Monday, February 15, 2010

"my special" cigar box guitar update

Making some progress at last with the "special" I'm building. Got the frets in, fiddly and a bit scary when you think you can mess the whole thing up if you're not careful. JuJu's single coil pick-up is sitting nicely in the lid now, just need to get some bits to wire it in. I made a jack socket and volume control plate out of a piece of rusty metal which is looking cool too. The headstock has been given a white crackle finish look. I'm really taking things slowly though, thinking about every detail. When trying to create a "ratrod" (old distressed) look, it's a fine line you tread between too opposing forces. The desire to make something that looks like it's thrown together from junk and the strive for perfection which can lead you to over-working it. It needs to look like crap but in a cool and pleasing way and most of all, it needs to play well too. Of course you never know if you've created a winner until it's strung up and by that time, most of the work is done.

Been doing some home recording. Wow that takes some concentration. First the steep learning curve of getting to grips with new technologies and software can be extremely frustrating and hard work. Then trying to get your musical ideas to sound half-decent. It makes me realise how hard it is to keep perfect timing when trying to play a new track to add to it. Anyhow, after many hours of messing about, I eventually created a short piece which I am fairly pleased with. No cigar box guitars were hurt during the process - in fact none were used. I'm playing my Harmony H44 through a Zoom pedal and some looping provided by the Akai Headrush. See what you think, it can be heard on my Handmademusic site here.

http://handmademusic.ning.com/profile/smojo