God''s Mercy to a Partially Tone Deaf Would-Be Musician

I am not a natural musician. My wife, Sheila, has perfect pitch and in high school her band teacher offered to get her a college music scholarship for the oboe, a particularly difficult instrument to play. I envy her. Me? I can barely hold a tune in a fair-sized bucket, but it helped a lot when Bob LeBard, my Valley Grande Academy chorale director, stood me between Dave Dameron and Steve Urich, two strong basses. It took me two years to learn to hear notes well enough to tune my guitar by ear. 

Before that I made use of a principle of physics/acoustics that allowed me to hold down the 5th fret of the sixth string and adjust the fifth string so that it vibrates when you strike the sixth string. Then I'd follow the pattern down to the first string. I could only get the guitar in the neighborhood of in tune. Dave would ask me, "Can't you hear that?" when I played my "tuned" guitar.  I couldn't. I just handed him my guitar. Eventually, I got to where if I struck the fretted sixth and the open 5th string at the same time I could adjust the 5th string till the note didn't warble.
 

God gave me this guitar. When I was first starting out playing guitar I had bought a beautiful solid blonde Mexican guitar from Kim Holdridge for $6. The strings were broken and the nut was missing. I replaced the nut and bought new strings and found I had a most lovely sounding classical guitar. Sadly a couple of summers later someone knocked it off the counter in the camp store and broke the neck. The lovely folk I worked with at Lone Star Camp all chipped in and surprised me with a new Yamaha classical. It died a few years after that in an accident - broken neck again. 

 

At the time, Mickey Thurber played a classical Goya guitar with the AYA team and I always wanted one. I've had two 12 string guitars. One died the same way as the little Mexican. My son lost the other one. I carried my instruments everywhere so it was kind of inevitable that wear and tear would have its toll. I lost 3 banjos one way and another over the years and I'm on my 4th and 5th. David Dameron who lived through a year of listening to me learn the guitar across the hall in the dorm at VGA. He gave me a banjo he had that needed repair. I bought some tools and repaired it not knowing what I was doing. I even straightened up the neck. Before that, I had built a Squared-Eel homemade longneck banjo from a kit my friend Mike Gregory sent me because he felt sorry that I'd lost my last banjo. I was getting good, because I extended the neck to make a longneck out of it. The head was a 2 liter pop bottle I tacked over the frame and shrunk with a hair dryer. Totally cool.

 

My best guitar (the one in the picture above) I found on eBay. It was a Swedish Goya like Mickey's, built in Gothenberg, Sweden before 1972. Some fool had tried to put steel strings on it and ripped off the bridge. I replaced the broken bridge by reading about bridge placement and my little Goya sings as beautifully as my old Mexican. God has been good about keeping me in good musical instruments and I've learned a lot about repairing and building instruments. I'm hoping to build a church dulcimer soon. It's rectangular rather than hourglass or oval shaped. I suspect it has a more low tone.

I've got the tools and I've got the web address of StewMac, a luthier supply place and a membership at Banjohangout.org where the guys love to give out advice if you get stuck. They turned out for me to be kindred spirits, which for banjo players is kind of like when your wife leaves you home alone without competent supervision. 

 

The best part of my musical journey is that I learned you don't have to be a professional musician or be in a band if you're too lazy to practice. I never got very good, but if, like me, you play off and on for 45 years you can follow along with "Awesome God." You can just play well enough to be in the church song service band and Kumbaya for campfires. Learn some chords. Simplify the arrangements. Make yourself a notebook of all the songs you like and do like our ancestor did and sit out on the porch where you won't bother your wife with the perfect pitch. The dogs will howl along with you. It's so special.

 

 

(c) 2024 by Tom King