I currently have 5 guitars I’ve kept all these years because of a certain “je-ne-sais-quois” they possess. 3 folk; one classic, 1 electric;
In all these years of playing, repairing, building, I have sold off, given away and thrown out each and every other guitar only to keep these. After all these years. I’m setting out to blog each one over time.
Here’s the first; my newest.
#5 Handmade bamboo guitar from the Phillipines.
Created by Jun Reputana.
So what’s so special about my bamboo guitar from the Phillipines? It’s loud. It’s sonorous, it’s bright, it’s bassy, it’s precise. What else can I say. It’s weird? It’s beautiful. It’s got sweet spots that go right to your heart.
Acoustically.
From far away even. The action will be easy with a little work, and it seems to be patterned after a fairly old Martin D-28 although I think it was made 2-5 years ago.
Bamboo neck, bamboo body, bamboo headstock. Bamboo almost every THING! The inlay spots are black pearl, from shells that the creator wanders around a beach to find on his own whenever he starts a new guitar.
And when I say handmade, I’m talking about standard, ancient and reliable but sturdy tools. Hand saws and stuff. Wow.
Are there more than 20,000 other guitars in history made that way? That’s only part of what I’m talking about when I say magic. You really have to hear it and feel it to see what I mean. So just take my word for it for now.
[GUITAR’S NAME HERE: Alma!]
So how did I acquire Alma?
I pointed it out in a coffee shop because of the strange hand made case. By shape you can tell it’s a guitar case, but it really looks more like a footlocker that has travelled the oceans. The handle is literally a drawer handle with phillips head screws keeping it fast. Three hasps keep the top secured. Wooden pegs or locks, your call.
“What’s that guitar all about?” I ask the owner.
“You like it?”
“It’s neat, but what kind of guitar is it? And what’s its story?”
“Open it, you like it?”
“Kinda,” I say opening it. “Nice. I do.” It’s odd looking because I’ve never seen a guitar entirely made out of bamboo before. (The fretboard *might* be jackfruit, but I’m pretty sure it too is heavily dyed bamboo woods)
“Take it home. I’m sick of looking at it every day. It’s been here since last fall,” he says. And then he proceeds to tell me everything he doesn’t like about it. The flaws, how the maker must be unskilled, etc.
“Sure, thanks.” I tell him I’ll string it up and if it works out ok make it work, and if not I’ll make artwork out of it like I’ve done so many other times. It was missing a bridge pin, and had not been strung in a while, but other than that was intact and serviceable.
So I got it home, put a bridge pin on it, and strung it up. And tuned it.
Oh my gawd!!!
It sounded awesome even working its way TOWARD in-tune. Let’s put it this way. No other guitar I’ve ever played has sounded good between 420 and 432 A. Most guitars only sound good between 440 and 455ish, and much higher than that you’ll watch the whole face cave in and become unrepairable. Well this one doesn’t need to even come up to concert pitch to sound exciting. I really hope I can share that with you some day. And that’s the rest of the magic that I’m not even going to describe in this blog. It’s there.
I’ll close with one last description of other peoples’ description of this magic and then a link or two about Jun Reputana who made this guitar.
I check 7 music stores working my way from far ones to the nearest ones before finding a gig bag I want to fit with this fine pony.
Caruso’s in Downtown New London, CT has a new line of cases by a British company called Ritter. They specialize in Yoga equipment, upscale luggage and guitar cases.
I purchase one and open my other case to carefully move my guitar into it and see if they fit together.
“Wow, what is that?” says John the drum guy at that store asking what kind of wood it has.
“Bamboo I say, wanna play it?” I hand it to him.
He strums it once and yells, “Oh my gawd! Hey, Rich,” he shouts across the room to one of the owners. “You have to hear this guitar.”
Rich signals that he’s on the phone and will deal with it later. Another salesman I never met before asks to play it while we’re waiting together for Rich to get off the fone.
He loves it too. Rich has seen it all. Been running music stores since I was a little kid. Plays it more nonchalant than the others at first. I watch him strum some of those “show off a guitar in a salesroom” jazz chords with the occasional sweet licks in between and I can see that he’s really excited about it.
“Not bad” is all we get out of him verbally, but you should’ve seen the look on his face.
So I go to my favorite coffeeshop to hang out and use wifi and stuff, and the salesman I hadn’t met before comes in. (never did get his name) He tells me that after my guitar and I left the shop he googled it and got blown away by what he found.
Here this guitar here: [] here:Â [] & here: []
