I don’t know very much at all about this music, but I’ve been listening to quite a few videos on the YouTube machine featuring the garmon, and I’m fascinated by the sounds.
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Community Gardens in Sam Smith Park
Check out the Community Garden Proposal for Colonel Sam Smith Park. Interesting idea. Can the park sustain one more use? Is this the right place for a community garden? I need to go have a look at the proposed site. In general I like the idea of more gardens
Re-charging
Plugging in my brain to recharge for a couple days…regular programming will continue soon. In the meantime, you’ll have to find your own accordion music….
Garmon
The Garmon is a Russian free reed accordion-like instrument. Check it out in this wonderful video…
folks music
Oil Can Banjo…getting there
The oil can banjo is almost done. There are a few things I still need to work on. One of them has to do with the nut for the four main strings. When I strung the banjo, the nut appeared to be too low. This likely has to do with the angle of the neck so I spent some time making neck adjustments. I’m learning that this has to be just right, but getting is just right is another story. I have it about as good as I can get it. Right now I have a temporary fix going on with the nut, involving little folded up pieces of paper. The strings rest on the paper in the grooves and it keeps them a little higher. I also had to shorten my bridge a little. That took no time at all with a chisel and some sandpaper. I need to make a new tailpiece as well. I’m using a modified kitchen for for it but I drilled the fork poorly, causing it to sit centre. The result of this is that it pulls the highest string down, too close to the edge of the neck. I’ll find another fork and replace the tailpiece in the next few days. Here’s how it sounds….
Now to learn how to play it….
Frida and Diego with Tuffy, Les and Paul
The Art Gallery of Ontario has an exhibition on now called Frida and Diego, Passion, Politics and Painting. We met up with cousins Les and Paul in the lobby and checked out the exhibition this afternoon.
That’s Paul on the left and Les on the right and Tuffy P in the middle, hamming it up.
The exhibition was crowded today. It seems to have struck quite a chord with the public. The show isn’t just paintings. There is all kinds of info printed up on the walls, and loads of very posed photos of Frida and Diego and even a film projected on a wall. If you like that kind of multi-media approach to an art exhibition, this is the show for you. Listening to people at the exhibition, I’d say lots of people are as interested in the two artists and their biographies as much as their artwork. I’m going to confess up front I’m not a huge fan either of their work. That is to say that I’m familiar with it, but it has never piquThe Rivera murals are interesting to me, particularly in their historical context, but this exhibition was filled with easel paintings. There are some good works in the show to be sure, though. Among my favourites were 3 little drawings by Frida Kahlo done in the mid-40s. The show has a slogan: He painted for the people. She painted to survive. So there you have it. We’re all on a first name basis. You, me, Frida and Diego.
There is one painting I have to mention specifically here. I have to mention it because it might be the single worst painting I’ve ever seen at the AGO. It is a large nude called Dance to the Sun from 1942. It features a highly stylized figure with a rivet-like head and swooshy pointed body parts. Spectacular.
Paul asked us if we had seen the Thomson collection of model ships. I had no idea what he was talking about. I know about the Thomson collection at the AGO, which is really fantastic, but I had no idea Thomson collected model ships too. Paul assured us that he did and that they were on display in the basement. The size of the Thomson collection is so spectacular that I have to wonder what his days were like? He must have been collecting constantly. The model ships were a nice surprise. It’s a great collection of models. Some of them are quite large, several feet long, and many were made with delightful attention to detail. Some were made by prisoners of war – French sailors mostly. Wonderful stuff.
We had a great time this afternoon. After we left the AGO, Les and Paul treated us to dinner at pub around the corner. IPA and butter chicken – yum! Les and Paul have the ability to make any occasion a lot of fun. It was great seeing them today.
That’s Paul, Les and me, goofing around by the Henry Moore.
Canjo next steps
This is a little paper jig I made to mark my drill holes on the neck and on the piece of maple I’m using as a dowel stick.
You can see that I’ve drawn the placement of the neck on the can and marked the stick for drilling.
I drilled the holes in the neck for the dowels.
I glued the two dowels into the maple stick.
…then joined the stick to the neck using Gorilla Glue and the dowels.
I created a the hole in the can with a slot-head screwdriver and a mallet. I cut an X within the measured rectangle and bent the 4 sides down. I’ve tested the hole size with a spare piece of maple and it is just right. I’m going to let my glue dry and start making some soup for dinner. Tomorrow, I’ll try to establish the right angle for the neck, make the tailpiece and complete the assembly. I picked up some light gauge steel banjo strings today, so once assembly is complete I can string it up. It may take a bit of trial and error to establish just the right neck angle. Because I’m using 1X2 as a dowel stick, I’ll be able to create two points of contact on the tail for added stability.
Saturday mission…
Tomorrow, I’m going to try to find a good chunk of hardwood to use as a “dowel-stick” for my canjo. There are two other things I need as well – a kitchen fork that will work for a tail-piece and a set of banjo strings. I was going to make a bridge but found an inexpensive one for sale and will start with that. I’m considering trying a slightly different approach to the dowel-stick-neck-can assembly. Instead of forming the end of a stick to fit into a drilled hole in the neck, I’m thinking about drilling into the stick and the neck and joining them with 3/4 inch dowel and glue. For strings, I considered going with nylon, and using fishing line of various diameters, but I think I want to use light-gage steel strings, at least for now.
If I can find the materials I need, it’s possible I’ll have it built this weekend.
Let’s listen to a variety of home-made instruments just for fun….
Here’s Super Chikan playing the shotgun guitar…
How about a fry pan uke?
The bamboo bass..
You Are My Sunshine
The Gutter Sheiks…found on the YouTube machine
27th Street 