Steve Ball

Guitar Craft Guitar

Morning: calisthenics and sitting for three, breakfast for three and one baby-mama, then rehearsal for four. David LaVallee joined us for rehearsal and showed us his brand new Guitar Craft guitar:

This guitar plays wonderfully. It has some sonic "issues" in the low end, but the 'feel' is wonderful.

Then, rehearsal for upcoming House Concerts and live shows. In the works: new songs, a tight 3-guitar arrangement of Orphan and end-to-end acoustic version of the the Remembering. Fun stuff in the works.

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Responsibility

More from Hazrat Inayat Khan:

"Does this idea not make us responsible for every movement we make, for every thought we think, for every feeling that passes through our mind or heart? There is not one moment of our life wasted, if we only know how to utilize our activity here, how to direct our thought, how to express it in words, how to further it with our movement, how to feel it, so that it may make its own atmosphere. What responsibility! The responsibility that every man has is greater than a king's responsibility. It seems as if every man has a kingdom of his own for which he is responsible -- a kingdom which is in no way smaller than any kingdom known to us but incomparably larger than the kingdoms of the earth. This teaches us to be thoughtful and conscientious and to feel our responsibility at every move we make."

From The Mysticism of Sound and Music page 199
by Hazrat Inayat Khan

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A day of significance, a small turning point. A small team reached a tiny, but important milestone at work manifesting an idea that has been hovering in potential for the past few years.

Also, Mid-Year Career Discussions completed. Onward.

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A small thing

Such a great book:

"When a certain thing is being made, it is at that time that a life is put into it, which goes on and on as a breath in a body. This also gives us a hint that, when we take flowers to a patient and we have a healing thought with them, the flowers convey the thought of healing. As the patient looks at the flowers he will receive from them the healing which was put there. Any eatable or sweet, anything that we take to a friend with a thought of love - its use must create a harmonious, happy result for him.

Therefore every little thing given and taken in love, with a harmonious and good thought, has a greater value than the object itself; for it is not the object, it is what is behind it. Does this not teach us that it is not always doing or preparing things in our everyday life that counts, but that it is giving these things a life with a harmonious, constructive thought, so that our work may become a thousand times greater in effect and real value?

This also teaches us that while doing a small thing we should be accomplishing something very great if we did it with this attitude, with this idea at the back of it: that we are not only making a thing, but we are making it living.

Does this not open before us a vast field of work that we could do easily without much cost or effort? In its result that work could be of a much greater importance than anyone could think or imagine. Is it not at the same time a great blessing to be able to do a thing of great importance without any outward pretence?"

more from The Mysticism of Sound and Music page 190
by Hazrat Inayat Khan

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Update from Sandra on another continent: Jonathan still sells GC strings.

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Guitar Craft: 22 Year Anniversary

Still feels like only the beginning: Twenty-two years ago today, the first Guitar Craft course began. Quietly sending Happy Anniversary wishes to GC friends and family all over the globe.

Side note: interesting to see how imprecise, inaccurate and shallow that Wiki blurb is. It's been edited about thirty times. It has the tone and flavor of a government brochure, produced by the current administration. Of course, how could we possibly represent 22 years of rich history involving thousands of individuals all over the world in a couple of paragraphs?

Luckily, the web is not a constrained container that is only limited to a couple of paragraphs. And luckily, Wikis (supposedly) allow groups to share experiences and definitions for both common consumption and authoring.

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Last Friday: Nice email from ArchieK who found me via DennisT, ChrisS and luthier Ben Crowe inquiring about what strings I use on my Taylor guitar.

I let them know that I use the ‘recommended’ gauges: 11, 13, 22, 32, 47, 59

The strings I use were formerly supplied by Jonathan Brainin from the NJ Guitar Circle with some beautiful packaging designed (I believe) by Pablo Mandel:

Not sure if Jonathan is still selling these -- perhaps someone could share a link to a current source for strings? I currently have a sufficient supply to get me through the rest of this year, but will begin looking soon for more.

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Evening: more work on the song version of "Undertone" after dinner with Regina's mom and sister.

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Undertone

Late Night Work: Undertone (4.0M mp3).

"In tenderness of heart the tone turns into a half-tone, and with the breaking of the heart the tone breaks into microtones. The more tender the heart becomes, the fuller the tone becomes. The harder the heart grows, the more dead it sounds.

Each note, each scale, and each strain expires at the appointed time, and at the end of the soul's experience here the finale comes. But the impression remains, as a concert in a dream, before the radiant vision of the consciousness.

With the music of the Absolute the bass, the undertone, is going on continuously. But on the surface beneath the various keys of all the instruments of nature's music, the undertone is hidden and subdued. Every being with life comes to the surface and again returns whence it came, as each note has its return to the ocean of sound. The undertone of this existence is the loudest and the softest, the highest and the lowest. It overwhelms all instruments of soft or loud, high or low tone, until all gradually merge in it. This undertone always is, and always will be."

from The Mysticism of Sound and Music
page 166, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

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Earlier: energizing Saturday morning rituals today beginning with calesthenics and sitting for three, then morning rehearsal and an impromptu concert for Regina and her mom. Three part harmonies are really coming together nicely. Then, some inspiring progress on our three piece version of The Remembering.

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Sunday: the 22nd anniversary of Guitar Craft and Regina's baby shower. Anticipating some fun phone calls to global mobile family and friends.

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Hard Intangibles

Evening Work: Hard Intangibles (5.6M mp3).

Title inspired by a wonderful conversation last week with friend and former mentor, Pierre de Vries.

From Pierre:

"Back to Gardner’s multiple intelligences: he showed pretty conclusively that IQ tests just measured linguistic and mathematical facility, and that there were at least five other important skills that IQ tests didn’t track."

This 100% improvised piece poured out this evening after a long week and productive morning of hum emimination with Lee and Paul in the Creative Space.

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Despite the recent relative silence here, February and March have been wonderfully wall-to-wall busy and productive months.

I may or may not attempt to back-fill details regarding Dan and Pam's new baby, a House Concert with a new drummer, an exciting new sound design project, a new book from Duncan, Ultrasound #2, work, play, fun and even phone and email tag with old sister Juanita D. Kahan-ita.

Just because we take a pause from documenting it on the web, our intense presence in minute to minute, hour to hour, and day to day work and play still rockets on at 1000 mph.

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