Sharing with other jazz musicians

Recently, after two years of music lessons with a private instructor, two years learning on my own, then two years with a different instructor, I found myself in a practice rut. Although my passion for making and listening to music felt no weaker, I was lacking motivation and drive. I stopped my lessons again and started looking for something to get me back on track. As my readers know, I delved into Practice-opedia, and that was very helpful in giving me new ideas and “tricks” to get back at the piano, but it didn’t actually help me to make any music. It was about then that Jim Robitaille, the author of a book called Sound Origins contacted me to offered to give me a copy of his book. He asked me to review it on Amazon, too, but there were no strings attached. I'm always happy when a fellow musician wants to share music or musings with me, and the timing couldn’t have been better, so of course, I agreed to read his book.

 

It's not a philosophy book, but it will make you think

Jim Robitaille is a noted musical scholar and accomplished musician. In addition to performing with a plethora of jazz musicians, he’s also a teacher and composer. In this book, however, he does not make any attempt to improve your chops or give you a pep talk. Instead, he covers, in a very personal way, what it means to make music. By that I do not mean he defends its value or tries to convince readers of the worth of the endeavor of making music. Sound Origins is more about thinking of music on a different level and incorporating that into one’s own musicianship. I think the best way of thinking about it is, it’s harnessing the forces and energy in the universe that make music, rather than beating a song out of a Steinway or Les Paul.

Indeed, a good example of this is Mr. Robitaille’s take the cross pollination of art forms. He discusses at some length, and again with many personal examples, how poetry, painting, conversation, even science fiction and random noise, can become driving influences in the creation and composition of music. There are lots of meaty explorations like that in this short book. If anything, I would say one of the weaknesses is that the author makes a brief suggestion and then leaves it at that, without delving much into what the expectations for a given thought activity (or whatever) might be and where it might lead. Part of this may be simply wanting to leave it to the reader’s imagination and motivation, part of it may be not wanting to limit the reader, but I think the author probably had more thoughts to share, and I think those would have made the book more interesting.

The electronic version of the book that I received had several examples of songs with the sheet music in the book. This did a lot to emphasize and illustrate some of the points the author made. This is an easy read, and although it is a short book, I believe any serious musician will take away something of value from this book. Especially if you find yourself where I did, wanting to make music but having “forgotten” how to even be musical, Sound Origins is a great place to start over from. 

I truly commend Mr. Robitaille on his insight and effort to put such difficult subject matter into words. And, I thank him for sharing his book with me and the readers of Late To Jazz.

Always something

Ignoring my piano and any attempt at practicing or improving my playing, I succeeded (if that is the correct word) at finishing the refurbishing of my 1970’s Silvertone guitar into the one and only “Chitlins Con Carne” guitar.

Chinese pre-everything fret wires, top, with the old fret wires, bottom, and the new strings, right.

I did decide to coat the guitar with polyacrylic. Even at that, the music notes still pulled away from the edges in a couple of places. I just cut away the offending portions. In the 90-degree heat, 90-percent humidity, this was also no small task, but I turned on my powerful fan and just kept the airflow going. In a short time, we were ready to install fret wire.

Fret wires installed without breaking my neck...or the guitar's.

Here, I have to applaud Chinese industry and my savvy Amazon shopping ability. To get pre-radiused, pre-cut fitted fret wire individually packed by size in a handy plastic envelope, was nothing short of genius on both sides of the Pacific. I thought they would install very easily, but even the thin coating of polyacrylic prevented the fret wire insertion. I scraped them out again and manage to bang in the fret wires without breaking the neck, even though it was already loose.

The Chitlins Con Carne guitar, complete!

And so, I started stringing the guitar. The very first string I put on, which was the thick one, buzzed against the fret wires. I dealt with the problem by shimming the string holder. Still, when I tuned up the strings, it pulled the string holder over the shim and off the surface of the guitar. I have no good way to solve the problem.

Goddammit! Now what?

