Growin' A Beard

Alright, so the one thing that I've been working very hard on in my free time is growin' a beard. This project is nice because it really doesn't take too much time or effort on my part. I'm not terribly adept at growing facial hair of any kind, and my previous attempt was an utter failure, but I'm bound and determined that this time I will at last be successful!

I don't have any photos of myself yet, since the process is still not complete, but I thought I'd try to find an equivalent composer portrait that would give you an idea of what I'm going for.


Right now, I've got the beginnings of a nice Claude Debussy:











If all goes well, I may end up with a full-on Alexander Scriabin in a few weeks:









I probably won't be trying for the Lou Harrison anytime soon:











Let me know what you think!

Bassless

I'm almost a month into my semi unemployment. In general, I guess things are going ok. After a very shocking "hitting-a-brickwall-esque" transition week and a membership drive, I'm starting to adjust to my new schedule. It's still quite odd to be at home in the middle of the day. I haven't quite figured out how to structure all of my free time, but I'm sure extreme boredom will kick in at some point and give me some motivation. Unfortunately, tragedy seems to strike in unexpected ways.

I recently discovered a crack on the front of my upright bass.

This is bad.

Very bad.

Cracks pretty much have to be taken care of right away or they will spread and you will have truly nasty problems. Most cracks are repairable, and as long as you take care of them in a timely manor and get them fixed by a professional they should have no disastrous consequences and probably no noticeable loss of tone quality. The bad part is the cost. Are you sitting down? Good.

This repair will cost me about $1800.

(You can pick your jaw up off the floor now)

This would be expensive for just about anybody, but for a guy who just lost half his job this is a pretty solid blow to the old bank account. Luckily, I do have plenty of money in savings to cover the cost of the repair, but I hope nothing else very expensive happens to me in the near future. I am also without a bass for the next few weeks which means I can't pick up any gigs with it to offset the bill a little bit.

The good thing about this whole ordeal is that I have the chance to have a few improvements made to the bass while it's apart. My bridge and saddle will be slightly reworked to improve the tone quality. My fingerboard will be redressed and smoothed to make it easier to move on. The biggest thing the repairman hopes to do is eliminate a nasty wolf tone that the bass has right now which makes some notes almost unplayable. If all goes well, I should come out of this whole ordeal with a better sounding and more playable instrument. I'll let you know how it all turns out.