John Hendow

My Warr guitar arrived yesterday via UPS. The shipper did a phenomenal job of preparing and packing this instrument. If you’re ever considering shipping a musical gizmo, this is the right way to do it.
(1) The shipper loosened the strings – important and smart since the instrument would be exposed to varying temperatures while being shipped.
(2) The guitar was snugly packed inside its gig bag. This doesn’t provide a great deal of protection but is designed for ease of transport and is a good first line of defense for bumps and surface damage.
(3) The gig bag was wrapped in 2 layers of bubble wrap. And yes, we had a total popfest with that stuff after I unpacked it.
(4) Surrounding the bubble wrap was a layer of cardboard fabricated to follow the contours of the gig bag. This meant any bumps or impacts would be distributed over a large surface area.
(5) The whole thing was inside a large box surrounded by about half a cubic yard of styrofoam peanuts.

It arrived safely and in great condition. I carried it to the garage and spent about 20 minutes unpacking it, carefully sorting all the packing materials for recycling. Once I got down to the gig bag, I brought it into the house, removed the instrument and leaned it against the wall in my home studio. After six hours it seemed temperature-adjusted so I tuned it up and began to noodle some music with it.

First thoughts… I need to convert this beastie to my playing style (and not the other way around). I immediately adapted my left-hand playing to the upper 5 strings, but the lower 5 strings are reversed. I understand the reasons for this, but my little sleestak brain can’t flip fast enough to make sense of it. Contrary to the conventional Warr / Stick approach, I intend to put the lower strings in the same order as a bass guitar. So I’ll be ordering a new set of strings immediately, and then finding a local guitar/bass tech to cut a new nut for me. The existing nut looks like it’s a high-density plastic, and I’ll probably go with Corian for the new one. As long as I have the strings off I’ll give the fretboard a good cleaning and dress the frets a bit. Looks like the bridge will need some compensation tuning as well.

But seriously. This is a really amazing machine and I can’t wait to get it into the mix.

Today the UPS man brought me a large brown box. And inside… my Warr Guitar! Hooray! At last it has arrived! Ten strings of groovy musical fun. Now I need about a month of practice…

My first impressions of this gig are colored by receiving a phone call while en route to the show. At our last band discussion on Tuesday we understood we would be the last band of the night to play, putting us on stage at around 11:00 PM. I told my bandmates I’d probably be on site by around 9:00 in order to get my gear loaded in and stored out of the way before the first band went on. At 8:40 I had finished a leisurely dinner and was having a leisurely drive to the gig when I received a message from my bandmates informing me (1) there had been a last-minute schedule change and (2) we were now playing at 9:00. Leisure be damned! I hit the warp drive, procured parking (always a challenge on Capitol Hill), sprinted my bass rig up the sidewalk and arrived at the bar at 8:55. Three minutes later I was onstage, set up and in tune.

At that point it got pretty easy.

As a bassist my main function is bridging our music’s harmonic and rhythmic structures. I’ve gotten attuned to Josh and Janie’s playing styles, and can anticipate their direction. My parts tend to develop onstage with theme / variation evolution based on lines I create during the improv and composition sessions. I set up most of my parts with “signposts” that announce certain points in the song or act as a counter melody. But within that framework I feel pretty free to move around. Onstage I listen to everyone for ideas. Brad tends to explore his parts as well, so there is always good opportunity for dialog. Sometimes I deliberately attempt to steer the band. Last night was a great gig in the sense that we were all pretty relaxed (excluding my non-leisurely commute) and onstage there was very little nervous energy.

Overall, another fine Preons show. I’m actually really pleased that we played first, since I got home at a decent hour. Usually I usually hedge my bets a little and show up 30 minutes before the first band is even theoretically supposed to begin playing. Last night I broke that rule for the first time in years, figuring there was no big reason to hurry since opening bands never start on time. Now I remember why I made up that rule… just in case the first band winds up being US! Oh.. and yes, we did start and finish on time.

The more I play guitar and bass in various music ensembles, the more I come to view these instruments as a continuum. The only major difference between them is that I play bass with my fingers and play guitar with a pick. I certainly make exceptions to this rule; one of the Preons tunes requires the use of a pick and on some occasions I play electric guitar without a pick.

Adapting this approach to a single instrument is going to be interesting for me. I’m already planning to combine my playing styles within the context of an extended scale. In the Preons, where I’m the bassist, I often tap with my right hand to play counterpart or to extend the reach of notes and chords. Over the next few weeks I’ll be providing information on how I’m progressing with this challenge.

This interview has been passed around for a long time, but it always makes me smile. I love Yogi Berra. Earlier this year I acquired a baseball with his autograph. But I digress… on with Yogi’s jazz insight…

Interviewer: Can you explain jazz?

Yogi: I can’t, but I will. 90% of all jazz is half improvisation. The other half is the part people play while others are playing something they never played with anyone who played that part. So if you play the wrong part, its right. If you play the right part, it might be right if you play it wrong enough. But if you play it too right, it’s wrong.

Interviewer: I don’t understand.

Yogi: Anyone who understands jazz knows that you can’t understand it. It’s too complicated. That’s whats so simple about it.

Interviewer: Do you understand it?

Yogi: No. That’s why I can explain it. If I understood it, I wouldnt know anything about it.

Interviewer: Are there any great jazz players alive today?

Yogi: No. All the great jazz players alive today are dead. Except for the ones that are still alive. But so many of them are dead, that the ones that are still alive are dying to be like the ones that are dead. Some would kill for it.

Interviewer: What is syncopation?

Yogi: That’s when the note that you should hear now happens either before or after you hear it. In jazz, you don’t hear notes when they happen because that would be some other type of music. Other types of music can be jazz, but only if they’re the same as something different from those other kinds.

Interviewer: Now I really don’t understand.

Yogi: I haven’t taught you enough for you to not understand jazz that well.

This Thursday the Preons will rock the legendary Comet Tavern. It’s a bit of a drag to play late on a Thursday, being a school night and all. But it is the Comet Tavern, steeped in legend and cheap beer. Last time we played there I spilled part of my beer on the floor and it made a clean spot. I didn’t realize the floor actually had a pattern… I just assumed it was black…

Any way, we’ll be doing our annual Christmas extravanganza, in which Brad will dress up as an elf and rollerblade around the bar playing sacred carols on a flaming trumpet. Or maybe we’ll break with tradition and just play a normal set of cool indie pop. Either way it’s pretty good.

The band is sounding very good and we’re continuing to add new material to our set. It’s likely we’ll spring something new on the crowd that night. Come on down and say hi.