Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Continuing the long-promised last-weekend weekend-before-last entry (I started writing this last week) ...

Sunday (2006-05-07) was a lower-key, lower-stress gig: about half of The Homespun Ceilidh Band playing more-ambiance-than-concert at a Children's Day at Riversdale, one of the historic house-museums in Prince George's County. The weather was even a tad nicer than the day before, and we set up under a canopy on the lawn. Because we were planning to mix in some English Country Dance tunes in addition to our usual lively Scottish & Irish dance music, I brought along the double-bass. So I was armed for bear: 6-string and 12-string guitars, rifle-case full or recorders, and the doghouse bass. I found a parking spot near the band, and since there were no stairs or curbs to deal with and the lawn looked fairly smooth, I screwed the wheel onto the endpin to move the bass from the car, instead of carrying it on my head.

So we played a couple of relaxed sets, sometimes with a small audience directly in front of us, sometimes with a few people at various distances turning to listen. And we were asked to play for the maypole, a short distance away.

And that's where one of the amusing bits comes in. We were asked to try to lead an audience over to the maypole, and I asked whether the schtick-value of playing the bass while walking was worth more than what it would cost in playing-accuracy. The consensus seemed to be that the cuteness factor would be a win, so I put the wheel back on the endpin and rolled it along behind the others as we walked over to the maypole playing the Furry Day Carol. A simple enough tune that the minor irregularities in the turf didn't throw me off enough for anyone else to notice. And now I can say that I've played marching double-bass. So there!

Because it was an explicitly children-oriented history event, with games and toys of the period when the house was built, I wasn't surprised that a number of kids were interested in the big instrument. So there was a bit of "instrument petting zoo" to the afternoon as I let a few children try dragging the bow across the strings, and played a few notes on the bass recorder for them.

Felicia had her bass viola da gamba there, of course. While she mostly played recorder when I was playing double bass, on a few tunes we did have both bass and double-bass going at the same time. Apparently I wasn't the only one who liked that sound, because at least one other member of the band commented on it.

A low-key, low-stress day, except for the bit where the nut^[1] of my 6-string guitar broke while I was playing it! We were playing Morrisson's Jig, which I do in dropped-D, and suddenly my tuning was off and my low string was buzzing like mad. Looking down, I saw that Something Was Wrong with my low string, so I wrapped my left thumb over it and played on. When we finished, I looked closer and realized what had happened. I made a joke about how instead of breaking a string this time, I'd broken my guitar, and switched to the 12-string for the rest of the performance. (Fortunately it was late in the day.) Of course I immediately broke a string on the 12-string -- go figure.

What was that about my luck? (A nut is not something that usually breaks on a guitar.)

So I wound up with bragging points for playing marching double bass, but also with a broken guitar. (And I think that's where I lost a pair of sunglasses, as well.) A mixed bag. Since I was already in PG County, I decided to go visit my mother in Bowie before heading back to Baltimore.

The week went to hell the following morning, with the illness I described in earlier journal entries, so it wasn't until Thursday or Friday that I finally got out to a music store to buy a new nut. Having a luthier carve a nut and fit it exactly to my guitar costs about $50 -- not a huge chunk of change for a repair, nor excessive for the kind of detailed job it is, but a major bite out of my budget. A bone nut blank -- just a piece of material roughly the right size and shape but without any grooves in it and no curve to match the fingerboard radius -- is only a few dollars, a plastic one being a little less. I should be able to carve a correct nut for my guitar from the bone blank that I bought, but it's a tedious process (probably a bit less so if I'd done it enough times to be good at it; I've only ever done it once before), and will be a pain to get exactly right. I've started shaping it but my number-one guitar is going to be out of commision for a bit longer. maugorn suggested that since Yamaha guitars are mass-produced, and it seems everyone and his brother has an FG-300 series axe in a closet (this is an FG-331 purchased in 1980), maybe Yamaha could sell me a nut already exactly shaped to my guitar as a stock replacement part. I've sent email to Yamaha but have not heard back yet. In theory, replacing the plastic factory nut with a bone one should change the tone of my guitar slightly, and in a way pretty much guaranteed to be an improvement according to nearly everyone's tastes (I considered carving one out of brass, but the sheet brass stock I've got is just a wee bit thinner than the old nut), but y'know, if I can get an exact replacement in plastic for only a couple dollars and save myself a week of fitting, measuting, removing, filing, refitting, ad nauseum, I'll take it. Until I hear back from Yamaha, I'm going to be working painstakingly with the needle files and the Dremmel.

For the record, bone dust smells wretched.

Next up: gig announcement for the coming weekend, and a writeup of the weekend just past.

[1] For anyone not familiar with guitar terminology: the nut is the [plastic, bone, or brass] thingie at the very top of the fingerboard, with grooves in it, that the strings pass over. So when it broke at the groove for the sixth string, there was no longer anything holding that string off the fingerboard or keeping it from sliding around.