I recently said in another section that I've been busy with life/work and haven't done any bowing... That's not exactly true. I have done some bowing recently, and I even got paid for it--how 'bout that?

http://www.jessebond.com/music/life_stages.mp3

The above (music for a wedding videography company's intro movie) was actually made with a hack-modded knock-off Martin backpacker that I got for $20 off eBay... I made a curved bridge out of thin wood, put on an archtop tailpiece, a locking nut (won't stay in tune without it), grover tuners, glued on the backside of a garbage guitar neck as a 12-fret fingerboard, zip ties for frets (for the first 7, like a gamba), and for about $100 (plus D'Addario flatwound Chromes ) I had a bowable instrument (I currently play it with a 4/4 cello bow held viola da gamba-style). It's quite "asian-sounding" as you can hear (no bass at all due to the knockoff backpacker's body design and poor construction), but I'm hoping it can at least help me get acquainted with bow + guitar strings and how to not make the combination sound like poo poo... Trying to prepare myself for the glorious future that will be Jonathan's finishing my GV.

I'll try to remember to post a picture tonight--you have to see this thing. It's awful-looking, and the ergonomics are worse... but at least it got me some natural (non-synth) bowed sounds on this project, and I kindof like its crappy voice. Might even keep it around once the GV shows up--who knows?

- Jesse

(POST REMOVED DUE TO DEAD LINK)

All right, as promised, here are pictures... And yes, that is the full-length truss rod sticking out of the flipped-over neck that's acting as a fingerboard:



...and in action:



And, if you were wondering at all, this is version 2. Version 1 was a headless electric spawned from a single-pickup $100 B.C. Rich Bronze Mockingbird I got on sale when Sam Goody went out of business. It had the same tailpiece and locking nut, the original humbucker (volume seriously dropped out on the center 2 strings), a piezo pickup under the bridge, looked like total poo from all the body carving I had to do to get bow access, and performed terribly because I couldn't figure out how to make a curved fretboard (I tried sanding the existing one into a curve... that didn't work so well).

Props to my friend Brandon for figuring that "flipped over guitar neck" thing out when he was hanging in my office one day... Wish I'd thought of it!

- Jesse

Never saw one with a locking Floyd nut before.....

Actually, back in 1990 or so I was testing out a new router and hollowed out a block of wood. For a gag, I mounted a neck on it and, I am not kidding, it looked much like the backpackers that came out later. It was a gag and imagine my surprise what Martin began marketing the back packer.......and it sold......and now, here it is full circle.....LOL.

Cheers;
Jonathan

Funny update... Since getting my GuitarViol, a friend of mine actually saw enough potential in this instrument (now called the "BowStick" instead of "Crapola da Gamba" to make it seem more legit...) that I reworked it a bit, make it fully fretted all the way through the 12th, and removed that ridiculous truss rod poking out of it--and he actually bought it off me for the full cost of the parts used to make it! Yay for that...

Pictures here:













Thing is, my friend is a talented enough musician that I expect him to do great things with this little guy as a studio instrument... So a fond farewell to the BowStick (tm--lol), and now I'm free to focus all my bowing attention on my GuitarViol...

The backpacker viol?

If you do ever consider making an ultra-portable GV, I highly recommend AGAINST this body shape, unless you like super-nasally asian-sounding bowed sounds...