I showed my handiwork to Mrs. S and I showed her the problem. She just said. “It looks great and you’re not going to play it. Just leave it.” I intend to do what she suggests. Therefore, the guitar is finished.

Pretty fancy for a Silvertone

Once I got the “Chitlins Con Carne” music applied, the only thing between me and a finished decorative guitar was time. I already had purchased strings and polished most of the parts that I took off the guitar. I bought a complete set of pre-radiused fret wires. I had rounded a couple of mother-of-pearl dots by hand. I even had my stain for the neck picked out. So, remembering the rule of “Google it first, then give it a try”, I was ready to install the mother-of pearl on the fret board. 

Or so I thought.

When I googled the installation of the mother-of-pearl, the video I watched showed a clever way to find the center line of each fret. Although it is quite obvious if you stop and think about it, not only does the width of each fret shrink as they march down the fret board, the neck itself tapers from wide to narrow from the body up. This means you can’t quite find the exact center just using an eyeball measurement and measuring across the neck. Fortunately the video showed a clever way to use a straightedge to apply lines to narrow down the degree of difficulty in finding the center of the target frets, and I soon had these all very neatly marked out on my guitar’s neck.

THAT is a straight line!

Next came opening the holes. I had some idea of using a punch and just pounding the holes open then chiseling them out with my Dremel tool, but I was a little confounded about how I’d smack a punch into the guitar neck without snapping it. I thought about foam pads and dumb luck, until the video came to the rescue again. The answer was: a Forstner drill bit. Unfortunately, not only was I fresh out of Forstner bits, I didn’t even know what one was. A little research, and I had my answer. Home Depot five miles from home had a set (even though I only needed one) for $20. Mrs. S needed some stuff for the yard, so the next day we made a hardware run and I picked up my bits and Mrs. S picked up her pieces.

Pretty straightforward (get it?).

With my centers clearly marked, opening the holes was a breeze, especially since I still had all my painter’s tape applied from when I painted the guitar. I had to work on the dots to get them closer to the right size, but once I got them close, they were easily installed. I stained the guitar neck before applying the dots.

Stain is on.

I didn’t have a big issue getting the dots in, but because they are hand-rounded and the holes were uneven depths, once I had the dots glued in place, they required some sanding down. Of course, I re-taped around the dots while sanding, but I still managed to scratch the neck in a few places. I decided to use some stain touch up for hardwood floor repairs, but this turned out to be a lot darker than my first stain. No problem. I rubbed down the whole neck with the touch up, and ended up with a nicer, warmer finish that accents the guitar without taking away from the motif. Sometimes things just work out. The dots and neck look absolutely great. (To be honest, the dots are not completely flat with the fret board, but this isn’t going to get much playing and given how good they look, Mrs. S encouraged me not to mess with them anymore, and so, I won’t.)

Compared to the whitewash sprayed dots, the mother-of-pearl truly adds some class.

This weekend I will be experimenting with acrylic and polyurethane coatings, fret installation, hardware installation, and stringing. I believe I can finish this weekend, even though everything I have ever believed about refurbishing this guitar, just like my square grand piano, has generally not come true. We shall see.

A plan comes together

The working title of this entry was: Hard things made easy

Original plan given to Mrs. S to do a mock up illustration. She said, "I'm not sure what you mean." 

The guitar project has been languishing of late, due to not being able to determine how I could apply a musical note motif to the front without spending inordinate amounts of time, money, energy, or a combination thereof.  Mrs. S finally steered me to a sign company that does appliques and stickers and such, and I negotiated with them about what I wanted done. After several times back and forth with email, the owner of the shop informed me that I would have to do a clear vinyl sticker, because she just didn’t think it was possible to do all those fine musical note cutouts in the vinyl. I agreed and told them to go ahead and prep the sticker. A day later, they told me to bring in my “axe” for the installation. (I told them it is hardly an “axe”; more of a “bauble”.

The sketch I made for Mrs. S to show her what I meant. She said, "Why don't you just work from that?"

