Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Cherry Weissenborn Yesterday

I get the occasional inquiry, "Why does your google image ("avatar") show you with a guitar instead of at your potter's wheel?"



Well, if you've read my blog much, you know that music is a real passion of mine. Beyond that though, that guitar I'm pictured with is both an anniversary gift from Dar, and it's the fine craftsmanship of a good friend, Jim Shenk, of Goshen, IN. That makes it an instrument I treasure doubly. And that picture was taken just seconds after I received the guitar. A very happy memory.


Jim calls his shop "Wooden Music"



I've spent many enjoyable hours up at Wooden Music, watching Jim work, enjoying his instruments and seeing the new ones as he finishes them, and playing music with Jim and the many other musicians who hang around the shop. There are always other musicians hanging around the shop. The area musicians are like iron filings, and Wooden Music is a big, powerful magnet that draws us all to it. I've written about Goshen and Wooden Music a few other times in this blog. If you put "Goshen" in the search box above, you'll find several other posts.


But the thing that precipitated yet another music-related post is that I just got pictures of Jim's latest creation -- a "Weissenborn" style guitar. A Weissenborn is one of several types of "lap style" guitars -- that is, they are made to be played while laying flat in the lap, and fretted with a bar of glass, steel, or some other similarly hard material.




Well, a couple of years back, Jim got an amazing board of cherry that had been cut nearby in Indiana. I had never seen anything like it. It was figured with as much "flame" as any flamed maple I'd ever seen. The pattern was regular, remarkable, and simply stunning to look at. And it was BIG. From this one board, Jim built a full 16" jumbo guitar, a small Gibson "L" shaped guitar, and now this Weissenborn.



1 comment:

  1. Are you gonna get one of those??? That one has a really nice sound to it!!!

    ReplyDelete