|
frightening awareness that has
to be |
|
captured
in a frame of beautiful |
|
freedom and the reach for some
skills of |
|
expression. For me, at the time, learning |
|
to play the guitar was one
of the ways to |
|
fulfill these needs. |
| |
|
With the few savings I had, I
bought a |
|
second-, second- or even more second- |
|
hand electric guitar, trusting
that the old |
|
radio I used as an amplifier to my own |
|
built record-player, would
carry these |
|
tunes too. At a whispering level it did, a |
|
fact that was welcomed by
all the family |
|
but me. |
|
So soon I traded this guitar for another
|
|
self-made one
that was as well an
|
|
acoustic- as an electric guitar. The man
|
|
who sold me this
guitar gave me also a
|
|
few lessons, a birthday gift from my
|
|
parents. However,
this man being a
|
|
trumpet player, perhaps but a
|
|
sales-man certainly, soon reached
the
|
|
end of his knowledge of how to play the
|
|
guitar. So than all the rest I
learned
|
|
myself, mainly according to the songs
|
|
of those days.
|
| |
|
Both guitars, the Italian one of
my sister |
|
who stopped playing it, and my own that |
|
I rebuilt and changed its
colour from |
|
madder deep red into a fine polished |
|
zinc white, had to my taste a too limited |
|
expression reach. But I definitely
lacked |
|
the money for buying a 'real' guitar that |
|
would suit
my needs and wants better. |
|
So in my summer
holidays I disobeyed |
|
my family and took
for a month a job |
|
as a street cleaner, also
definitely a |
|
forming experience, but that
is another |
|
story. With the money earned
I bought |
|
a very
nice Japanese guitar. I
trusted the |
|
Japanese as instrument
builders having |
|
a
tradition of their own in creating good |
|
string music instruments. They also tried |
|
to conquer the Western market, I knew. |
|
So the offer was, as hoped, an extreme |
|
nice guitar for a
relatively small price. |
|
A match I only could afford on the very |
|
last day of my summer job. |
| |
|
I use phosphor bronze snares on it. It |
|
sounds simply beautiful. I have never |
|
regretted buying this six stringed |
|
'Emperador', neither the effort that |
|
enabled me to do so. |
| |
|
|
| "The
Guitar - Guitarist" |
| Herbert
ten Thij, oil - painting on panel. |
| |
|
On a sunny Saturday morning in my first |
|
year as a student I strolled on the Oude |
|
Gracht (Old Canal Street) in Utrecht.
I |
|
had an appointment
with a friend, but I |
|
was a little too early. So I could visit
first |
|
a little music shop in that street, that
was |
|
only open on Saturdays. I had the habit |
|
those days to listen to twelve stringed |
|
guitars where ever I encountered them. |
|
Most of the time the guitars offered were |
|
very disappointing, mainly because
they |
|
were not really built as twelve stringed |
|
instruments, but as common
six |
|
stringed ones and only poorly adjusted. |
|
Also this time I handed back the
last of |
|
the three displayed guitars I tried with a |
|
dark look of dissatisfaction
on my face. |
|
The shop owner who had listened to my |
|
playing with some interest,
stopped me |
|
when I was about to leave the shop. He |
|
had another guitar that had a
little |
|
damage from its shipment, but that |
|
nevertheless could be of my
interest. I |
|
must admit that I did not have much |
|
expectations, believing more his
selling |
|
intentions than other plausible motives. |
|
He went for this guitar to his
storage |
|
space in the cellar of the house. I waited |
|
and waited. When he got back I |
|
immediately
recognized he carried a |
|
Japanese made instrument. All the |
|
waiting was forgotten instantly. And it |
|
sounded nice. And it ringed clear. And it |
|
wept so gently. All as probably |
|
voices of angels would be. At last I |
|
found a real twelve stringed guitar ! |
|
Because it was damaged - only a few |
|
scratches on the back and a glue-able |
|
crack in the bottom side - its price could |
|
be managed. Later I learned that I |
|
acquired a top instrument for only a |
|
fraction
of its worth. Sometimes you |
|
have to be lucky, it seems. But that is |
|
perhaps of little
interest here. I have put |
|
silver strings on it to complete its sound |
|
even more pleasantly. It is always a joy |
|
to play this guitar. |
|
Fate or fortune, I am
grateful anyway. |
| |
|
Nice stories have to end sadly, they say, |
|
as life so often does. I don't know. I am |
|
only angry about the loss of those
vast |
|
seas of time I once could sail on and that |
|
I enjoyed so much. Nowadays too many |
|
obligations take my daylight hours. As a |
|
result also my guitars mostly hang on the |
|
wall of
my study. The dark sound holes |
|
in them seem as pharaoh's mouths |
|
waiting silently for their soul to return. |
|
So they
shortly speak history now most |
|
of the time. |
|
Someday perhaps -hopefully than- they |
|
will sing again more often as they once |
|
used to do, playing their part to
make |
|
time sound and share it with me at the |
|
same time too. |
| |
|
|
| |
|
Here after you may find three more pages |
|
with also some guitar music performed. |
|
These pages are about illustrations and
|
|
compositions.
First you hear one
piece and |
|
you will see one half of a white fox in the
light. |
|
Next you
will hear the second piece and you
|
|
will see another half of the same
white fox by
|
|
the completing angle of light. Than you may |
|
enjoy the
synthesis of both pieces and also |
|
the whole composition of the figure.
|
|
Just click
here
or on the little white fox below
|
|
and there you go.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
