Thursday, May 19, 2011

Who says you need to buy a guitar?



I had to post a couple of videos from my friend Zeke Leonard.  In addition to being a very talented maker and musician, Zeke has recently developed a penchant for stringing up inanimate objects and turning them into instruments. Too good!

There also a "canjo" and Jack White after the jump!

Even simpler still...


and then there's Jack and the cows...


He sort of cheats with the pickups and amp, but you get the point.

4 comments:

zeke said...

Thanks for the mention!

What Jack White builds is an electric version of a diddley-bow. You can see one here:

http://youtu.be/JSt2RgGPDow

The point is the same, though. A lot of the musicians that I revere ( and that Jack White does, actually) did not play fancy guitars, any more than Tage Frid had particularly amazing tools. It's what you do with what you got that counts, as you write about so well in this blog.

nielscosman said...

Thank you for the videos, Zeke!

They perfectly illustrate just what you are talking about. It's amazing how much can be done with so little. Also what can be done once you get over the "proper" ways of doing things. I think having too much knowledge of how things are done (or have been done) can be problematic at times. I know that I often find myself frustrated not having the "right" tool available at the onset of a project. Think I often spend more time fretting about what I can't use, rather just getting on with the perfectly adequate tools I already have on hand. Makes me think I need think less about the making and more about what i make. I also may not need as many tools (I can't believe I actually just typed that).
Anyway, your videos make me want to string up my pots and pans and make music. Lord knows I'm not getting much use out of them as is. ha!

All things being equal, you're a real bastard for posting the diddly-bow link. I've just wasted yet another hour or so watching diddly-vids, thanks. haha

gounthar said...

Excellent, thanks for this very interesting post.

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