A blog about cancer, spirituality, death, and guitars
One day a parishioner went into the church to see his priest for confession. The priest asked what he wished to confess, and he stated he had been gossiping about someone.
The churchgoer was not thinking this to be a serious sin and expected to be asked to say a couple of “Hail Mary’s.” However, the priest said to him, “Go onto the highest roof-top you can find in the community with a feather-down pillow, cut it open, and let all the feathers fly into the wind, then return to see me next week.”
I’m always humbled by the generosity of many people who contact me. I was pleased to receive emails from Richard Barnes who owns an ‘f’ sound-hole Weymann guitar that was not known to me, a Style 24, dated c.1917. (You can read about Weymann ‘f’ hole guitars here, but I felt this guitar needed it’s own post).
Richard said he acquired this from an auction, maybe around 1992 or so for the whopping price of $100.00! For a 100+ year old guitar this is is amazing condition. It is near mint and is the favorite of all his guitars. It’s telling that at one time he owned a Weymann Jimmie Rodgers Special but sold that and kept this guitar.
Continue reading “1917 WEYMANN ‘f’ Sound-hole Guitar Style 24”
‘Death and Dying’ is a subject I have read a lot about and studied extensively for the past 15 years or so. I have also spent time with friends and family as they have left this world.
We all know death is certain, something we will all face. But for most of us, it is the elephant in the room that hardly anyone wants to talk about or face head on.
As mentioned previously, Weymann (pronounced ‘Y’man) made many different styles of guitars. Here’s a nice little 100 year old guitar with Weymann’s own distinctive metal tailpiece based on the letter ‘W’. (BTW the design of this tailpiece changed slightly over the years).
This dark stain was used on some of Weymanns other guitars during this time (late teens, early 1920’s). The stain is over mahogany on the back and sides and over spruce on the soundboard. The guitar is lightweight like most Weymann guitars and will most likely be ladder braced. Continue reading “1920 WEYMANN Style 22 Guitar – Dark Stain”
Thank you to everyone, especially my subscribers, for hanging in there on this website. It has been 5 years now since I started it and it’s a surprise to me I am still around.I realize that with the variety of subjects with my posts that they are not all going to appeal to everyone, but what surprises me is the many emails and comments I get in support of what I am doing. And although I have my email address charles@koolaru.com in many places throughout the site, in all those 5 years I have only received one negative comment. And it was a pretty pathetic one at that!
So, a big thank you for the support of everyone who reads my posts, especially those who have subscribed to receive notification when new material is posted.
The First Hawaiian Conservatory of Music (FHCM), is well documented as a mail order marketing tool for the Oscar Schmidt Company. They were sold for lap-style (i.e. Hawaiian-style) playing. However played as a steel string flat-top they have a woody and punchy sound which is well suited for blues playing. The gospel blues player Blind Willie Johnson, amongst others, is reputed to have played one.
Jake Wildwood describes the sound: They’re braced a little differently from the average Schmidt and, as a result, have a sound that flits between “normal” ladder-braced voicing and something like a Gibson-ish x-braced voice. They’re woody, loud, and direct like your average Schmidt parlor but have more of a kick in the bass and lower-mids and with a slightly-scooped treble rather than the focus being all mids. This makes them vastly more suitable for genres outside of fingerpicked country-blues and the like.
Continue reading “FIRST HAWAIIAN CONSERVATORY of MUSIC – an Oscar Schmidt label , 1919-1935”
THE FHCM KOA HILO No.9-910:
The top of the range FHCM guitar is the Hilo model # 9-910.
Continue reading “FIRST HAWAIIAN CONSERVATORY of MUSIC 1920’s Koa Guitar: The Hilo”
They are a ladder braced ‘O’ sized guitar (13 1/2″ wide) and originally were given away with a mail order course of how to play slide guitar ‘Hawaiian’ style. However it was realized by many of the early blues masters such as Blind Willie Johnson that birch guitars, with their raw sound, were great for playing the blues. At the time these guitars could probably have been picked up quite cheaply from some of the many students of FHCM who gave up playing and never finished the course!
These days they command good prices because of their reputation of sounding like those early blues recordings. Red was a popular color but there was a variety of stains from almost black, to red, to orange to natural wood.
Continue reading “FIRST HAWAIIAN CONSERVATORY of MUSIC 1930’s Birch Guitar”
Sometimes I think I take the sympathy thing too far.
I must remember that having a family member with a terminal disease is not easy. In fact, often-times it is easier on the person with the disease than those who love them.
I can lie in bed and try to sleep; trying to deal with the pain and restlessness from whatever treatment I am on. Sometimes quietly making moaning sounds, often not realizing how disturbing I am being.
He lives in the USA and I live in Australia, so I do not get to see him nearly as much as I like.
I have a range of interests and vintage guitars is only a small part of my life, but I’ve always worked with my hands and I have a workbench that reflects this:
My grandson has only a few tools so I decided to give him some small hand tools as a birthday gift and a ‘tool caddy’ to keep them in. I made it ‘flat pack’ so he could put the caddy together himself, and it made it easier to send.