So, today was my first day of guitar-building at the Irish School of Luthrie. Duuuuude, it's only my first day and I'm hooked!! I spent a good 9 hours in the shop today and got a lot done!! I'm building two instruments for myself: a good ol' steel-string acoustic guitar, and an arch-top 10-string guitar-bodied bouzouki!! This blog will temporarily serve as the forum to keep ya'll updated on the progress of the two instruments as they're brought into this world. Hey, this blog is about me learning stuff, so I supposed it suits that I post my current learnings!
Today was a productive day!! I chose my woods to start: Englmann Spruce (top) and Indian Rosewood (back & sides) for the guitar; and Englmann Spruce (t) and Flamed Maple (b&s) for the guitar-bouzouki! I jointed the two pieces of the tops together today, as well as the maple back for the bouzouki. Probably the most tiring part of the day was 'thicknessing' the backs and sides in the thickness sander. Running em through a massive sander and checking them with a micrometer as I went a long to check the thickness, aiming for 2.4 and 2.2 millimeters. And I also glued the maple back of the guitar-bouzouki! Tomorrow I'll glue the rosewood back, and then see what I have to do next!! I'm diggin' this!!!!!
Monday, September 27, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Hello!!
Hey ya'll!!
Long story short...I moved up to Galway, and its an AMAZING city!!!! More music than you can shake a stick at, and of all varieties!! There seems to be some sort of festival here every weekend!! Though the city is absolutely awesome, I don't really get to participate in much of its fun activities...unless of course you count becoming a connoisseur of coffee shops, then I'm doing loads of that!! But even that, I really only go to two of them. One has cheap eggs, decent coffee, and Brazilian waitresses, while the other has amazing coffee, good bagels, and French waitresses. I've become such a regular at the French place that I now get free coffee!! Its great!!!
My days are spent, well...let me just walk you through one.
- Wake up around 9; check email and take allergy pills (when it doesn't rain during the summer, Irish plants grow really fast and produce gargantuan amounts of pollen); perhaps take a bikeride to stretch the old knee; head to the café on the quays for cheap eggs and coffee and spectate the tourists; come home and either work at my computer for hours on end doing verbatim transcriptions of interviews I've done (slightly mind-numbing, but exciting when you get to the good parts), or gather a stack of papers and books and head to the French café to sit in the window, read and watch more tourists; take a break/come home and play the fiddle until I get frustrated, then try to tune my guitar till I get frustrated, then go back to work/go back to the café; dinner; back to the café for more coffee and reading; home around 12 or 1, email/facebook; watch some Father Ted; bed. This is roughly my schedule, though the order does change, and somedays there is more or less fiddling. Now that I've been in this routine, its actually kind of enjoyable. Its still stressful, sure! But seeing progress and coming to the conclusion that I actually know what I'm talking about and could even be post something about the bouzouki on wikipedia and it would be reputable. Yeah, I've thought about that...
I've also had the epiphany that I'm lucky as hell to be doing what I'm doing in the environment and circumstances that I'm in. I mean, I'm in Ireland, around the corner from the sea, 5 minutes walk from the main drag, I have so much music within striking distance its ridiculous (and honesly, there are maybe a few cities in the U.S. that can boast the equivalent), and all I have to do is to work on a project about a musical instrument that is awesome, versatile, fun to play, has a very cosmopolitan and interesting history, and has found its way into my hands as well. Though it can be a fairly lonely existence, and the ol' knee doesn't get along with Irish weather patterns, I can't really complain. I'd be a fool to. I'm learning more about the world than I ever thought I would, while still being in an english-speaking (somewhat) Western nation. I perception of the world has changed, my perception of music has definitely changed, and I'm feeling a passion well-up inside me that I've never felt before. Don't really know how to explain it, but I can't ignore it. I see that the world is a smaller place than I once thought, and that the possibilities are greater than I could have ever imagined. I will admit, part of me does think about not going back to the states. The European way of life, and way of understanding and thinking, is much different from that of the U.S.
