FALSE DEFINITIONS

Resonate:

a. sounds like resin like a lasting slowness moving but at a slower pace than light a honey or amber sap dripping from a tree a glacier to an ant a new ice age a new year a day when nothing is and clouds are frozen in their spaces no longer hovering but stuck in the something the stifling absence of no sound which breathes gently on the drum of our ear echoing a chorus of soft purrs and easy whispers of a dying fish

b. when a line becomes an arc an ark the hull of a ship floating carrying the salt in the air that was once in the sea that was once in our sweat in our spit in our mouths in the gills of the fish dying on the hook forgotten drowned in an element in which it lived

c. reason ate a nose a toe or a son sat on a tree on a nest or a stone sent tea to a son or a toe and a nose tore a tense tone on a tree to a sea to a sea to a sea

Primitive Instruments, Puzzles and Pull Toys (well not yet)

It's November. Time to update on some builds and projects.

Salad Bowl Tenor Banjo

Christmas Cookie Tin Ukulele

Electric Cigar Box Baritone Ukulele

Also started experimenting on amplification:

No-frills 1.5 watt Bread Box Amp.

I've also started delving into simple 3-piece animal puzzles.

I've been looking into ways to keep these all natural and non-toxic as I plan on making them with children in mind. My plan is to open an Etsy shop hopefully within the month to start selling them. I will be sure to post when this is accomplished.

The random immediateness of life

I found myself searching the internet, cross-referencing possible names for my newest venture in hopes that no one has used at least one of them and there I am on my latest idea, something relating to Woolly Mammoth which I stretched from my last name being Wohlgemuth which translates to “happy” or “happy soul” my thinking being that wooly is warm, warm is happy, wooly is also hairy, I have a beard, maybe something like Wooly Soul would be cool, oh, darn, someone already has a blog called that, oh, wait, that’s a blog I started a couple of years ago and forgot about, wow, I used to make bread every week, something else I need to get back to, but for now…my latest venture…making musical instruments.

So I started with the basic cigar box guitar formula and got hooked, experimenting with a few other options for bodies (cookie tins, silverware boxes) and neck designs. Now I’m just trying to keep up with my ideas while having limited time in the evenings to try them out. It seems that each build has been very different from the last so I can’t say there is a standard model I necessarily work from. But that has made it more exciting. Even though not everything has worked in the end, it’s been a great learning experience, especially for someone who has little to no woodworking experience.

And here are some of my creations so far…



Cigar Box Guitar #1 and Fretless Cookie Tin Bass



8-string Lute from a silverware box




Unfinished Salad Bowl Tack-Head Banjo with goatskin head.
Dogs love goatskin heads.



the importance of improvisation

i thought of this title and thought about writing this blog without much in mind but yet i feel that is how it should be. improvised.

i just made another loaf of bread. this time i had run out of all-purpose white flour for the basic dough recipe so i substituted. normally it is 6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour but i only had four cups. so then i added two cups whole wheat and a 1/2 cup buckwheat flour. i am tasting the results as i write and i am pretty darn happy about it. i will add a photo at some future date but will say it is a beautiful dark bread with a hint of a darker swirl through the crumb (the buckwheat flour). it actually has a bit of a sweet taste to it which surprises me. i thought it may be bitter for some reason but this is not the case. i guess the improvising the ingredients made me think about how i feel being able to improvise musically is somehow important. don't know exactly why but i guess if there is a gathering of musicians it is always nice to be able to sit down with them, even if you are a stranger to them and their book of songs, and be able to join them in creating some sort of sound. i guess the key point to be made is the whole creation process. and the idea of community. bringing people together through the creation of some other thing. whether it be creating a song and being a part of the whole of a tune which floats through the air or the literal breaking of bread with people, strangers and friends and soon-to-be-friends, with a loaf of bread made from ingredients that did not quite come from any previously written recipe but one that was improvised with delicate attention placed on the final product.

String Theory?

on a street corner in Portsmouth, NH

the harpist plucks

her strings to keep the world

in motion

all the while singing

to herself

it is a lonely job

 **************************************************************************************

Over the summer, I was in Portsmouth playing at a music festival and after the set, my band mates and I set out walking to a local coffee shop for some drinks and snacks. We meandered along the crowded sidewalks and as we were crossing the last side street to our destination, I noticed a small group of people carefully observing a street musician. She was an older woman, older than I am, anyway, with a comfortable off-white cotton dress with some sort of stitched designs on it.

Her instrument of choice was not guitar or fiddle (not to typify street musicians) but a rather large harp.  What struck me as I watched her play was the strength I could see in her muscular arms.  Assumptions had previously gotten the best of me thinking that the harp produced a delicate sound therefore a player only needs delicate hands to play. However, I could not be more far off. Harp strings (for this size harp) are much larger than any guitar’s strings and need more strength to pluck. And although she seemed to be enjoying herself I couldn’t help but think about how it was like work, especially watching the passersby hurrying along to whatever their destination as she sat still, making the harp strings vibrate, as if their vibrations were what kept the world in motion.*

I have since started listening to some more harp music with a better appreciation, particularly Joanna Newsom (to get my indie folk fix) and Yolanda Kondonassis, in particular an album of hers called “Music of Alan Hovhaness.” Something else to check out which I enjoyed is a documentary called “Harp Dreams.”

*expand on this idea - vibration=sound, sound=movement, non-movement=death, etc.

Bread Post No.1...bringing us all up to speed.

So I am a bread lover. There is no way I could ever subscribe to a low carb diet. But I am okay with that, more so now that I have started to learn how to make some tasty artisan style breads. The key factor was when I acquired a copy (thanks to my mom) of "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" (that should be read in a deep radio announcer's voice with lots of reverb). It is a nice basic book by Jeff Hertzberg, MD and Zoe Francois. I had started reading Rose Levy Beranbaum's "The Bread Bible" and it seemed very interesting but at this stage was a little too intimidating for me. I do plan on revisiting it in the future.

Back to the breads. I believe I have made around 20 loaves so far, mostly sticking with the French boule but tweaking some with herbs and most recently kalamata olives (yum!), but I did stray once into the whole wheat sandwich loaf realm. It's been a very rewarding process and I thought I'd share a few pictures.

 French boule 


Crust



Crumb

  

This one was a little plump.




Topped with some sesame seeds.



Mmm, olives!





fragments of life - the pleasure of short pieces

one thing i have noticed about my compositions is the tendency towards shortness. even though i imagine writing these wonderful grandiose symphonies filled with numerous movements and changing themes what i end up with are small fragmented thoughts that sometimes don't always seem quite finished. i feel i have been coming to terms with this more and more lately. maybe the collection of these fragments somehow form a whole of myself even though i can't yet quite piece them together.

what has helped me is listening to accomplished musicians who have also produced wonderfully beautiful pieces that last only a few minutes. specifically i have been enjoying the piano works of Debussy, Poulenc and Satie. i listen and have this feeling that there is not always closure in some of their pieces as well. of course at this moment i have not a specific piece to site but this should entice the reader to do some research if you are not familiar with these composers. and as i am not formally trained musically i forgive myself.

what i do enjoy about short pieces is the ability to evoke a mood rather quickly. like some sort of wordless haiku.

TASK: periodically post an image or a poem or a song or any combination of those mentioned (not sure if i can post a sound file but i do see a video option so maybe i should start delving into the world of video production...just one more thing to add to my list of things to do, right?)