Home grown music... and musical instruments

Image Gallery Marc Bristol and other Washington State grassroots musicians wail away on a gutbucket, washboard, and jug ( the axe is a gag). For Marc's original homegrown music column ? which featured gutbucket, washboard, jug, kazoo, musical saw, and spoons ""makin' and playin'"" instructions ? see MOTHER NO. 50. Inset shows gutbucket ""notch and bevel"" details.

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Even homesteaders need to relax and enjoy themselves from time to time, right? And almost everybody these days wants to cut his or her cost of living. So how about a little do-it-yourself entertainment!

And that's what this column is all about. Down-home music that you can make . . . and the instruments (which, in some cases, you can also make!) to play that music on.

We may also publish some songs, discuss music as a potential home business, run discographies, bibliographies, and/or include whatever other do-it-yourself music topics you'd like to see.

The important thing is that this is your column. If you like it, write to me and let me know. If you have some ideas for this feature, let me know that. I'm open to any suggestions or information you care to contribute. I'll even try to answer your questions about down-home music . . . but — both for the benefit of all MOTHER's readers and to ease my correspondence load — I'll deal with those questions, whenever possible, here in this column . . . rather than in personal letters.

Address your correspondence for this column and this column only-to Marc Bristol, 31722 N.E. 180th Place, Duvall, Wash. 98019.

the lowdown on luthiers

Most homegrown musicians dream — at one time or another — of building their own guitars or mandolins or banjos . . . completely from scratch. And, since the publication of the first modern book on the subject (Classic Guitar Construction by Irving Sloan, E.P. Dutton, 1966), increasing numbers of folks have been building their own musicmakers. In fact, it seems that all the do-it-yourself movement needed to really "catch fire" was some how-to information . . . and when Mr. Sloan provided the necessary data, homegrown craftsfolk started turning up everywhere!

One sure sign of the number of people who are "building their own" is the fact that there's now an organization — with over 1,300 members — which functions as an information-sharing forum for "luthiers". Tim Olson, a founder of the Guild of American Luthiers and the editor of its quarterly magazine, defines luthier as "a person who handmakes any instrument" . . . although the term was originally applied only to lute builders. (Tim doesn't limit his definition to folks who work without the aid of power tools, but he does insist that a true luthier carries out each and every step in the instrument's construction him- or herself.)

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