As far back as I can remember, fine stringed instruments have played pivotal influences in my life. At some point during the fourth year of my existence, my grandparents took me on what was to become the first of many visits to a farm owned by a couple that they had know for many, many years. They had first gotten to know each other back in the 1920’s when they all lived in Peru. My grandfather was making his first fortune with precious gems down there and had met Paul, another Americano. They bumped into Clara Estele and Eleanor, both nurses giving aid to the poor in Lima. Fast forward forty years and now Paul and Eleanor owned a little family farm in Fallbrook, California and we arrived just in time to marvel at the fires burning on the far off foothills, fanned by the local Santa Anna winds. I remember sitting out under an immense Oak tree, sipping lemonade and looking off into the far distance at those flames and wondering, why, if that fire was coming towards us—and it certainly looked like it was coming towards us—were we just sitting there drinking lemonade watching it?
Pretty observant for a four year old, don’t you think?
What has all this got to do with building instruments? Well, I must have seemed a bit concerned about those flames because, after a very short while, Eleanor took me into the house (and out of view of the fires) and, from a high shelf in her living room closet, took down a small, oddly shaped object and set it on the table in front of me. I could see that the object was a box of some sort and when she opened it, I caught sight of a violin. Now, I had seen violins before but never up close. Aside from the fact that it was shiny, which I remember greatly appealed to my four year old aesthetic sense, it was also just plain beautiful.
Beautiful in its proportions, beautiful in its glass smooth, gracefully carved surfaces, unquestionably, and undeniably beautiful. And, as is true with most beautiful things, in its beauty there was also a quality of correctness that, even at that innocent age, I recognized immediately. Then Eleanor spoke those fateful words.
She said, “Pretty, isn’t it? My son built it.”
I was floored. I couldn’t believe it. I stared at that exquisite thing, in its velvet lined case, and the first thought that came to my mind was, “Could a person really make something this perfect?” Then I was hit with a second question. “If a person couldn’t have made it, then what did? A machine?!” I knew, immediately, that a machine could never make something so beautiful, so right, and, in those ways that matter most, so human. I realized that a person did make it, and that a person, and only a person, could make things that right and that beautiful. That realization, changed my life.
When I was about twelve, my other grandfather gave me his Gibson Mandolin. I was pretty familiar with guitars at that point. My older sister had one and I knew how to strum a few chords, but that mandolin seemed very different, wrong almost. Double strings that were tuned in pairs? What was that about? I couldn’t see the point. But the instrument did have one thing going for it. The finish on the back looked to be as thin as a bee’s wing, yet, at the same time, it looked like you could fall right into it. Talk about depth! I’ve since determined that the instrument was a custom order made of walnut or Brazilian rosewood. But, at the time, it was strange, and the music I had fallen in love with was being played by a guy with the unlikely name of Earl Scruggs. I had to have a banjo and so, not knowing what I had, in any and all senses of that expression, I traded my grandfather’s mandolin in on a cheap banjo. I did love that banjo and, to its credit, it set me on what has become a lifelong journey learning and playing music. I’ve played Bluegrass and old timey music on the five string, Irish music on the mandolin and now the Blues, especially the creations of Blind Blake on the guitar. And so, in an odd way, that mandolin did set me on a path I might never have taken for the simple fact that there was no other way I would ever have been able to buy a banjo at that young age.
Somewhere along the way, I bumped into a raving wildman of an art teacher at a city college who insisted that looking at art wasn’t enough to really appreciate it. He believed you had to get your hands dirty and create. One of the things he offered as a project was building a musical instrument. I can clearly remember sitting in my father’s workshop in the 99 degree heat of summer, sweat dripping off me, feverishly working away at that instrument and being totally happy and utterly content. That first instrument didn’t come close to the perfection I’d seen as a four year old, but I knew I loved the work and that was more than enough.
Now, many years later, I’m still building instruments, playing music, and thoroughly enjoying the absolutely amazing people my work allows me to meet.
