Creative Process,  Functional Art,  Kick-Start the Weekend,  Music

Musical Bat and One Last Guitar

A few stories, one about a violinist creating a musical bat and another about an engineering professor creating Coil an electric guitar that can produce a customized sound, and another that I stumbled upon about a guitar maker losing his hearing as he builds his last guitar recently captured my attention in the Washington Post as being very attentive to the arts. A Swing and a Hit for Violinist by Anne Midgette is about Glenn Donnellan, a classical violinist with the National Symphony Orchestra, who has fashioned a bow instrument out of a baseball bat for children’s musical outreach programs. His video below not only Kick Starts the weekend but shows how diverse string instruments and their music can be.

Glenn Donnellan. Photo by Marcus Yam, Washington Post

The Chuck Berry of the Engineering World was interesting to me because of the customization of the sound it claims and that my older son is an engineering student. Here’s the video:

Perhaps more poignant is the Guitar Hero story about and by Doug Fields in how he awoke to losing his hearing one morning and then mourns this loss with reflection on what he heard last and his real appreciation for the auditory in general. His story reminded me of that life lesson of what not to take for granted.

Doug Fields makes a guitar, via Washington Post

I'm an artist, wife and mother of two boys. I started my illustration business, The Occasional Palette over 35 years ago, when my oldest son was an infant. Once my children were in school, I began painting decorative, faux finishes and murals through my second business, Casart, now over 30 years old. My third business, Casart Coverings, is a springboard from my second. Click on the link on the sidebar to see innovative, custom, designer wallcovering, removable and reusable wallpaper and coordinating decor.