Of course, when I get to the print shop, neither of the people I’d been dealing with was there. This turned out to be a good thing, because the guy who was there looked at the guitar then asked what I was trying to accomplish. As we were talking about the project, he goes, “Why don’t you do a cut vinyl instead of a sticker.” I said, because your boss doesn’t think it’s possible. He says, sure it is. I say, if you can do it, then let’s do it. So he went back into the corner and printed out my two bars of “Chitlins Con Carne” in black cut vinyl. He let me play with it, and I got it to where I figured I wanted it, and he proceeded to apply it.

Music application completed. Ready for more stuff.

About then the owner comes in, and of course, she knows who I am and what we are doing. She’s watching the guy applying the cut vinyl and goes, “Yeah, it’s good you’re doing a sticker. That’d be impossible with cut vinyl.” I say, it is cut vinyl. She says, no it’s not. I say, sure it is, and the guy says, yep. He pulled off the backing paper and voila! Music in the first degree. The owner goes, Wow, I would never have been able to do that. I say, I lucked out then. The guy did a little Exacto knife cutting around the edges, and we were finished. I’m going to do my damnedest to finish the thing this weekend. A little more paint, install the mother of pearl and frets, string it up, then up on the wall. I think I can do it in two days, if things go smoothly

Wrong way, right way, two days

To be honest, deciding to buy a guitar was not a good idea. Deciding to buy a guitar to become an art project was a horrible idea. Deciding that the art project would be okay if I just used a little spray paint was downright stupid.

Ready to paint. Note the piece of tape at the top of the neck covering the Silvertone logo.

Yet here I am.

My vision for the guitar from the very start was more or less clear. And already, even though it isn’t finished, I’m quite proud of the way the paint job turned out. As a matter of fact, my very first attempt at my image came out damn near perfect.

Almost.

Getting ready for that sunburst effect to turn blue. Note the tape covering the model number at the top center.

The problem was paint drips. Laying the guitar on the floor and painting over it worked, it just wasn’t clean. I decided it had to be redone, which meant I had to sand it down again and, I had to figure out a way to keep from having drips on it. In my sleep, I came up with the idea of hanging the guitar up to limit the paint drips. It would also allow me to paint both sides of the guitar, and the edges, and the neck all at once. That was the ticket. In this humidity (it’s rained every day for a week here in north Alabama), I don’t know how long the guitar will continue to be sticky, but it’s painted, hanging in the garage and looking good.

Second time around. The burst is bursting and, no drips.

Next thing is to add the music to the front. Then I have to stain the neck and decide if I’m going to insert mother of pearl or not. Then, I’ll probably have to coat it with something so you can actually handle it. Then I have to remount the hardware. Then restring it.

First time around. Nailed it. 

Jeez. I wish I’d never seen the thing. I sure hope I can love my attention sucking child when it is all over.

Bill Frisell Review

Last Friday Mrs. S and I drove down to Birmingham to hear Bill Frisell and his “Beautiful Dreamers” trio. With Frisell, one never really knows what to expect. Some of his work is way out there, and some isn’t. And while I consider myself a fan, I’m not what one would call a “big fan”, more of a casual fan. But I have to say, the Beautiful Dreamers music and trio (guitar, drums and viola) is very approachable. The songs are recognizable, the execution is original and exhilarating, and the musicianship on display is unsurpassed. Tea for Two was a knockout and for my money, Goin’ Out of My Head was just stunning. There were a couple of songs where Bill put a music box thingy against the strings of his guitar, getting some confusing but stimulating feedback and interference loop noise going, which they then proceeded to work into the foundation of whatever song they were playing next. In addition to working extensively with feedback and reverb from the guitar, viola and their various pedals and amplifiers, Bill also did a good job of playing bass and rhythm parts when support was needed for the viola. Another trademark of Frisell’s group was their use of repeated patterns – patterns that once they are set up, can be returned to or not, varied or not, transposed or not, soloed over or not, and then, you can go right back to it and it all sounds fine. I was actually more intrigued by that than anything else. (Let’s face it: holding a music box on the strings of a guitar just isn’t all that exciting for someone who’s only recently seen Pat Metheny’s Orchestrion concert.)

