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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on December 25, 2012 at 12:26am

Sin-ginger,

I can only give you my guitar story, it being Christmas and all. ;-)

I am a builder, but not much of one; I'm more a player, and a buyer, of more skilled builders' art. I have two partially completed gits on the worktable, and parts and plans for nearly a dozen more. But I have waayyy more fun composing and playing. I have been fascinated with music and performance ever since hearing and seeing Elvis and The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show back in the early '60's. I wanted to be a drummer like Ringo, and shake my hips like The King. I quickly figured out that I couldn't move my hands and feet to do independent rhythms, but could move my left and right hands independently, so John Lennon and George Harrison became my heroes. My friends' older brothers introduced me to psychedelic rock when I was around 8 or so. Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper was getting radio airplay and heavy rotation on local turntables. That same year, I begged my middle class parents living in a Houston, Texas suburb to send me to Spain to study classical guitar under Andres Segovia, after hearing George Harrison describing him as "the father of us all" guitar players. Prior to that, the only guitar I'd touched was the little cardboard, nylon string cheapo cowboy git my parents got me when I was 2 or 3. They countered my proposal with Little League baseball (accepted, thus birthing another lifelong obsession), but in a fit of inexplicable weakness, said I should ask them again when I was older (figuring I'd forget!). On my 12th birthday, I repeated my Segovia lesson request; more baseball ensued (still obsessivey accepted). About this time, we moved to Oakland, California for one summer, and I started hearing Hendrix, Santana, and the whole West Coast post-hippie vibe. When I was 16, after a year at my first real after school job, I bought a $100 Ventura acoustic and a Mel Bay chord book, and started teaching myself. I began writing my frst song lyrics about two weeks later. At Rice University in Houston at age 17 as a pre-med Biology student, I hooked up with my best male friend in the world, and we started playing duets in local bars, at parties, for our girlfriends, and for ourselves. Got lots of exposure to the old bluesmens' recordings through a classmate with a stellar record collection. Over the next 4 years, we were able to hack our way through some 450 covers and originals at the drop of a hat.

Later on in Austin while completing my Geology degree, I roomed with another singer-songwriter, and was acquaintances with numerous almost-famous musicians in a 3 block radius of our apartment. In grad school in College Station, I started playing and singing sacred music at church, and was in and out of lots of garage bands for wannabe rockers, as well as writing the occasional humorous ditty for skits and parties. Moved back to Houston to start my career as a professional geologist, and played and sang in church and more once-a-week pickup bands for the next 10 years, while also continuing my songwriting, and starting an amateur acting company at our church. I'm still playing 6-string at church, still writing songs, still acting, playing at local open mics and parties here in Saudi. I discoverd CBGs and CBN about a year and a half ago. Since then I've been composing instrumentals and songs for the album I promised myself I would release at age 25. It's due out in late January; you can hear most of the tracks on my Profile page here. I've also contributed original tunes to last year's CBN Blues compilation, this year's Christmas album, and wrangled and contributed to this year's Townes Van Zandt tribute.

To answer some of your questions:

Who plays an instrument? Anyone who really wants to! That means you, too. It doesn't have to mean you have to be good; for example, there's plenty of players here who can run rings around me with a slide. And there always will be, no matter how much better my slide playing gets. Nature of the beast. And I can probably do a few things others here can't. Doesn't matter; we all play for two audiences: ourselves, and each other. There is an amazing amount of support and mutual respect here, born out of love for music, the blues, the non-commerciality and DIY nature of this hobby, and the sheer diversity and talent present. No matter how good or bad you think you are, there is always someone here to appreciate what you do. We're all in the same boat.

Does the playing of the instrument supersede the look of the thing? Start with the look. There are butt-primitive builds here, cobbled together out of household parts, per the blues mythos. Many of them play and sound amazingly well. There are other builds here that feature exotic woods, advanced luthiering, and amazing artwork. Many of them play and sound amazingly well. Some amazing builders here admit to not being able to play in more than a rudimentary fashion. There are some amazing players here who admit to not having even basic woodworking skills, or like me, simply get more enjoyment out of playing an amazing builder's work. It goes right back to self-motivation and desire. And the look is important; cranking a CBG imparts some indefinable mojo that is different from doing the same thing with a commercial git ( and those are great fun, don't get me wrong). Part of it is wrangling awesome sounds out of these simple instruments, and watching your own face, and those of others around you, light up in disbelief, wonder, enjoyment, fascination, obsession. Look at it this way: it's kinda hard to play without an instrument.

