I don’t mean to imply that I have not been writing, but for the past few days I have been writing list-style entries having to do with my musical practice. This has been greatly helpful, but it has not necessarily been freewriting. I suppose I can write any way I want, but the entire purpose of this blog is to add spontaneity and volume to my writing in general. Of course the last number of posts have been a bit rambly, but they have been fairly focused by the subject matter. This time around, though, no lists.

But lists are a valid way to begin to order one’s writing, leaving space to add substance without having to explain everything. In fact, this paragraph would probably work well as part of a list, but I won’t fall prey to that trap this time around.

Instead of writing about writing, though, let me riff a bit on the guitar. I spent some time today raising the action and blocking out the trem bridge on my Stratocaster in order to begin playing electric slide. I think, in the end, I am going to need a hardtail bridge in order to stabilize the tunings, so this Strat may not be the best instrument for bottleneck playing. I like the idea of playing a Strat for slide, although I still have the Gibson humbucking pickups I would like to add to a guitar at some point. I’m thinking that guitar will be the permanent slide-setup guitar. I like my Strat for the R & B stuff I did with the NAH ensemble, so it would be nice to maintain that guitar in standard tuning. I do need something setup for bottleneck, though.

So here I am, back to writing about my musical practice. If I’m going to do it, why not really geek out on the guitar. What I want to build is a bottleneck guitar from a Warmoth neck and Warmoth body, using the Telecaster design, but wiring it like an ES-355 or a Les Paul. I want a 1 3/4 inch nut with well trimmed frets, and a tune-o-matic bridge with the string-through-the-body setup. I want the wood to be nice enough that I don’t need to finish the instrument, aside from adding some tung oil. Maybe I can also get a pre-wired harness for the pickups from the MojoTone site. Ultimately I would like Tele-style controls, but with the capacitors and potentiometers for the humbucking pickups. Everything about this guitar needs to be pure vibe.

Ultimately I would like to setup an electric guitar that sounds as good as the National Duolian when playing bottleneck. My entire bottleneck repertoire, so far, has been all about the National. I want to get the same kind of vibe I get from the National, but translate it to electric. In the end, what I want to be able to do is to play single-note lines with a kind of vocal quality. To do that I need to angle the slide more so I can play single strings more clearly, and I need the strings to be more widely spaced.