Guitar project essentially completed. Body is made of elm. Bridge pickup is a Dimarzio Mo Joe and I’m going to add a neck pickup later (maybe a Humbucker from Hell). Also the body and the pickguard could use some final touches (the curves are not totally smooth). I might leave the body as it is or just put an oil finish later on.
Guitar sounds nice (bit on the darker side), but the tuning might be a problem because the neck pocket is a bit rough. I’ll have to put proper strings on it and see.
Something I recorded while practicing on the saxophone. Just playing random stuff. I think my tone is starting to be pretty tolerable. Now I’ve been playing the sax precisely six months.
I read Hesse’s Siddhartha few months ago. I liked it and understood it mostly. But tonight the final piece of the puzzle dawned on me while watching the Finnish movie Miesten vuorolla.
I’m not going to elaborate on the book, I recommend it and it is pretty short so read it yourself if you are interested. Shortly it is a book about enlightenment and specifically one person’s enlightenment. The movie on the other hand is a movie (very documentary like) about Finnish men and what they talk about with each other in sauna. The stories they tell are pretty rough and sad.
In Siddhartha there seem to be stages of living. One is to live “normally” with all the sorrows and joys without thinking life very deeply and also be distracted by non-essential things all the time. Another one is to be more aware of yourself, how your thoughts and emotions affect you and of your environment and your part in it. This easily leads to pride: you think you are bit (or a lot) better than those people with not that strong awareness. Also in the end you have to live your life and not use the quest for enlightenment as an escape.
The relationship between these stages is contradictory and it seems to be hard to find the balance. In the the end of the book Siddhartha finds the balance. Enlightenment is to just be the river of life, to be a part of it. The river doesn’t judge or feel attachment, it just flows.
— Thelonious Monk
I work @ Equal Dreams
Saxophone player, guitar tweaker, programmer
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