Shutter Priority

Archive for February, 2008

This particular growth of fungus caught my eye. The shape, size and texture all spoke to me and I grabbed the picture during a winter’s day walk in George Rogers Clark Park. It was cold as hell. These fungi were large — about a foot across. The sun was very low in the west and it accentuated the texture of the wood and fungus.

I passed that way again a few days ago and noticed that someone had broken the fungi off of the tree. Now, in the grand scheme of things that act of vandalism means nothing, but for me, it was a senseless act of destruction of something that was interesting enough to me to respond to it and snap a picture. What does it say about your emotional life when you find yourself grieving for a fungus?

I have been doing guitar again. I got a Takamine acoustic/electric a few years ago, and was really getting going with it, playing more and better than I had in many years. Then in 2005, I injured my back and was stove-up for months and taking pain meds like hydrocodone. Chops went to hell. The back finally healed and I have been fighting my way back to some level of competence on the guitar. I will never be a great guitarist — I know my limitations — but I have been a very good guitarist in times past. It’s fun when I have the time for it. It’s not a primary thing for me, but a good alternative track for the creative impulse. Daniel has finally gotten interested in the guitar. I bought him a Washburn Stratocaster clone years ago and took him to lessons, but it didn’t take. Recently he has developed an interest in the guitar, bought himself a Takamine acoustic over the Internet (without consulting me) and has been working at it. He plays tunes like “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay,” “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” “Bad Moon Rising,” “Blowing in the Wind,” and “In the Pines” (the Nirvana version that I don’t really like). So we order Dominoes pizza and sit up late at night and pick guitars. It’s fun.

In terms of tunes, I tend to gravitate toward blues, the great folk/rock anthems of the 60′s and early 70′s, some classical and some jazz improvisation.

I put fresh strings on my classical guitar tonight. I hate changing strings but the D string finally died. I had to mail order a new set of Savarez high tension strings. You can’t buy a set of real classical guitar strings in Louisville anymore. Sad, really, but most players just don’t use classicals these days. A good classical guitar still has the most sublime sound of any style of guitar. Steel string acoustics and electrics are more fun to play I suppose, but there is something cosmic about the sound of a classical played well. Modern people don’t realize that the classical guitar’s proportions conform to the Pythagorean harmonic intervals so their overtones are clean. You can actually tune a classical by tapping the top and tuning to the tone that the body naturally rings. Acoustic steel string guitars can be louder but they have more inherent distortion because they deviate from the classical proportions. Of course, we like that funky sound, and I spend a lot more time on my flat-top than I do with the classical.

This particular guitar classical guitar is a Garcia 1A from Casa Sherry-Brenner in Madrid. My dad bought this one for me in Dallas in 1972. He traded a single $20 gold piece for it, but it was probably a nice one because he only dealt in BU coins with good dates. In terms of hours spent, public performances, dollars earned, etc., this has been the most successful guitar in my life. In 35 years, it has neither cracked nor warped. The top is still as flat as a table and the neck is still straight. That is really remarkable considering the different environments I’ve lugged it through: Texas, Colorado, Kentucky, including numerous airline flights. This is the mark of a properly constructed guitar. The electric guys don’t grok this stuff — a simple wooden box that makes its own sound, and does it beautifully for years and years. The new Savarez strings sound good. This is the first time It has not worn a set of Augustine strings, but it appears that Augustine has gone out of business. No one is selling them anymore. I’m glad Savarez is still around. They sound Spanish by the name, but they’re made in France. In typical French fashion, there are about three words of English in the package. The rest is French, but EADGBE is the same so I can figure it out.

When I started playing guitar back in the 60′s (Yes, I know I’m dating myself.), guitar was like a religion. Everybody and their brother wanted to be the next Chuck Berry, Chet Atkins, Eric Clapton or whoever. The guitar is still very important in music, but it’s not the way it was. It’s probably a healthy return to a more balanced role for the guitar. I still see too many singers using guitars for props, and many rock ensembles still seem to have too many guitars, but I love them, so it doesn’t bother me too much.

I never was particularly interested in pursuing a career in music. I didn’t consider myself quite good enough, at least by my own standards, to be the kind of professional musician I wanted to be. I have always been better and more confident with the graphic arts and the written word, and that’s the path I took. I have certainly fantasized about being a pro, and there are times when I have wished I was a famous guitarist, because that would be cool. Yet, from this vantage point, I can see that by not going pro, I avoided subjecting my music to the emotional abuse that doing any kind of art professionally can do to your inspiration.

So for me, the guitar remains confessor and comforter, an escape into the dream world of rock-and-roll divinity, and an enduring source of fun. I like it like that, but a couple of platinum disks to hang on the wall would be nice too <g>.

This is my dear friend, Tom Browning. I actually muffed the printing of this photo by not giving it enough exposure time on the enlarger so I drew in the outlines with an ink pen and liked the effect.