Just a note before we start. Most of you know that I attend a writing workshop once a year for a week. In fact, that's how some of us met. We're in the middle of Freefall 2018 and Barbara, the leader, suggested that since I had a captive audience (my words - not hers) I might try posting some of what I write during the workshop on my blog. For those of you familiar with the Freefall procedures, don't worry: this one isn't going to be read to the group. It probably not terribly interesting to someone who doesn't follow me. It may not be that interesting here and I won't mind at all if you click away. What I seem to be doing lately is autobiography thinly disguised as fiction. You will recognize a bunch of it from the post about ukuleles but here goes anyway. This is also a chance for me to see how a different format imported from my word processor translates to Blogger. Cheers.
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They
sat in Timmy's not far from her house. The meeting was at his
invitation. He wanted to know why she was the only woman who had
stuck with the club for more than a few meetings. When he phoned
earlier in the week she thought the question was kind of dumb.
Shouldn't he be asking some of the women who had joined and then not
shown up more than once? They sipped their tea and he asked, “Is it
because the club is basically a bunch of old white guys in plaid
shirts?”
She
laughed, “Personally, I don't care if it's a bunch of purple aliens
with green noses. I want to talk wood and that's what we do. I'll
talk wood with anyone who will listen.” He nodded. Conversation
rambled for a while. The membership was aging. Young men would join
occasionally and then fall away. The club was withering. What to do.
She thought but didn't say that he was talking to the wrong person.
She liked the format of the meetings and looked forward to seeing the
guys she had come to know well. She didn't have the answers he
wanted. She was glad when he moved away from the club and they
started to talk about recent projects.
He
was building a set of 8 dining room chairs. “What are you working
on?” he asked.
“I'm
building a dulcimer for the 2X4 contest.”
“A
dulcimer. I never would have thought of that. Are you using a
standard, off-the-shelf 2X4 or are you using equivalent volume?”
“Just
an ordinary cedar 2X4 I got from Lowe's. It's actually going to sound
pretty good and I've got enough wood that I can make a few mistakes,
which is good.”
“Have
you built an instrument before?”
“No,
but I've had in the back of my mind for a few years now that I'd like
to build a ukulele.”
“My
friends Charlene and Bill built ukuleles with Brian Wilson. They
turned out pretty well.”
She
laughed. “I don't think I've got the skills for that yet. I'm
working up to it. For Christmas this year I made some, well, I call
them flippers – spatulas I guess for flipping eggs as you cook
them. I wanted to learn to bend wood and I figured that was a good
way to start.”
“Have
you got a bending iron?”
“No,
I went and got a muffler tip from Canadian Tire for about 20 bucks
and mounted it in a block of wood that I clamp to my bench. I know
the standard way to make one is to take a piece of pipe and heat it
up with a propane torch but I don't want an open flame in my shop.
You can probably do it safely but I'm not fond of fire at the best of
times and my shop's pretty dusty most of the time. I bought a pretty
good heat gun. I put that in a couple of clamps so it will stand by
itself and then clamp the muffler tip so it slides over the end of
the gun. It works pretty well.”
“You
know, Charlene doesn't have woodworking experience. She works in
stone and mosaic tile and Dave's done a bit of woodwork but not
much.”
“Sounds
cool, but I really don't think I'm good enough yet.”
“If
you'll pardon me for saying so, that's bullshit. If they can do it
you certainly can do it and what are you waiting for.”
She
was silent for a moment. “It's certainly is tempting.”
“Were
you at the meeting where Brian came and talked about his instruments
and then played a set after the break?”
“No
I'd promised to be somewhere else and I really kicked myself
afterwards,”
“He's
an amazing musician and he phoned me the next day all chuffed because
he sold more cd's to our guys than his did at his last concert. You
should give him a call.”
“I
might just do that, although the thought of actually building an
instrument is pretty intimidating. Do you have his number?”
“I
do and I'll send it to you.” He pulled out his phone and she did
too. In a couple of seconds her phone buzzed.
“Thanks,”
she said before they went on to talk of other things.
At
the door on their way out he stopped, “Seriously, give him a call.
What are you waiting for?”
She
nodded and they went their separate ways, he to his car and she down
the sidewalk in the opposite direction. The winter wind stung her
face as she walked but the possibilities bubbled warm inside her.
Could she really do this? What would it be like to actually play an
instrument you'd made with your own hands. It was scary, a decision
significant enough to change your life almost like saying yes to a
marriage proposal. She smiled at the silliness of that analogy,
still.... She touched the phone in her pocket.
During
the day it snowed, again, and she shovelled the walk three or four
times. The cat needed to be fed. The cat needed to be petted. Dinner
needed to be cooked and the dishes done. With only herself to worry
about she didn't bother with the dishwasher.
Over
the next month she worked on the dulcimer, made parts, broke parts,
made replacement parts, changed the design as the result of broken
parts. It was pretty crude but she loved to run her fingers over the
wood and hear the swish of her skin against the wood amplified.
Several times she looked up the number but never found the courage to
dial. She watched all the YouTube videos she could find on dulcimer
building, ukulele building, guitar building. One morning she sat down
and wrote and email to Brian. Emails were less scary than talking to
strangers on the phone. She could take her time, select her words
carefully, make sure she got the tone right. The email took a long
time but finally she held her breath and pressed 'send.'
