I recently was with a group with the State of TN starting a new initiative. After a week long series of training was over we were to make an Action Plan for our District.
Right off the bat someone in my group shouted "I'm really interested in [such and such]. I thought "really, that is a project, not a process; it has nothing to do with an Action Plan". A plan was to help state agencies work together to prepare clients to be received by non-profit orginizations so they could finalize sucessful reentry for these people into society.
Well we ended up selecting three projects - but no cohesive plan emerged. No wonder the State does not work any better than it does. There really was no cohesivenness between these three projects though all were great stand alone and excellent outcomes. Yes they were needed items of business that may have been goals of a plan, but they now had scuttled the chance to form a process that moved agency through agency into the non-profit orginazations to provide seemless service.
I look at my last build. I wanted to build a certain way, build a four stringer, fretless, and had some design features I wanted to try. The results was pretty good. Then I look at the really good stuff on the Net. Why doesn't mine look and sound like that? It dawned on me. I put a lot of projects together. I want a fret board like that, the box/neck connection like that, this number of strings so the neck needs to be this wide, this many pickups so lets find a schematic, need sound holes these look snazzy, borrow them, and then mix it together and after all these projects get done I should have a CBG.
Is that really making an action plan before we start building - just asking? Any opinions? If we are aiming to build that CBG with the greatest appeal soundwise, appearance wise, and playability wise: what does a real CBG building plan to produce quality in appearance, playability, and sound look like? What should we have in place, how much should we prepared in what areas, what is it important to have precicely worked out before even starting, how organic can we allow ourselves to be and in what areas? Where can we be sloppy and where must we be right to that silly millimeter?
Opinions, experience, your personal process or preferance, feedback, referances, any contribution welcome!
Comments
If you are having fun and achieving your plan, you're probably finding your "it."
:)
So, it is best to have a good enough plan to not totally mess up but to alwas haqve something you want to experiment with. Never get satisfied. YOur plans can be precice and OCD as long as you are in the ZEN and trying to coax out that next layer of "that" sound you are after.
Is that close to being it?
Sure, planning will help, if you want to get that 12th fret note to sound precisely an octave higher than the open note. Go slow, take care, measure twice, cut once, use quality tools and materials, all that.
It's funny, I came at this from a different direction. I been playing commercially-produced gits for over 35 years, increasing my guitarsenal in both quantity and quality as finances allowed (mostly - there's still that custom Taylor I wanna have built). But I've gotten over the playing / singing /songwriting creativity plateau by attempting to build and play these simple, relatively cheap contraptions. Early on, I started exploring open and weird tunings, but backed off for over 30 years because I wanted to learn the "right" way on a 6-string in standard tuning. And now, there's not a tuning I won't at least try a couple times - but only on a 3- or 4-banger. And my finger picking and slide playing have gotten measurably better. I can suss out chord shapes and intricate runs faster. All of which has improved my 6-string playing, too.
I get where Eric is coming from, though: awesome comes from multiple directions, and you gotta be open to what the Universe is trying to tell you. Work with it. It will reward you - just maybe not in ways you expect. There's also a lot to be said for Shane Speal's dictum of "Get outta the woodshed, and just play the damn thing!"
The two (or is it three?) go hand in hand. So to speak.
Let it BE!
The minute you let go of your Zen it's the minute you make progress in building plain old peanut butter instruments like any average schmuck. If that it's your goal, them, by all means, carry on.
Look not upon your took catalog with envy. It is a deceitful and disrespectful distraction.
Who am I kidding? Who doesn't like tool porn? Just dont let it get in the way of awesome.
Oily, It is so obsessive I may bankrupt my family :-). Most builders just build. We develop organically. We build with ideas and crude plans and often measurements, and "learn from mistakes". Could better overall understanding of what we really want the outcome to be provide a better preplan of what we need to do up front so we do not make as many mistakes to begin with?
Hard to illustrate. A friend told me he likes sharp clear notes. The build I was thinking of doing for him would have probably produced a more gruny resonator jazinator sound. Fortunately I recognized this. But When I built I did not necessariay build to produce sharp clear notes - I simply do not know how, so I avoided building to produce resonating reverberating notes. l at least had an idea of what I wanted the sound to be like when I finished and planned the structure of the build accordingly.
Should we plan with a total package in mind - or just a bunch of neat things we want to incorporate that may or my not fit together into a neat polished final product? How many builders do this commercially and have set plans that have been tested and proven, and set in stone - and how many still build somewhat organicall?
You told a big truth. I am a minority. I am a builder [learning to play - not there yet]. Most people on CBN are players who also do builds. There seems to be a difference in mindset between players who build and builders who play - any comments?
Also, necessity changes as financial ability changes. If I have the funds I am going to buy that "stuff" I have been eyeballing be it tools, materials, supplies, books, videos, or classes. I will strive to produce a better product and to possess a better product. I will outgrow the plain hammered together stick and box and bailing wirre contraption. I will get real strings. real tuners. real fretboaaard, real bridge, real this real that, and finally a store bought instrument as my finances allows. Whats the parallel to this in the CBG builder's world?
There is a need for builders to express their creativity. Some do it by going so far beyond a stick and a box, that they can legitimately be called master luthiers. There are those of us who are better players than builders. As in every hobby and profession, there are exceptions, who do both well.
Where I'm going with this, I guess, is to say, don't stop trying to improve, sure: study, learn, build, play. Virtually none of us will ever be Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, or B.B. King. Virtually none of us will be Leo Fender, Bo Diddley, or Les Paul. Do what you do the best that you can do, and gracefully accept that while some (many?) people will do "it" better than you, nobody will do it exactly like you. Like St. Paul, learn to rejoice in your imperfections.
If you feel you need to plan, go ahead. Most businesses, military organizations, etc, do. The smarter ones recognize that once the plan is in place, sometimes you just have to go with what you got, leap off the bridge, embrace uncertainty, live reasonably happily in the lidst of chaos, accept the risk of failure in the pursuit of reward. The beauty of attempting to build and play CBGs is that it is highly unlikely that you'll actually die trying, or bankrupt your family, corporation, or country.
Except maybe in terms of your pride or self esteem. >:-E