As far as I can tell, they played all or almost all of the songs off the Beautiful Dreamers CD, which kept the session short and sweet and got us home at a reasonable hour thanks to the 7:30 start time. There were big chunks of seats in the middle of the theater that were unused, so we got to move over and have a little better view too. (It was an intimate setting to begin with – just 300 seats – and very comfortable.)
Tonight is going to be a bit more dynamic and a lot later night, with Poncho Sanchez and his Latin Orchestra playing in the big hall and starting a half hour later than Frisell’s trio did. But I plan to absorb all the energy I can. You might not recognize me come Saturday.

Pat Metheny Concert: A Review

Last Friday, Mrs. S. and I traveled to Birmingham AL to sit in the front row of the Alys Stephens Center and see Pat Metheny live. Careful readers of this blog will know that I’m not a big fan of jazz guitar and I’ve never been a big fan of Pat Metheny, as I just never found his music that interesting or stimulating to me. So why would I go to see him live? Well, because he is probably the single-most famous living jazz guitarist, he has won 17 Grammies, and because you never know: the live experience might just turn it around for you. Metheny was to perform alone with his “Orchestrion”:

The original orchestrions were player pianos that manufacturer’s starting adding instruments to in order to try and stop radio from eroding their market share. They added violins, guitars, anything they could get to work with a piano roll and the piano roll motor. 

Metheny’s Orchestrion is a stage covering monstrosity. It includes two full-size Yamaha grand piano disclaviers, an accordion, a bass guitar, a rhythm guitar, a marimba, a xylophone, a vibraphone, two set of glass jugs, castanets, a full drum set, congas, sleigh bells, and more. All of these devices were rigged with solenoids of one type or another, and all were controlled from a specially built guitar hooked to bank of switches and foot pedals. With the guitar and pedals, he could tell each instrument or group of instruments what rhythm to play, what tones to play, and in what sequence to play them in. 

But before he got to that…

He started off with a solo number on a regular guitar. Then he did another solo number on a different guitar. During the second song, I had something happen to me that never happened before: I was listening so intently to the music and so engrossed in the moment, I completely forgot where I was. Essentially, I lost consciousness. When I came out of it, I felt dizzy and couldn’t remember where I was. I felt as though I needed to wake up from a dream. I’ve never had a piece of music move me like that, ever. It was downright scary. Then he brought out his 42 string pikasso guitar. 

That should’ve been the song I got lost in, but I was too enthralled in just watching him play that instrument. After that, he got to work with the orchestrion.

He played for almost two and a half hours. And although I can’t say I feel any differently about Metheny’s music in specific or jazz guitar in general, I have to say, I certainly respect Mr. Metheny as a musician and musical innovator and I’ll damn sure go and see him in concert anytime he gets within 150 miles of me. It was simply an amazing concert.

Day 30 – Saturday, July 10 – Two steps forward, two steps back, one more forward:

Goals: Finish painting the harp. Start work on the veneer patch on the back.

Music: Gary Burton and Keith Jarrett and Throb: Gary Burton; Bona Fide’s “Royal Function”; Serge Chaloff’s “Boston Blow-Up!”

First step forward was taking a wire brush fitting and my drill to the harp and getting off all the dust, rust, crap, and most of the paint. My original intention was to get all the way down to the metal, but I quickly realized that the bottom layers of paint and corrosion were not going to come off without some serious work and/or stripping chemicals. Since I got everything actually looking pretty decent, I figured painting over it was the way to go, so once I reached a certain level of cleanliness, I was ready to paint. (This was all done about two weeks ago.)

Second step forward was painting the harp. I did the underside in black and since nobody is going to see it, possibly ever again, I got it pretty clean, wiped it down and spray painted it black. It looked good. The top side I had to mask the pins and agraffes, and I spray painted it a caramel bronze. It looked really good, but too dark. I made up my mind to spray paint a second coat of bronze gold.

