I just felt like running...

I can't remember at what point it happened, or if it was ever something so concrete.  I just know that sometime in the middle of grad school I had become obsessed with the classical guitar and that that obsession lead rapidly to a fascination with the craft and physics of stringed instrument construction.

It took up residence easily and naturally in my head, magnified I'm sure by the research doldrums that were fueling little attachments to things non-science; anything offering an alternate life path. So often I would fantasize about mopping floors or tending bar. Daydreaming of professions that seemed to offer the brand of simplicity I was so desperate for at the time; a life free of that oppressive Moloch who tends to accompany most PhD students – if only for a time – on their journey to doctor-hood.

Let's be fair though, science has its moments. A successful experiment can validate your whole existence, during which the stress and uncertainty, and the feeling that you've been merely playing the role of a scientist (ever hear of impostor syndrome?), all dissolve into a kind of euphoria. The problem is when the melancholia returns and the episodic roller coaster loops upon itself. Looking back I still think that going through graduate school has to be the closest possible psychological simulation of manic depression.  What's more I think the experience is potentially very damaging to certain sets, but we'll save that for another time, or blog... anyhow, let's get back.

Right away luthiery just felt different. It was intoxicating, sure, but not the fleeting or intermittent way that is – at least historically – my pattern when it comes to attachments and obsessions.  It was both seductive and (as it turned out) enduring, something that, far from my experience as a scientist, I imagined I could enjoy forever. It was a means of reconciling my analytical, physical, emotional, and artistic inclinations in one stroke.

I reckoned that for a luthier the completed guitar could provide emotional as well as intellectual reward – it could, in effect, give back – and what a comforting notion this was for me, sitting at a laboratory wet bench, pipetting liquids into tiny microfluidic devices. The fruits of the luthier's labor and sacrifice were tangible; they were real and instantaneous. They were transformed into an object that, not unlike a child, could speak with its unique voice, projecting a kind of love for you, the person who brought it into being, singing to you with a voice that itself could change with time and mature. Many scientists I'm sure profess to having similar relationships with their work. Alas, I never did.

So this is how it was for a few years: soaking up all that music in the night time, watching as my own skills on the instrument began to develop, reading and watching everything I could find, taking road trips to meet nearby makers, posting emphatically in luthier forums; all the while working as a scientist, knowing full well that at some point down the road I'd be building my own guitars.

Then, in a Gump like impulse – after taking up a post-doc halfway around the world in Melbourne – I started. One of my housemates had moved out, taking his piano with him, and suddenly I had a spot for a workbench. It was as simple as that. This was a year ago, last July and my housemates continue to put up with the dust and wood shavings.

Six months in. My humble little workshop. Dec 2012

What I hope to do with this blog is chronicle the construction of my first instrument, plain and simple. I've taken so many photos during the construction and it would seem crazy (given how much it meant for me to read the accounts of others making the same trek) not to share. But in addition to the straight-ahead chronology of a guitar build, I hope to share some other things too: miscellaneous observations, thoughts on technical matters, on tools, failures, bits of history, perhaps even interviews, articles and videos I find along the way. 

Stay tuned.