My essential question has been in this process does use hand tools and traditional woodworking methods create an artistic connection to the instrument I build? As I approach the end of the senior project experience this question is at the forefront of my work. And as the bass I build takes shape the connection I already feel grows with every last little thing I do to the bass. One experience that was rather labor-intensive and greatened the connection between me and the bass, was shaping it. After I cut out the body it was very bumpy and uneven and barely resembles a bass. I used files and wraps to get the body down to shape. It took hours to get perfect and the interaction of constantly looking and feeling the bass and using a file to remove flaws I see or fixing the symmetry of the bass, it felt almost like a conversation between me and the workpiece. Going into the final shaping I only had a rough sketch and a vague idea of how I wanted to the bass to look and feel bus as soon as I started filing I knew what had to be done what little piece of material had to be removed to get it closer to the shape I wanted. Working at a micro-scale removing tiny bumps and uneven parts and seeing the entire body slowly come into shape was very rewarding.
Timur, it’s interesting how there seems to be this continual moving in and out from the material. In a way, it’s a bit like pressing the zoom in and zoom out button on a google map. When you are zoomed out, it’s clear that your are building a bass guitar whose space is defines by it’s outer limits, but when you zoom in you encounter an entirely different geography. It’s worth exploring how the “conversation” is both the same and different as you move between these different frames of reference.