Its interesting to see the mode in which Ireland functions. (positive generalization) Its based on happiness, friendship, exploration of thought, a love of history and an acceptance of the problems and mistakes of the past. Then comparing that mode to the U.S. and those nations that the U.S. has so greatly economically and culturally affected. China being one of them. So hurried to "modernize", so in a rush to keep up with the rich, but dysfunctional, neighbors across the street/sea. Granted, no place is perfect, but there are definitely things that can be learned from those who have learned from the mistakes and tragedies of their past.
Ok, I've deviated from my schedule long enough. It's time to run errands, walk the housemate's dog, and go to the French café for my morning fix. Love to all you who read this. I'm off to Greece in a few days for a much needed recharge of the old batteries! I will be 30 in a couple weeks, the batteries do need recharging in my old age.
Long story short...I moved up to Galway, and its an AMAZING city!!!! More music than you can shake a stick at, and of all varieties!! There seems to be some sort of festival here every weekend!! Though the city is absolutely awesome, I don't really get to participate in much of its fun activities...unless of course you count becoming a connoisseur of coffee shops, then I'm doing loads of that!! But even that, I really only go to two of them. One has cheap eggs, decent coffee, and Brazilian waitresses, while the other has amazing coffee, good bagels, and French waitresses. I've become such a regular at the French place that I now get free coffee!! Its great!!!
My days are spent, well...let me just walk you through one.
- Wake up around 9; check email and take allergy pills (when it doesn't rain during the summer, Irish plants grow really fast and produce gargantuan amounts of pollen); perhaps take a bikeride to stretch the old knee; head to the café on the quays for cheap eggs and coffee and spectate the tourists; come home and either work at my computer for hours on end doing verbatim transcriptions of interviews I've done (slightly mind-numbing, but exciting when you get to the good parts), or gather a stack of papers and books and head to the French café to sit in the window, read and watch more tourists; take a break/come home and play the fiddle until I get frustrated, then try to tune my guitar till I get frustrated, then go back to work/go back to the café; dinner; back to the café for more coffee and reading; home around 12 or 1, email/facebook; watch some Father Ted; bed. This is roughly my schedule, though the order does change, and somedays there is more or less fiddling. Now that I've been in this routine, its actually kind of enjoyable. Its still stressful, sure! But seeing progress and coming to the conclusion that I actually know what I'm talking about and could even be post something about the bouzouki on wikipedia and it would be reputable. Yeah, I've thought about that...
I've also had the epiphany that I'm lucky as hell to be doing what I'm doing in the environment and circumstances that I'm in. I mean, I'm in Ireland, around the corner from the sea, 5 minutes walk from the main drag, I have so much music within striking distance its ridiculous (and honesly, there are maybe a few cities in the U.S. that can boast the equivalent), and all I have to do is to work on a project about a musical instrument that is awesome, versatile, fun to play, has a very cosmopolitan and interesting history, and has found its way into my hands as well. Though it can be a fairly lonely existence, and the ol' knee doesn't get along with Irish weather patterns, I can't really complain. I'd be a fool to. I'm learning more about the world than I ever thought I would, while still being in an english-speaking (somewhat) Western nation. I perception of the world has changed, my perception of music has definitely changed, and I'm feeling a passion well-up inside me that I've never felt before. Don't really know how to explain it, but I can't ignore it. I see that the world is a smaller place than I once thought, and that the possibilities are greater than I could have ever imagined. I will admit, part of me does think about not going back to the states. The European way of life, and way of understanding and thinking, is much different from that of the U.S.
Its interesting to see the mode in which Ireland functions. (positive generalization) Its based on happiness, friendship, exploration of thought, a love of history and an acceptance of the problems and mistakes of the past. Then comparing that mode to the U.S. and those nations that the U.S. has so greatly economically and culturally affected. China being one of them. So hurried to "modernize", so in a rush to keep up with the rich, but dysfunctional, neighbors across the street/sea. Granted, no place is perfect, but there are definitely things that can be learned from those who have learned from the mistakes and tragedies of their past.