She
didn't think too much about it then. Brian was probably really busy;
he might not be taking on students right now. In a way she felt
relieved. About a week later she saw an email from Brian in her
inbox. The last question in her email was, “Would I be able to
build a concert ukulele with you? I know you probably have a waiting
list of students and I'm not in a hurry.” She opened the email. It
was short: “Yes!!! Phone me,” and there was a different number
than the one she had.
Before
she could stop herself she dialled the number. When he answered she
introduced herself and gave the context of the email. He said he was
in Hawaii, that he would be home in about a week and she should call
him then. He might have a spot opening in mid February. She thanked
him and, with a trembling hand, put down the phone.
She
gave it 10 days. He would be busy unpacking. He would be
jet-lagged. She phoned. He explained that usually he ran the
instrument building course as and 8 week residential but he had had
students lately who drove up to his small town once or twice a week
to work on the build. They settled on a start date. She rearranged
her schedule.
The
night before their first meeting she packed the car, sleeping bag,
candles, matches. She had lived in the mountains and driven her share
of icy roads. Old habits die hard.
The
first morning was clear and bright; the roads were dry. She arrived
early and, not wanting to seem to eager, she explored the small town.
Subway, pizza joint, gas station, drug store, hardware store. She
pulled up to his house at exactly 10:00. The snow was deep in the
front yard and there was a drift against the front door. Footprints
led around the side of the house. She followed them around the the
back, climbed the steps and knocked at the back door.
Brian
opened the door, “Aloha, welcome here.” He gestured to the
stairway leading into the basement. She didn't know what she expected
but his appearance was striking. He was stalky, on the short side. He
wore a t-shirt and over that a long-sleeved plaid shirt. On his head
was a dew rag and as he turned to go downstairs, she noticed the long
skinny braid that reached half way down his back. She wasn't quite
sure what she expected a luthier to look like but this was definitely
a surprise.
At
the bottom of the stairs they turned right into what looked like it
had once been the living room of a suite. In the centre was a round,
white table strewn with tools, bits of shell, bits of sand paper,
masking tape and three or four different kinds of glue. On the far
side of the table was a vise with a flat plywood form clamped into
it. On the form, upside down, lay the top of a ukulele.
“This
is where I do most of the work that doesn't involve machines. I have
a shop in the garage where I have the band saws, the jointer and the
thickness sander. I'll show you that in a minute. Got any idea what
wood you want to use?”
“Not
really, other than I want a spruce top. My favourite classical guitar
has a spruce top and I love the brightness of it.”
“Then
I have something I think you may like.” He showed her a good
portion of his wood collection, exotics he had picked up along the
way, a huge stock of koa which is now endangered and isn't being
allowed out of the Hawaiian Islands anymore, and an ebony carving of
a cat that he had picked up at a second hand store. The cat was
missing one side of it's body because Brian was cutting strips from
it to make finger boards. “Do you know how much this would cost,”
he gestured to the cat, “to buy this much ebony, if you could even
get it?”
She
laughed, “Probably four arms and two legs.”
He
smiled. “That's pretty right,” he said as they continued the
tour. There was wood under the bed in the spare bedroom, wood in the
room where he did his hand work, wood in the kitchen of the old suite
and once they got out to the garage shop, there was a back room with
hardly enough room to squeeze into. There was a solid door. It was
koa. Raw material for instruments.
Then
there were the instruments themselves. In the garage were several
guitars in various states of disrepair. One had a hole in the top,
another a crooked neck and a third had water damage along one side.
In one corner stood an oud with its top in splinters.
Back
in the house Brian took her into the living room and showed her the
guitar he had made when he was studying to become a luthier. It was a
beautiful classical with a cedar top and mahogany back and sides. He
took it from its case, sat down on the couch and ripped off the first
part of Recuerdos de la Alhambra, a difficult classical guitar piece
she had just started to learn before she gave up the instrument.
“Wow!”
was all she could say when he put the guitar back into its case.
“Ya,”
he smiled, “I did my grade 10 classical guitar when I was about 18.
People think I'm a pretty hot player now but I'm nothing to what I
was then.”
He
went on to explain his process for building a guitar. He was trained
in the Spanish style. Most guitar makers, even the ones who hand
build, attach the neck to the body of the instrument with a heel
block and a dovetail so that the body can be worked on separately and
the neck connected late in the process. The Spanish style involves a
one piece neck that is carved by hand and has precise recesses on
either side at the base. It's into these slots that the sides are
fitted. “It enables me to build a stronger lighter guitar,” he
explained. “I use the same method to build my ukuleles.”
“We
start with the top. The top is the heart of the instrument. It's the
most important part in terms of sound. If the top isn't good there's
no way the instrument will sound good. It's very precise. You have to
make sure that the pieces that should touch each other, touch each
other all the way along and that when pieces shouldn't touch, they
don't otherwise you'll get a buzz or a dull sound. I build with both
an arched top and an arched back. While it's not uncommon on guitars,
I don't know of anyone else who does it on ukuleles and I've come up
with some ways to do it that make the process easier.”
They
paused for lunch and walked to the Subway a few blocks away. He had
soup without any bread. He was gluten intolerant She had chilli and
bought lunch for them both.
By
5:00 when she left for home her head was spinning and she wondered
what on earth she had let herself in for. On the drive home she put
on a whodunit audio book and tried not to think of the homework she
had for the next week.
