Lately I have been writing about my musical repertoire and practice. Let me write some more on music, but stick with prose. I have been writing too many lists lately, and I need to get back to freewriting prose. The lists have been very useful, though, helping me to reconnect with my musical practice. It all points out that I am essentially a blues guitarist at heart.

One of the things I have decided is that I shouldn’t shy away from Robert Johnson’s playing - I love his virtuoso approach to the instrument, even if his playing is somewhat derivative of other players. Tom Feldman’s videos on Johnson’s playing are a little cheesy - or, rather, his singing is a bit cheesy - but he does get to the heart of some of Johnson’s riffs and song structures. I also need to play the bottleneck tunes in open-A rather than open-G, not only because that is most likely what Johnson did, but also to add some variety to the keys I play in. If I am going to build my solo blues repertoire I need to be able to perform in a variety of keys.

I also need to put some effort into learning Son House’s repertoire. Son House is definitely open-G with full-throated singing. In fact, he is among my favorite singers and players in this genre. His recordings in the 1960s are pretty rough (bad in some cases), but his recordings from the 1930s are roaring and precise. That’s the way to play the instrument, swatting at it like a percussion instrument but still able to hit notes cleanly. This is one of my true guitar heroes.

One thing I have discovered over the past few days is that I am much more comfortable playing bottleneck on my National Duolian than on my Fender Strat. Mostly this is because I am used to the National guitar, but I think there is also a problem with the width of the neck. Some of the chords I play on the National are just about impossible on the Strat since I have relatively big fingers and the Strat is fairly narrow. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Strat, but I’m not sure yet if it is a bottleneck instrument. I need to give it a bit more time.

This all reminds me that I would like to build a custom Warmoth guitar designed specifically for bottleneck playing. The neck should have a 1 3/4 inch nut width, and the body should be routed for the Gibson humbucking pickups I took off of my ES-335. I want a hardtail bridge, preferably a tune-o-matic, and Strat-like controls. The body should be either chambered or hollow, and it should be rear-routed to show off some nice wood. I vacillate about the details, and even about the model (Strat, Tele, Jazzmaster), but the details I have already listed are pretty consistent. I think of all the models I have considered, though, I am most drawn to the Telecaster style.

In addition, I would like to sell my National Duolian in order to purchase a more modern instrument with pickups. I would prefer to get another National, but I would settle for an archtop electric. I need something that feels substantial in my hands, and that’s one of the things I love most about the National - I feel like I have a real instrument in my hands. The Strat is awesome as well, but it has a small bodied feel to it that somehow doesn’t feel like a full-on instrument to me. Maybe this is because I am an acoustic guitarist at heart, but I really love the sound of electric slide. In the end, I would love to be able to play electric slide guitar with a blues band.