Can a skilled builder be as important as a player? Let me ask you a related question: is a skilled draughtsman any less important than a Pollackesque paint slinger? Or the apprentice who hand ground the paint? Leonardo, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Monet, Rauschenberg - all were skilled draughtsman and apprentices first. Builders, in essence. A further question: did your first serious art class involve paint slinging, or learning to draw three dimensional detail? Which one is art? Modern art, as you well know, is as much about intent, either real or feigned, as the medium through which it is delivered. The thread that runs through all these questions, and the one your instructors are asking, has everything to do with the deep, honest expression of one's true passion and creativity, through the various media employed.

If that is how you are approaching your building, even without the world's best woodworking or luthiering skills, then you will succeed. Firstly, for yourself: you will be proud of even your first crude attempts. And bringing them here, you will find others who appreciate even your initial crudités. If your passion flames into healthy obsession, then you will find yourself getting better with time and practice, whether it is building, playing, or a mix of both. Rare are the individuals who exhibit mastery straight out of the box; most of us are journeymen, with craft learned over time. We're here to help you, laugh with you, cry with you, and walk with you on that journey.

Your tutors keep asking you, "Where is the art?" Show yourself to yourself. Show us. Show them. Do it with joy in your heart, and they will see, the same way an oversize canvas with two deep purple blocks of paint shows me the depth of heart of Mark Rothko, the art. Give them, and us, the opportunity to appreciate your creativity. Be fearless. Accept whatever comes of it. Learn from it. Use it.

Dance with it!

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Permalink Reply by RTZGUITARS on December 25, 2012 at 11:10pm

I like guitars. Ron likes to type good read.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on December 26, 2012 at 3:01am

Huntin'-an'-pickin' on a CBG is waayyy easier than huntin'-an'-peckin' on an iPad.

;-)

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Permalink Reply by DarkMark on December 26, 2012 at 1:11pm

Collect up your drink nuggets, go have some pints, grab a curry on your way home, then watch the film "It Might Get Loud". Spoiler: the film opens with Jack White, on some farm in Tennessee, building a plank guitar (whilst being observed by curious bovines).

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Permalink Reply by St Ginger on December 27, 2012 at 5:40am

to each our own, eh RTZ. some men like the fishin', some men like the fowlin'  :P

thanks for the responses. keep 'em coming!

what can i say oily, thats one heck of a tale. you certainly have an interesting musical history. thanks so much for sharing :)

its always been important to me to do something that i enjoy. but at the same time, i have always liked to succeed. I'm only just getting to a point where i feel less 'black and white' about whether what i'm doing is right. In the past, its been too scary to engage in an instrument project because i haven't felt it is 'arty' enough for the course, and i'm not good enough to succeed. but recently i have felt able to be a bit more fluid with my work and actually enjoy it for the sake of it instead of being worried about the outcome all the time.

so Yes, i am going to just go for it and fined my way in the course side of things as i go. i know from experience that inspiration emerges DURING the work, far more often than coming before. i just have to remind myself of that sometimes. i may come back with questions at a latter date :D

Dan, i might just do that. I watched it years ago, just after getting into CBGs and found it very inspiring, if a tad random in places. jack white's 'harmonica mic in the guitar' design was the thing that first introduced me to the idea of fusion instruments and combining concepts like that. i think it is high time that film gets a re-watch.

thank you guys, i really appreciate it.

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Permalink Reply by Thomas "Duck" Petry on December 27, 2012 at 9:48am

St Ginger, I can't write half as good as Oily, so I won't try, I'll just give you a small outline on how I got involved with CBGs, where I am now and how I feel about your questions.

I'm 66 years old, retired and after loving to listen to live music all my life, I decided last year that I wanted to make some of my own. The only instruments I had played up to that point were Marimba and Vibraphone. I decided that I wanted to play something more portable so looked into the idea of building my own instrument to keep cost down and my first thought was a kit for a banjo. After seeing the high prices of kits, I did a web search for home made instruments and found the Cigar Box Nation and early March of this year built my first, a Cookie Tin Guitar, (Biscuit Tin for you Brits) and got hooked on the sound, having always loved slide blues.

