Backyard Symphony VIII: Brokedown Melody

This isn't actually the same little toy guitar that can be seen in "Berried Guitar". This was a toy ukulele that was given to me as a present.

The bloody thing wouldn't hold a tuning at all. The string tuners would spin back and forth merrily without having the slighest effect on the rubber-like strings.

So I decided it could serve no purpose existing as it was intended to. I took it out back and started hitting it with a hammer. As it came apart, it suddenly developed much more personality.

So I didn't stop there. I got out the duct tape and patched it together. I doused it in lighter fluid and applied a flame. It charred in a very interesting way, as well as discoloring the finish slightly. Next came the cellophane tape, marker and rubber band.

By the time I was done, it looked quite a bit more impressive than it had before. So I took it out back for a photo session.

Backyard Symphony VII: Long Tones

Here we have a clarinet, newly sprung from the wood from whence it came. I bought this clarinet and took like two lessons on it. That was enough, I suppose. I still like having it around; I like the way it smells.

The idea, of course, is that there can be a long wait between where the note starts and where it ends. It might have to find its way through a troubled path.

Assuming there's even anyone to listen.

Fortunately, these kinds of waves follow their own path. Our participation is only tacitly necessary; really, all rivers would find their way to the sea without our help.

The fact that each one of us is a self-contained loop should lend some credence to this idea.

Backyard Symphony VI: Berried Guitar

This set kind of grew organically, which is perfect. I picked up a cheap little almost-toy guitar from Walgreens. (It actually sounded OK... well, the top two strings did, anyway. Kind of like a resonator guitar, or banjo. But that's beside the point).

That's a pansy, inside the guitar. "Pansy" has some pretty weak associations, but let me tell you, it's one of the only flowers that's hardy enough to bloom in the fall. Good on yer, flower.

Don't you just love these berries? Crimson red is such an enticing color. It reminds a lot of the scenes from "American Beauty", where what's-her-face was framed by rose petals. The whole thing wound up having such a lavish look to it that it made me think of weddings, harvests, offerings of gifts. A bit of technological help on the next two.

This picture knocks me out. It has a tremendous, geometrical look to it, like it's broken apart in time and space, coming at you in waves of squares. I sort of wish that would happen to me every now and then. By far my favorite of the set.

This one looks like an explosion of Impressionist color. I prefer white to black, generally speaking. Black is such a gravid, dull, lifeless color. (Which of course can be exactly what you want. There are always exceptions). Shame it doesn't snow around here.

One interesting thing that happened: as soon as I had taken the flower out of the guitar and put it in the ground, a bee flew right to it. They must have an incredibly keen sense of perception; the flower hadn't been planted for more than 15 seconds at this point.

Backyard Symphony V: The Bell Tree

This was actually the first set of photos I took. I like the idea of artificial objects in a natural surrounding.

Putting tiny bells on trees seemed kind of elementally right to me. Something that might have been done during a Chinese dynasty, or on the British highlands a long time ago.

Of course, that's pretty much where we get the whole "Christmas tree" thing, so this whole little endeavor seemed Autumnally appropriate. And I like the idea of a tree that would grow bells as well as leaves and fruit. Can you imagine what a whole forest of those would sound like?

I only wish the bells were of a little higher quality so that they would chime when the wind shakes the branches. Ah well. At least they look good, right?

Backyard Symphony IV: That Cool Sound

The most interesting part of this project was the blatant mishandling of the guitar cable. I had never put one in a freezer before. It was a liberating and slightly mischievious feeling.

Actually, my little habit of freezing things goes way back into my early childhood. Other kids would set action figures on fire; I would put them in a container of water and throw them into the freezer. I have no idea what this says about me.

This actually reminds me of Albert Collins, the noted Telecaster-wielding bluesman, who had a whole wealth of sub-zero nicknames. He wrote a bunch of songs with titles like "Avalanche", "Frosty"... you get the idea. Here he is for purposes of comparison, in a much cooler (ha ha) picture than mine.

Anyway, it was nice to get back to my icy roots. (Pink and black... what an odd color combination. Very Raveonettes).

This last one I particularly like. It looks like some long-frozen remnant of a prehistoric age, newly thawed out and ready to take on the world. Rarr!

Backyard Symphony III: Even Stick Men Get the Blues

I realize there are no pictures of actual people in these sets. So I suppose this doughty little homunculus will have to suffice. Harmonica purchased at a toy store, along with an el cheapo wooden flute and a jingle shaker for about $10. Sculpture wire procured at a local art store.




Our little friend's particularly reflective body made for a difficult posing. He blended into pretty much any background. But I feel like I managed to capture his soul. He could actually play that thing pretty well, considering his lack of lungs.



And like any good blues player, he enjoyed taking a little time off to reflect on hard times and all the stick wimmin that had done him wrong.



Before I knew it, he was gone, but not before nicking $10 out of my wallet and running up my long-distance bill. Godspeed, you little harp-huffing twist of wire.

Backyard Symphony II: Psychedelicize

This guitar had a long and tortured history. I bought one of those "build your own guitar" kits from a music store years ago. I didn't even really bother with the actual construction aspect of it-- I assumed most of the hardware was crap, and besides, I just wanted to paint the body to look like Eddie Van Halen's guitar. (Red with black/white stripes-- you know the one. Only I used blue instead of red). Anyway, lots of cans of Krylon later, I had a pretty cool-lookin' body.

I wondered if it would ever be playable. I took one look at the schematics for installing one's own pickups etc. and thought, "Ha ha ha no." So I took it to a luthier's.

He said that the guitar pieces could be assembled into a technically playable thing, yes. I told him I wanted a single humbucker in the bridge position. I also showed him the neck I had bought from Warmoth.com. He took it all in stride.

When the guitar was finally assembled, despite my helping the guy, it was indeed a functioning instrument. Except it was all solid white, my snazzy EVH paint job having been covered by a starker base coat for further artistic renderings.


The guitar looked cool but was pretty unpleasant to play. The small frets meant I had to exert myself mightily just to press the strings down. The neck, for some reason, felt dry and sticky. It had all the slick, lissome playability of a flypaper strip. The coolest thing about it was probably the locking Floyd Rose bridge. I could flail on that sucker all day and it would stay in tune nicely. Songs I would play none, but I could get a melismatic shriek out of this beast no problem.

One day, after drinking lots of coffee, I decided to wreak my will upon this poor Frankensteinian guitar once more. Using some fine tipped markers, I decided to doodle upon it anything that took my fancy. It wound up being bright and oddly affable. (I also wrote the names of numerous guitarist-type heroes around the pickup itself, in an incantory fashion).

And there you have the story of the psychedelicized guitar... at least so far. Heart.

Backyard Symphony I: The String Tree

The materials for this photo set were magnificently simple. The most essential part, of course, were the strings. I used a set of D'Addario .010's (endorsement please), which are nice because they have differently-colored ball ends. I'm all about the colors, don't you know.

The strings were atached with nails (sorry, tree). I was also fortunate enough to have a tree in my backyard that had a geometrically protruberant imprecision (read: round-lookin' thing) that functioned as the tree's "sound hole", mimicking that of an acoustic guitar.

I also liked how the strings reminded me of spiderwebs.

...which are designed to catch things.

...and give them a sense of suspension-- I decided to help these leaves defy gravity a little.

They were a real bugger to hang-- I can't imagine how Andy Goldsworthy finds the patience...