Ok, I've deviated from my schedule long enough. It's time to run errands, walk the housemate's dog, and go to the French café for my morning fix. Love to all you who read this. I'm off to Greece in a few days for a much needed recharge of the old batteries! I will be 30 in a couple weeks, the batteries do need recharging in my old age.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Well...
Its been a while since I've written in this. So long that I'm too tired to even start trying to write out all that has happened in the last 4 months. So, instead. I've decided to post this picture. It more or less sums up what I've been doing, in more than one way.
This was at the last session of the year.
This was at the last session of the year.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Holiday Recap and the New Term
Well, now that I'm back at a new semester I figured I might as well get this thing going again! Last term ended in a flurry of chaos and stress, but alas its done and gone and my grades from last term show me that the hard work was worth the effort. The break was EXACTLY what I needed. A week traveling through Northern Ireland and Scotland fed my soul a good bit, but also made me long to be back in the states. Thus convincing me to extend my trip home and add a week in New York to my voyage. Which was $$ well spent. I love New York, and this last trip has put it in the running for my new home when I return to the US. The week in southern California was exactly what the doctor ordered - besides that fact that the reason I was there in the first place was to see my doctor. Warm sun, clear skys, beaches, good coffee, great food, great family and friends made it the best week I've had in a long time!! I have to give thanks to my dad and Laura for putting together such a great weekend, and to everyone else that was a part of that amazing week!
Upon returning to Ireland I felt obligated to partake in ungodly and chaotic sleeping hours for the next three days. I discovered that even four bottles of wine can't make one go to bed at a reasonable hour, but can still wake you up with a blinding headache as soon as the sun peers over the back fence. I actually should give that day more credit, for without the pain from what felt like a brain stung by 100 honey bees, I would have slept all day instead of lying awake wishing I were dead which in turn allowed me to sleep that night. So, perhaps wine has a secondary - and somewhat delayed - function in curing jetlag from the other side of the planet.
Since being back I've been playing a fair bit of bouzouki with my fiddle-touting friends Jessie and Kay. They've been kind enough to let me bash away and explore chords and wrong notes while they work on their already amazing fiddling. Just in the maybe five times we've played tunes I feel I've learned a great deal. Hopefully it'll be enough, as I was asked to play in one of the performance ensembles with the MA Trad Performance kids here. They are all great, so I feel honored that they'd ask me to join them. If I get departmental permission to do this, I see myself learning a lot this term while hopefully not annoying those who already know what they're doing.
The spring term is going to be very busy, yet fun and exciting. Our workload is reduced, but we have our thesis to mainly focus on plus a good deal of international conferences and research proposals with ethnomusicologists at the University of Cork. We're attending (perhaps presenting at) the International Conference of Traditional Music in Dublin at the end of the month, then there is also an intensive 10-day seminal/conference ethnochoreology conference in Norway at the end of April. There is also a recording engineers conference/trade show in London in May, and another ethnomusicology conference in the Czech Republic later in the summer. My classes should be informative and quite interesting. One is solely based on theoretical issues in the field, while the other is a survey on music from around the world. As of now we'll be looking at music from Egypt, Morocco, West Africa, Japan, Indonesia, Hungary, and others.
It'll be a very busy 8 months, but it'll be rewarding just the same. My main concern is not losing my mind and myself in all the chaos. I've come to realize that not playing music regularly makes me a very edgy and irritable person. You'd think regular exercise would help such a thing, but as of now its just making me hungry and sore. Not exactly great additions to someone already pent up with musical frustration. So, though I vowed to not any new years resolutions, I've made one anyway. Well, sort of. I've decided to not let my academic work completely rule my life, as it'll do me no good if I just want to kill anyone around me who happens to say anything remotely dumb. Music is why I'm here, so music is going to get out of the trunk and hop into the passenger seat for the next 8 months, at which time it'll probably take the driver seat again.
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