Since that Cookie Tin I have built four Canjos and five Cigar Box Guitars and I'm currently working on build #11, a short scale (18") CBG, with many more boxes and cans in reserve for builds in 2013. I have been slowly teaching myself to play although I will admit I have a long way to go to be even mildly competent to play before even close friends, but have been fortunate to have several of my skilled musician friends play my instruments for me and know that they can sound really great. With that incentive I'm looking forward to being able to play well enough to share my skills(?) with others in the new year and have pleasant times sitting in with friends and adding to the music.

The builder is the one who makes the box able to produce the music. The musician creates the music. The looks of the thing are purely in the eyes of the beholder. What some see as an ugly box with strings attached can be a thing of true beauty in the hands of an artist. I try and make my builds pretty, but the voice within is what really makes me smile. At the same time, a beautiful well made instrument in the hands of an unskilled hack can make the most horrible sounds imaginable.

It's not one thing or the other, but a combination of all the parts that makes it work.

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Permalink Reply by St Ginger on December 27, 2012 at 2:10pm

yeah, cookies come in paper bags here, not tins. they need to be fresh, moist, chewy and delicious. biscuits can be crunchy, so are ok in tins XD

thats a really good way of thinking about things, that its all part of the whole. its something i'm learning to remember in all my work.

what is it like to see your creations in the hands of someone else? how does the fact that they play it differently make you feel?

i love the idea of 'the voice within' the instruments. i'm going to work with that, i think :)

thanks a lot

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Permalink Reply by Thomas "Duck" Petry on December 27, 2012 at 6:25pm

Seeing as how I can't really play them much yet, it's nice to see them played by someone skilled and see their reactions to the sound they get out of them. It really makes me happy to hear what they can sound like when played well and gives me a push to get to work and learn to play.

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Permalink Reply by Order99 on December 28, 2012 at 9:52am

Well, I can't play even the simplest tunes on my instruments yet-too busy working overtime and creating my builds on the side-then too busy looking a job after the layoffs and no spare cash for lessons. Also, I have short, stubby , arthritis-ridden hands that have been likened to flippers. My lack of skill in playing hasn't stopped my from building them though-nor has my relative lack of woodworking ability, lack of finances, lack of tools more complex than pocketknives and sandpaper. None of my builds,-including the ones I thought worth the effort to borrow a camera and post here-will ever be known for thier beauty, perhaps a rough, rustic charm at best...

But when a local guitarist first lay his fingers against my first build (Cedar box,oak neck with poplar fretboard) I wept-the GDg open chords pealed forth like the voice of a choirboy, and then a glass slide made it howl, and when the player jacked it up to test the piezo it screamed out like Peter Pan on a Meth bender...how do those sounds come out of a simple square box? What did I do, how did that happen? I STILL DON'T KNOW.

And I haven't stopped building since. I have a gourd Ukulele that croons in a lovely Alto (some argue it's not really a Uke because I prefer light guage banjo strings to Nylgut, but MY build so NYAH!). The builds I create from Tennis and badminton raccquets have so much reinforcement built inthe laminated necks(I broke some BASS strings trying to stress-test one of them!) that I can use the bottom three or four Nashville resonator strings and get a vibration going through the tin resonators like you would not believe.A field test at the local coffee house resulted in requests to 'turn it down please' BEFORE IT WAS PLUGGED IN, We had to mute the strings with a dishtowel...

Selling my builds is going poorly-there are no local markets in my area, money is tight everywhere and Paypal keeps holding my money for a month after I make any Ebay sales-but it's enough to keep my hobby paying for itself and that's what matters. When I am in my little workshop with my knives and home-ground scrapers and brushes laden with Tung oil
I feel as if I am in prayer. I don't believe I have ever found something that has brought me so much joy so consistently.

Also, I can go outside with my latest walksbout travel dulcimer and practice my scales, and watch my neighbor's dozen Beagles stop chasing cars and run howling back home covering thier ears with thier forepaws. About that time of day, come to think of it. Heeeere doggie doggie.... :D

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