Hello, friends!
Scott B., Captain of the good ship checking in with a Friday blog! 2024 Birdsongs are already making their way out of the nest, and it feels we’re finally making our way on from the past few years of parts and procurement poppycock. There were times it reminded me of my bass player “gun for hire” years where a songwriter would get a gig a little bigger and need a band, and I’d get the call but never know who else did. Brief instructions like “Key of G, 1-4-5, starts on the 2. Here we go –“ …and the drummer would count off and in we’d go. Ideally. But sometimes the drummer was a spaz. A couple of these guys, any time a groove got going, the beat would stumble; the downbeat disappeared coming out of a fill and you just hoped to all that’s Holy it popped back in on the “one” and didn’t turn around underneath you. But a good drummer could make a rough gig go much better than it should have! And it feels like a good drummer is on the beat again. Steady, driving, rolling on. Parts show up, they’re nice, we’ve figured workarounds around vendors whose ways of taking orders changed… and here we are, YEAR #20, still hand building really special short scale professional basses of our own design in a small Texas “Hill Country” workshop.
Birdsong has played on through five small actual workshops over the years, Head Luthier Jake carving wood in three of those. And boy is he carving up a storm this year! Beautiful work, true to tradition. The menu “officially” has the Cortobass, Corto2, and two 5-string models. But I’ll tell you a secret – we did take an order for a Fusion, and for a Cbass. The Fusion is a little swoopier and an elegant, wood-lover’s dream with wood pickup cover, I mean just beautiful brown walnut and rosewood everywhere. The Cbass was my attempt to meld the Birdsong Cortobass shape, size, balance, and ergonomics… WITH A HUGE SOUNDING “Pbass” tone. Like, a great, REAL Pbass tone. I had one of the best ever at the time, and designed the Cbass NOT as a shrunken P, but tonally from what came out of the speaker. Pickup, position, materials, I chose them because for whatever reason they did something to OUR bass that made it sound closer to THAT bass. Here’s a video from back then. We don’t like to just build onesies, so I can tell you there might be a Fusion started for inventory, and I AM sure I’m offering $100 OFF for the next few standard Cbass orders to get a little batch of them going.
YEAR 20. It blows my mind. It blows Jamie’s mind. She and I turned a few bass ideas, a name, and a few years of my building guitars into something that outlived all of our lives as we knew them. Magic, magic times and chapters, all continuing on in their own way, all involved ever-changed by being part of it. I’m still living and breathing Birdsong, but having put in my 20 (and the 20 in music path before them that led TO them) and grateful for every one, I’m now enjoying being freed up a little to just… meander a bit. Breathe. Make some music. Write more. When not carving scrolls or other wild stuff, or handling the business end of Birdsong, or talking with you to answer questions and write up orders (That’s still me, 512-395-5126, anytime, anyplace, or scott@birdsongguitars.com), I’ve been road tripping! Best part is I can do a lot of that WHILE road tripping. “So, where are you?” used to be the question I asked you, but now it’s one a few of you have ask me too - that’s fun. I wrote up an order in a ridiculous hotel in Florida with an eight foot giant golden dog’s ass by the front door AND car camping up to the Adirondacks in way way WAY (that’s three) northern New York, up by Canada. I designed a guitar on a shoreline.
A few of the conversations, you had no idea, which is OK too. It works. I’m me wherever I am. And I think that’s a good thing for ME to be learning too – sometimes we’re so deep in that we can’t see the sides anymore; the line blurs where we end and it begins; we lose ourselves a bit. Which is fine for a time, but as a healthy human that’s not perpetually sustainable. It’s good to know what you carry with you inside, in your tool kit, in your spirit, in your sense of confidence and all a good long deep journey grows in you, when you get out a little. You take that wherever you go. The road will show you this, it always has for me. So MUCH more to come of my side adventures and “Scott Signature” builds (www.sbeckwith.com) and for regular reports right here from the Birdsong workshop. YEAR 20, BRETHREN! (Here are some older pics…)
STAY TUNED!!! And thank you so much.
