Hi there!
Terry B here,
Just wanted to introduce myself onto my new blog page that will be about Weissenborn slide guitars and how to build them, play them and even but the plans and a new book I just wrote called ‘How to build a Weissenborn slide guitar”
Well, what is a slide guitar exactly? Basically it’s an amazing type of guitar that you play across your lap ( exactly like Ben Harper or Jeff Lang) It is different in shape to a normal guitar because it has a hollow neck that goes all the way up into the headstock of the guitar. This gives it the amazing cool rich tones that seem to swirl aroung inside the guitar giving it a sound that literally puts the hairs up in the back of you neck! You play it not with steel or glass tube held in your left hand and this gives the guitar a cool, whiny, ethereal sound that is rich ,full and totally captivating.
It is almost hypnotic to listen to and anyone who has ever heard one of these guitars always wants to hear more! When I first heard a Weissenborn played by my guitar hero, jeff Lang, one of the world’s best weissy players, my life changed on the spot… I had to have one! The only trouble was, as I later found out that a Weissy will set you back between $1800 dollars to three or even four grand! Ouch!
After a few weeks deliberation I took the plunge and decided that if I could not afford one I would build one instead! Now this I thought must be a major undertaking ( but was happily proved wrong later!) I did some research and eventually decided that I could do it…Well, its only timber after all..If I stuffed it up I could buy more and maybe not make the same mistakes!!! I ordered the timber ( Australian Maple, a close cousin of Koa wood traditionally used for Weissenborns)and a week or so later the boc of timber, machine heads, all the gear I needed arrived!
Eight weeks later, I strung up my brand newly built guitar, tuned it tentatively to open D chord DADF#BD and played ny first chord! WoW!!!! It had happened…the rest of the day I spent just playing ,playing and even more playing! I had done it after twenty years of thinking about it!
In fact I was so pleased I decided there and then that I would write a book about how to build a slide guitar for people who had little resources, no shed and fancy wood working tools ( I built mine in the cabin of my boat!) draw up the plan of my new design ( much deeper than most) and build a website where I could tell people about Weissenborn guiatrs and find loads of tips about how to learn about these amazing guitars! I have evengot lots of articles about the secrets of how and why they sound like they do and nuch more, soundclips and so on!
If you are interested in looking at a simple, easy to do way of building your first Weissenborn guitar, why not visit www.buildaweissenborn.com right now?
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Tags: building a guitar, guitar plans, how to build aweissenborn, lapsteel, slide guitar, weissenborn, weissenborn plans
January 27, 2008 at 12:29 am
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