Chance encounters are not as rare as one might think.  But, quality chance encounters are a little more unusual.  I came to know of Todd Crespi through just that: a quality chance encounter.  After perusing DC's numerous musician's services classified listings, I found one that specifically requested musicians for an improvisation performance/event at Studio Gallery in DC; I immediately dropped the artist a line with a link to my website.  Without much ado, we corresponded back and forth and he invited me to perform at his show closing at Studio Gallery in DC this weekend.

I've always loved art galleries for music performances because, in general, it seems that the crowds who frequent these venues come with open ears and open minds.  These shows tend to be laid back, relaxing, and a lot of fun to play.  I should point out that there will be other musicians at the show, none of whom I know, so I cannot give an accurate depiction of what exactly we'll be playing or how we'll be playing it, since I don't even know for sure at this juncture.  This makes the performance more fun for me, because I really enjoy the challenge of matching my sound to fit into a new ensemble and musical context.  My best bet is that we'll meander through a series of on-the-spot creations that will veer off in the direction of beautiful and ethereal string/ambient music.  It should be a good time for all...

Come show your support for an excellent visual artist and some local musicians: Free Performance, Studio Gallery in Washington D.C. from 5-10 PM this Saturday, August 28, 2010

More on Todd Crespi at:  www.toddcrespi.com
More on Studio Gallery in DC:  www.studiogallerydc.com

Martin Guitars introduced their innovative Sustainable Wood/Smartwood Series of guitars several years ago, much to the delight of environmentally conscious musicians everywhere.  Thanks to my very thoughtful and totally-bodacious-babe (my fiancé), I'm fortunate to be the owner of a new Martin SWDGT dreadnaught from the Smartwood Series of instruments (for more on the Martin SWDGT).  Since this sweet guitar is a wedding gift, I'm not actually allowed to play it on a regular basis until we're married.  Fret not (pun intended) though, I'll make sure it's well-cared for, humidified, and regularly tuned during it's winter hibernation. 

The guitar's neck, back, and sides are made from sustainably grown cherry (Forestry Stewardship Council Certified).  The gloss top is treated with an aging toner to add warmth and is made from rescued Sitka spruce.  The fingerboard and bridge are katalox - a very dense hardwood that is used in place of ebony or rosewood.  The headstock has gold gotoh tuners with a tortoise color plating and gold logo stamp.  The guitar's back, sides, and top are bound in the same tortoise color used for the headstock and pickguard.  I absolutely love the understated look of the satin finish on the back and sides in contrast with the gloss top Sitka spruce.  The headstock provides an understated flash, and the body binding is a tasteful touch. The overall look of the instrument is warm, mellow, and beautifully parsimonious.

The interesting thing about the Sitka spruce used in this guitar is that it was actually en route to a diaper plant.  Yes, the spruce  in my lovely axe was actually going to be ground into pulp and used in diapers.  The good people at Martin caught wind of this nonsense and decided to rescue this fine wood for their guitars.  Gayla Drake Paul of premierguitar.com explains:  "The supplier that Martin gets their tops from a pulp mill that was grinding up Sitka spruce logs to a fine powder and making diapers from them. The supplier taught the company to identify the kind of grain that Martin wants for tops and made arrangements to rescue those logs, which Martin jokingly calls “diaperwood.” According to Dick Boak, Director of Artist and Limited Editions at Martin, it’s not Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) certified Sitka, but since they’re rescuing it from a fate worse than death, they’ve chosen to include it in their Sustainable Wood Series."  The final appointments on the instrument are beautiful and subtle.  While this guitar is not designed to aesthetically compete with the Martin D-28 or D-35 models, the sound of the SWDGT is actually very comparable to those models.   

How does it sound?  I've included a very short sound clip that I just recorded this morning.  I think it shows the warmth of the SWDGT's tone. The first thing I noticed about this guitar is that, like my cello, the sustain is shockingly good.  Describing the nuances of how various tonewoods sound in any concrete detail is challenging due to the subjectivity of how we hear - so I won't try too hard here.  I will say that I think cherry finds itself somewhere in between rosewood and mahogany on the tonewood spectrum; while the bass is very large and robust, it isn't excessively boomy at all.  This guitar has a unique tone that I love!  It's also one of the louder guitars I've ever played, but its overtones neither lose transparency in sustain nor distort when strummed hard.  Chords are very clear, but there is an undeniable warmth in the sound.  It's hard to quantify, but it's a classic "Martin" sound.  The mids and trebles on the guitar are fat and thick, and the sound is surprisingly well-suited to fingerstyle playing.  I'd expect many bluegrass and blues players would find this to be an appealing match.

I'm really looking forward to recording with this beauty.  For now though, I'm going to practice some self-restraint and go hug my fiancé (and/or a tree) until I can hug this guitar again (which was once a tree...kind of?)...

(Photos taken by me, Evan Setzer)

Let’s get this straight – guitars and cellos are not on completely disparate ends of the stringed instrument spectrum.  There are, of course, many differences between the two, but they’re ultimately much more alike than they are dissimilar.  Here’s my point: I think guitars have been victims of an important design deficiency for many years.  More specifically, the way sound is allowed (or disallowed) to sustain in guitars is precisely where I believe the deficiency lies.  I think it’s worth writing about, and apparently many luthiers (who are far more knowledgeable than me!) have thought it’s worth addressing too.  Enter Batson Guitars, based out of Nashville.

