier through the planning stages of his finger style guitar, and just scratching the surface as far as final design goes. Usually I design an instrument by imagining the thing in the context of the music I intend it to play. The hardest work I do is seated in the office chair with my feet propped up on the desk , hands clasped behind my head, unfocused stare going to the ceiling corner. There is a rapid fire try/discard/incorporate game going on at that point where the size, shape, body depth, weight, neck profile, balance, scale, top compliance and a million other variables are mentally weighed and adjusted against the imaginary feel of the paradigm sound in my head. The more painstaking the construction of the imaginary instrument, the greater the likelihood that the final instrument is a successful complete thought. After the mental construction process, I will mentally play this thing and see if there are pieces of musical vocabulary in the target idiom that the instrument, as designed, can not successfully articulate. Revisions occur. Sometimes many. I’ve built enough instruments to kind of refine this process down to the point where I can occasionally see a direct line from conception to successful conclusion. But only occasionally. Sometimes I overlook a certain sound or playability issue. “Aha” I say when the flaw manifests itself in a flawed end product. “Aha” and “damn”. It really is hard work to discipline self to not start hacking at the wood until the mental part is complete. It’s also hard, and revealing, to explain this process in writing for the first time. It appears that one does not actually know what one knows unless one is called upon to explain it, so to speak. I think. Anyway. Once the process of conjuring up the mental image of the supposed successful design is accomplished, the instrument is complete, and actually exists. Only not in the physical dimension. Construction then becomes a matter of connecting the dots. This assumes, of course, a degree of manual dexterity and familiarity with the intended construction techniques. These skills, however, are easily acquired with a little determination and a several tens of thousands of hours of practice. That, also is just connecting dots. The inspiration part, however….well, I don’t know where that comes from or how to get it. Wait and hope, probably. Work in the meantime. Maybe I can return to my robot luthier tomorrow.