What I thought was the third step forward, and this was the first work actually done on day 30, was spray paint the harp gold. It seemed to be coating nicely, sitting pretty on top of the caramel bronze, getting shiny and bright. I was just about finished spraying the whole thing when I noticed a small patch of paint, maybe one inch wide and three inches long, just bubbling up. Huh, that’s weird, I thought. I watched it and waited to see if it would go down, but it didn’t. First step backward.

I grabbed a rag and wiped at it. Big mistake. It completely tore up and left an uneven patch. Crap, now what am I going to do, I asked myself. I started to think of ways I could cut my losses and make the paint look acceptable, when I noticed another small patch bubbling up, maybe one inch around. I didn’t wipe it. Then I noticed another patch, and another, all bubbling up, crinkling, and looking like crap. Well, wiping didn’t work, but leaving the paint like that isn’t going to work either, I thought, so I wiped at all the spots.

Big backward step, that.

There was nothing for it. The new paint was obviously interacting with the old to create this disaster. I couldn’t figure why, since the first coat went on with no trouble. Maybe the heat, maybe the humidity, maybe something got on it while I was storing it in the garage. Who knows? I decided, everything had to come off, all the way to the metal. New paint, old paint, rust, crud, everything.

Knowing there was no way in hell I could get all that off just with a wire brush and a drill, I pulled out my can of paint stripper. I covered the harp in paint stripper and scraped, and scraped and scraped. I used the wire brush, the scraper on the end of the brush, and a putty knife. I scraped and scraped and scraped. I put on another coat of stripper and scraped some more. Finally, I hosed the harp down and washed it with tri-sodium phosphate solution and let it dry in the sun. It looks good. It is essentially clean, but there are just one or two more spots that need to have paint removed. No way am I making that mistake again.

The picture shows the big step forward.

For kicks, compare that to when I pulled it out of the piano a month and a half ago.

I have to buy another wire brush and some primer and more paint, so I guess on day 31 I’ll tackle the veneer instead.

All future decisions on what action to take will be based solely on secure steps forward. Less frustration, more progress!

Another night with my wife’s boyfriend

Some people would no doubt think one crazy to drive almost four hours both ways to hear a classical music concert. I hope some Alabamians are on board with me here in that, big stars don’t really come here, so we have to go to them. That’s why, when Mrs. S’s boyfriend, the virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell, scheduled a visit to play with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, she bought the best tickets available, and that’s why, yesterday, I drove four hours to listen to classical music.

And amazingly, I think it was worth it, and then some. Joshua Bell is simply amazing. He does things with a violin you wouldn’t think possible, and his sound and stamina are just amazing. (I’ve said so before.)

Mrs. S has thirty five of his who knows how many recordings, and now, a fifth of them are signed. It turns out, Mr. Bell will be back in our extended neighborhood next January, and Mrs. S is already planning to get tickets. To fill out enough concerts for a subscriber’s season, we will probably go see Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, and Poncho Sanchez. (We were both bitter to learn McCoy Tyner had been here earlier this year and we missed him.)

Anyway, here’s some of Mrs. S’s comments and recommendations if you are into jazz but want to explore some of Joshua Bell’s music:

"Joshua Bell’s repertoire is very wide-ranging. He’s recorded traditional classical musical pieces (Vivaldi, Beethoven, Sibelius, Shumann, Brahms, Bernstein, Gershwin), contemporary pieces (Maw, Corigliano), short violin pieces, film sound tracks (Red Violin, Defiance, Angels and Demons) and collaborated with Jazz musicians (Dave Grusin, Wynton Marsalis, Chris Botti) and bluegrass musicians (Edgar Myer, Bela Fleck) and each recording is powerful and unique in its own way. So, it’s hard to choose just a couple, but for the people who are more interested in jazz music, my recommendations are:

1. At Home with Friends
2. Gershwin Fantasy
3. Short Trip Home "


Here are my (Eric's) recommendations if you want to hear some great jazz guitar:
Have a Little Faith by Bill Frisell
Bright Size Life by Pat Metheny