Pribek

Sometimes I will call a guitar a “plank”. Well, today we have one that really is a plank.

The members of the Des Moines Woodworkers have an annual challange where they each make something out of a single 8 foot, 2×4 plank. This year, Bob Saunders made an acoustic guitar. From the Des Moines Register…

“I’m surprised how good it sounds, and it’s just made out of pine,” said Saunders, who admitted he doesn’t actually play. “One of these days, I’ll have to learn.” To make the guitar, he followed the same process he used for the two dozen others he’s made over the last few years, including a Best-of-Show winner at the Iowa State Fair. First he sliced the plank into tenth-inch strips and glued them together to form the guitar’s front and back. Then he took two longer strips for the curved sides, misted them with water and slid them between a pair of stainless steel plates in a handmade press. He heated the plates with a rubberized hot pad – six minutes at 220 degrees, then 15 minutes at 150 – and left the wood to cool in the form overnight.

Next he glued the side, front and back panels together with inside braces, attached the neck and rigged it up with six steel strings. He added black accents around the center hole and corners, screwed gold-plated tuning pegs into the head, and inlaid the figures “2 x 4″ in mother of pearl right on top.

“The hardest part was getting that luster,” said Saunders, who brushed the instrument with a dozen coats of varnish, sanded it and finally polished the whole thing to a satiny sheen.

The hat was made from the 2×4 as well.

Here are two clips from a couple of my personal favorite acoustic guitarists.

First, Leo Kottke does “Taxco Steps”.

As always, wipe off your strings then press pause on the music player in the side bar before playing the YouTube.

I saw Leo a couple of years ago in a similar setting. He walked on with two guitars, 6 and 12 string, laid one on the floor (no stand) and played. He has this deal where he engages in banter while tuning between songs. It comes in handy because he will change tunings from song to song. At one point, while he had the 12 string, he went from standard to D tuning. That’s a weekend job for a lot of guys. Leo is a brave man. A lot of the records that guitar heads refer to when lauding Leo Kottke are the things he did in the 70s when he used finger picks. He abandoned that technique because it caused tendonitis. So, he’s a living lesson in how one needs to be able to adapt to life’s circumstances. His playing now, with just fingers, is maybe not as raucous. It’s more subtle but, now that I’ve become accustomed to the difference, I much prefer what he does now to the old stuff. He’s at the top of his game, I think.

Next, Tony Rice does “Church Street Blues”

So, there’s an entirely different technique with the flat pick. I’ve listened to Tony play with bands a lot. He has a real knack for getting a very liquid lead tone on the acoustic. His vibrato is very sweet. Some people say that he phrases almost like an electric player in that he seems capable of pulling a seemingly impossible sustain out of an acoustic guitar. I like this clip because it shows the solo, flat pick approach which, you hardly see anybody doing these days and Tony…well he just nails it. One thing you will notice is that he has impeccable time which is just one of the difficult things to achieve with this type of playing. See, I think Tony’s time is the real secret behind his lead playing. Time obviously affects your phrasing but, your tone as well. If you are putting the notes in the right place, they sound better tonally. It lets the note breath.

So, I’m sitting around with this guy the other night, just hangin’, there are a couple of acoustic guitars laying around and the dude says; “You wanna jam a little?” Now anymore, when somebody asks me that, I usually don’t really want to because, it isn’t really going to be jamming. It’s usually some guy who wants to show me his latest drop D lick that he learned from some record. It isn’t going to be an ebb and flow, playing through changes, variations on a theme, kind of deal. I’m not trying to be rude, that’s usually what happens-let me show you some licks.

But, I said; “O.K., what do you want to ‘jam’ on,” thinking the best case scenario will be to find some common ground, a song we both know the changes to, take turns soloing. He says; “How about one of your songs, have you been writing anything?”

I’ll have to admit, I was a little surprised. This has never happened before. So, I started playing a new song, “Honey B”, that has a nice, funky groove in E. To my delight, this guy starts playing some very tasty fills over the changes, playing them in the right places intuitively and backing off at the right times to play solid rhythm stuff. Hey, it really was jamming and, it sounded good. It was cooking.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that this guy would be able to lock in with me because, he’s my 18 year old stepson, Ryan. He’s been listening to me play for most of his life. But, it did surprise me because, it flowed so well.

Now, if you’ve been following along since the start of this blog, you may know a little bit about the difficulty I’ve had in putting together a band to go play this stuff live. At one point, I thought, instead of a whole band, I would try a duo because, there are gigs where I could do a songwriter thing, where people would expect to hear original music. And, a duo, of course, would cut down on my expenses and hassle. But, I’ve had a hard time finding anybody that I could really lock it down with. If there’s only two, the two have to be really working not slopping around. I’ve even done a few solo things but, I don’t dig that so much.

Anyway, Ryan seemed to find the groove in a natural way, it felt good. Now, he plays in Church but, he hasn’t been doing other gigs in unfamiliar environments. So, it would require a good bit of work on his part. I asked him if he would want to give it a go and he seemed eager. He’s also been writing some and singing some so, it would be a chance for him to develop those things too.

So, we decided to give it a go and start working on some stuff on a regular basis. See where it leads. No pressure.

This morning we got together and worked through a few things for the first time.

So, here’s my new duo partner.

I’ll tell you one thing, my demographic just got a little better.

Here’s Ryan playing, “I Let The Whisky Kiss Me (Goodnight)”.

We’re a good ways away from booking a gig. Lot’s of work ahead but, I’ll keep you updated on this. And, when I have a little more time I’ll let you in on my method of non-teaching that has been a part of how this kid is turning in to a very solid player.