Rick Toone | Luthier

Seeking Peace Through Music

Snow falls thickly around the luthier's little shop. Quiet music trickles beneath snow, the stream which nurtures the walnut tree not yet frozen. Icicles form winter's beard, reminding us of gravity's inevitability.

Against twilight's cool blue and purple, warm yellows spill from windows across snowdrifts, revealing electricity — energy — that rips through copper wires and crackles metaphorically around this guitar builder's brain. Life is heat, without which we find only death's dark grip.

Here, there is life. Light. Creation.

Inside, walnut wood shavings form fluffy drifts, building in corners. Glittering scraps of titanium sparkle by booted toes. Coltrane blasts in countermelody to the rhythmic grind of muscle against metal.

What elves, these?

Music is peace. Even violent music is peace, extracted from gordian knotted neurons. Anger made audible, a manifesto of love, expression quelling action: perhaps the need for action...

Alone, we are scattered filings. Together we cluster around magnet ends, revealing those polarities and invisible powers that manipulate us.

My nation is momentarily lost, seeking peace through perpetual war, "protection" through repression and unfair redistribution of earned rewards. It will take a great and collective effort of kindness and willpower to remind our political oligarchy their duty to us.

Peace is powerful.

The time to begin is now.

To those who have shared your life with me this year, I wish you peace. Peace and prosperity to you, and your family. To those who will share your life with me next year, we bid you welcome. Seeking peace, through music.

Guitar Shop In Winter

Cupid semi-hollowbody curly walnut and maple electric guitar is again progressing. Headstock has been shaped and I'm fitting the titanium backing plate that will double as a hanging ring.

Simplicity multi-scale (fanned fret) swamp ash & red oak guitar hangs near the window, awaiting the headless tuning system hardware. Once that has been fitted, ergonomic body sculpting will begin.

We had our first snow of the season last evening.

Bjorn to Jam

This is ripe pun territory. Have at it.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Image courtesy of G in response to multi-scale fanned-fret guitar. Headband as inspiration.

War is (Always) the Answer

Problem is, it's been so long, we've forgotten the question.

The third grade students Tricia is now teaching were born into an era of continuous occupation and aggression by the United States, in the Middle East. A whole generation of schoolchildren is growing up knowing nothing but war.

War is their reality.

It is background noise against the clutter of video games and peer relations. An abstraction that adults do. That thing that happens over there, not to be questioned.

The new normal.

Multi-Scale Fanned-Fret Headless Guitar

Swamp ash body. Quarter sawn curly red oak trapezoid profile neck. Hickory fretboard. Walnut side markers. Abalone octave inlays. Stainless steel frets. 26" & 24.5" combined scale. Extensive copper shielding with unusual control locations. Proprietary 7075 aircraft grade aluminum neck truss structure.

Simplicity tuning system.

Two familiar characters playing with the oversized body blank, pre sculpture. Listening to the music in their heads. For some reason, I hear Jimi...could it be the headband?

EDITOR'S NOTE: G thinks I'm more accurately channeling Bjorn Borg.

LEARN MORE: Simplicity