Well it’s been a busy week out here in the woods, in the little green workshop and within the weathered siding of the small building next to it. These are the center of my world – all I had done and been added up to them and much of who I am is what I became along with them. We are all aging together, spending ourselves on our reasons for being. We live in a world of talkers, many thumbs are callused. But in these little buildings hands with calluses all over them are too busy DOING to be bothered. It’s sometimes difficult to find the time to talk about what we’re doing, let alone about what other people are doing. This being the closing month of the Birdsong year, is one of those times. The last batch of 2019 is making its way across the benches – the last will be into sanding next week, the rest in finishing and on into assembly to join the ones already there – some of whom are flying the nest for their new homes. It is beautiful – they will be set free, and then – for a little while – I will as well. Again going to skip next week’s blog here to spend more time on what the shop is wrapping up for the year.
The winter break will run however much of December is left once the last 2019 build has departed and we’ve cleaned up a bit (and made a list of needed supplies and tool fixes for after the break, rather than “Oh yeah”-ing them all over again once I need them), all of January, and part of February. But that is tomorrow’s concern and I live in today. And today I am a guitar maker in his workshop, guided by inspiration and honed by the craft itself as a tool of its own propagation. I serve the process, and the process then serves me, and then the result serves you. Every now and again I’ll look around at the magic in the midst of wood chips and bass parts and old worn tools, and when the music is reflecting just right off the sun shining through the windows onto the benches, I just be and breathe and consider the ripples. This could all have worked out so differently, derailed at any point, but did not. We had reasons and we held course. Music called and I answered and this is where it led to.
One must sometimes answer what calls to them instead of the sensible, the match for some made up list of criteria, the strict recipe of known choices. Otherwise this magical short existence as we know it, full of independent organs that somehow keep pumping blood and sunsets that are never the same, of unexplainable fallings in love and strange attractions through language and to art, on this spinning suspended ball in an infinite universe of galaxies, it turns into paint by numbers where all of THAT is seen as ridiculous to think about or mention but a stretch mark on a Hilton is considered gripping reality. Those who create are willing to veer onto the unknown scenic route. There are three minute assembled manufactured pop songs (and their people and instrument and journey and life equivalents) and they have their place, and there is free jazz and its equivalents. Between the two is a world of shades, not just extremes; choices, not merely decisions; colors, not only black or white; blue highways and backwoods paths.
“What if I took this little pickup and put it where the sound’s too big on this bass?” That question changed my life. “What if I used as reference the sound coming out of the speaker and did whatever it took to make that right, rather than just use something big and shrink it?” That puts you on a whole trail of oddball things to consider! “Well, if by shortening this I lose a bit of that, but moving this other thing a bit is known to boost “that”, will it get it back?” GREAT! Then that now goes here. Irrespective of how, it happened. Why? Nice to know but not necessary, and theory anyway. This world is much too deep for simple bumper sticker explanations from up here playing tinker toys on the surface inside some skin bag underneath the infinite. I can plant a seed over here and it doesn’t grow. Over there, it grows a tomato plant and we eat. That does not take a botanist or degree in environmental science. If it works, there’s your next step – your next piece. Leave it to the pundits to debate how, why, and if it even happened at all while you wipe tomato sandwich crumbs off the table.
The boards and bars are chock full of people who know just enough to discuss things like people who know just enough to discuss things, debating and debunking what building the same instrument four or five different ways would conclude for them. But they tinker and talk, theorizing and pontificating about deep ocean dives with their feet in wading pools. In layers of this world painting by the simplest of numbers who have barely held a brush, they’re expert opinions; they will keep you from doing anything unusual or creative; they will save you from the foolishness or risks in unnecessary scenic routes. Their motto is “Why?” where those who blaze trails say “Why not?” – often to themselves. Then they DO. They get on with it. And they get ON IT.
I have an assignment for you. I’m not here to pull rank, just to encourage – so take it as intended. But it is an assignment. YOU are to create something this weekend. YOU are to create a song. Now that song to you might be a good riff, or a 20-verse Dylanian treatise on existential bewilderment, or a one verse poem. It might be a shared smile with a loved one soon to pass, a moment with a stranger that helps them on their way, or a lovingly prepared meal for someone special. Those are songs to the universe. The rules are simple – do NOT paint by numbers, do not phone it in and just go through the motions – mean it, and do not post anywhere about what you’re doing for the circus monkeys of the world to throw poop at. And don’t feel bad about depriving them of a target for today – they’ll find another, I guarantee you. “It sounds like this, it looks like that, why even try, nobody cares, you’re worthless, mine is better, why?” Naaah. Fuck those people. You know better and you weren’t put here to please them. They can live their own movies. You live yours.
You’re here with hands to help things happen. YOUR choice is to decide whether to – however minutely or meagerly – help beauty to grow or things to destruct. To plant a seed or throw a stone. It’s very difficult to do both, let alone to become good at either while trying to do both. My side of the field being creation and vibration, I give you this assignment. Do it and don’t worry about how perfect it is or if it’s completely original or not. There are atoms and stardust and sentience and spirit and 12 notes. There will be repeating patterns, and if the universe has galaxy swirls that look like snail shells, your four chords that are close to an Eagles song aren’t going to bump the world off its axis, OK? Just don’t set out to paint by numbers or copy anything, you have to make it up. Yes it’s the same stuff. I’m the one giving you the assignment, and I don’t care. Put it all together your way and see if it flies! You’re one grain on the shoreline of it all – quit defining everything and write your song. Do your best.
Listening to: Rolling Stones Magesties Request; amazing interview with Sammy Gravano; John Coltrane & Kenny Burrell; Joe Gibbs; the whisper of the space heater and the sounds of assembly.