Even though guitar was my first love, I believe the cello has a superior method for sustaining sound than the guitar.  I’m not saying the cello sounds superior – of course they neither sound superior nor inferior to one another – I’m just saying the cello has a better system for producing and sustaining sound than the guitar.  While this is just my opinion, it seems that proportionally, the cello is able to pull more resonance from its body than the guitar.  Both instruments sound unique and beautiful in their own right – please don’t misconstrue this as an argument for one instrument being “better” than the other.  I’m just saying that in this specific area, cellos may have more efficient mechanisms for producing and sustaining their sound, and perhaps guitar makers could use this collective knowledge to their advantage.  Now that’s out of the way…

Of course, the cello is a larger bodied instrument which uses thicker strings stimulated via a bow (much better sustain here  for that fact alone – in some ways, it’s endless), but cellos nonetheless employ substantive innovations (if you still think of these as “innovations” instead of “standards” 300-400 years later) that allow more freedom in vibration, and thus yield more resonant and voluminous sound production.

1. Use the soundhole on the side bracing instead of the instrument’s top.  I’d never thought of it quite like the fellows at Batson Guitars, but it’s true: the guitar is basically a resonating membrane.  To cut a large hole in the top part of the membrane robs the instrument of its ability to vibrate.  Of course side bracing vibrates too, but the tops and backs of guitars (and cellos) are the primary sources of resonance in sound production.  By allowing more surface area to vibrate, you increase the potential for longer sustain, louder volume, and a little known point, you also decrease the likelihood or prominence of feedback in amplified environments (aka: The Larsen Effect – another post entirely).  Cellos still use f-holes, but they’re very small in proportion to the instrument’s size – still, I wonder what a cello with soundholes on the bracing would sound like…
2. Use a cantilevered fingerboard.  This allows the fingerboard to be raised above the actual body of the guitar (it’s still attached to the neck) so that again, body resonance is not impeded.  By allowing the fingerboard to come off of the guitar’s body, you do create some complexities in setting and adjusting the instrument’s action/intonation.  First, you’ve raised the height required at the saddle and you’ve also changed the distribution of tension across the instrument.  As far as I’m concerned, you’ve released focused and excessive tension on the top of the guitar, thus allowing for greater resonance.  (See the picture on the right for the way a cello’s fingerboard is raised…)
3. Use a tailpiece instead of a string-through bridge.  Tailpieces connect to the side bracing (allowing more resonance) and also vibrate much more than a fixed bridge would.  Because the strings are not strung through the top of the guitar, the top wood (usually spruce) is again freed up to resonate even more.  This also reduces, as I said before, pressure being concentrated on one part of the instrument’s top material.  This will make a guitar that freely resonates with less effort.  This most likely increases the life span of the instrument too (very old guitars often have warped tops from maladjusted tension at the bridge).
4. Batson Guitars does some fancy dancing with their internal bracing.  I’m not sure I can really speak too much about the merits of this technique since I’m not particularly well studied on instrument brace construction.  In any case, the idea is that they use less wood  on their internal braces (providing support to the instrument), which allows the guitar more freedom to vibrate.  Seems logical enough... 

These methods of construction really don’t change the appearance of a guitar too drastically, but they do quite different from a traditional guitar.  I suggest you take a look at Batson Guitars’ amazing instruments for yourself.  Like them or not, they certainly appear to be intelligently thought-out examples of tasteful creativity in new guitar construction.  Well done!

(Photos taken from www.consumingworship.org, www.mdturnerphotography.com, and www.wilkecellos.com)

This is a 1904 Ludwig piano I recently received as a gift from family (the moving of this monster was also a gift from a friend - thank you!).  It came from my family's church, and the history before that is a mystery to me.  I am fascinated by pianos.  Not only are they incredibly complex instruments, but they have the finest catalog of solo and chamber repertoire I could imagine.  Be it classical, jazz, or rock, pianos rock.  

I feel like Michelangeli on this thing!  Okay, that's a stretch.  After all, I’m surviving on two years of piano lessons from my music school days.  But when I sit down to play the worn ivory keys (yes, they're real), I feel a creative energy that is very humbling and very cool.  Just imagine the history before me: How many people also sat down to make music at this very piano?  How many homes and churches has it seen?  Since it pre-dates World War I, I’d bet quite a few.  I realize a piano like this would leave much to be desired for a more technically skilled player, but I'm none the wiser.  It’s great to compose on a new instrument (to me) with a new sound (to me).

A piano technician is coming by soon for: 1) a proper tuning (the intonation isn’t too bad, all things considered), and 2) a discussion about my long-term goal for a potential restoration (at least action regulation and voicing, perhaps beyond...).  No doubt a full restoration would be very expensive, but in spite of the fact that it’s not a valuable piano from a financial perspective, I’d like to think there’s honor in preserving an instrument with so many stories and mysteries behind it.  Besides, even if I went out and bought a new piano of similar size, it’d be void of the history I appreciate.  Welcome home...

A little over a year ago my good buddy, Burton, passed on. Always the sophisticated canine, he enjoyed long and contemplative walks, savoring his meals, and midair flight (this pooch could jump).  Be well, old friend.

There's a new song, Song For Burton, on the media page.  Enjoy...

(Photo by Emily Sister - www.emilysetzer.com)

Check out a new track Daggers In Disguise on the media page.  Hope you enjoy... 

More to come very soon!