"Curadhi" - a 30 year wait for a guitar
Jan 15, 2021 12:58:13 GMT
ocarolan, Akquarius, and 18 more like this
Post by davewhite on Jan 15, 2021 12:58:13 GMT
Some of you may know that I have been a Liverpool FC fan since I was a small boy and their exploits in 2019 and 2020 needed appropriate celebration . . . a new guitar. Firstly I needed to pick a model and the most appropriate one was “Sir Bill” as the two that I've made have been for life long Scousers and Liverpool fans – Bill Briscombe and Leo Roberts (leoroberts). “Sir Bill” shares the same body as my baritone guitar model “Treebeard” with a shorter scale length, 650mm, and 12 frets clear of the body and I decided to do a remodelling of it using the asymmetric shape and cutaway that I've used for my "Buachaill Mór" and "Bogha Fada" models so I could use bending forms and adapt moulds that I have. A new name was required and I chose "Curahdi", which is Gaelic for Champions or Warriors, which is apt for the squad that won The European Cup, European Super Cup, FIFA Club World Cup and were champions of the Premier League.
I tried to incorporate as many features as I could relating to LFC - the serial number of 128 fits with the number of years since Liverpool FC was founded in 1892; the neck has 12 frets clear of the body which represents the eleven players on the field plus the Anfield crowd as the twelfth man and it has my "crown" slothead for the Champions. As far as possible the guitar reflects the home kit of Liverpool in the 2019/20 season. The back and sides are a lovely straight grained set of Cocobolo that I bought from Grant Goltz in Montana ten years ago and the top is European Spruce reflecting the team’s European triumphs. It has Cocobolo fingerboard, rosette, bridge, bridge pins, headplates and soundport “bung”, Bubinga with Maple lines for the binding and Spalted Beech for the neck which will look like it's been tattooed. I wanted to incorporate a representation of the Liver bird for the end-graft and given the injuries to Big Virgil and Joe Gomez I was inspired by the Henri Matisse paper cuts and used wood pieces of Pequia Amerello (Yellowheart) and Cocobolo. The design represents the “breaking” and “putting back together” of Virgil and Joe.
As for a first recording there was only one possible tune – even more so with the sad passing of Gerry Marsden. Thanks to the Leo Roberts (leoroberts) – to whom I am eternally grateful – I have been able to be on the Kop on a number of occasions to experience the magical ritual of the singing of the Liverpool FC anthem. This is my fingerstyle arrangement – in DADGAD of course.
"YNWA"
I tried to incorporate as many features as I could relating to LFC - the serial number of 128 fits with the number of years since Liverpool FC was founded in 1892; the neck has 12 frets clear of the body which represents the eleven players on the field plus the Anfield crowd as the twelfth man and it has my "crown" slothead for the Champions. As far as possible the guitar reflects the home kit of Liverpool in the 2019/20 season. The back and sides are a lovely straight grained set of Cocobolo that I bought from Grant Goltz in Montana ten years ago and the top is European Spruce reflecting the team’s European triumphs. It has Cocobolo fingerboard, rosette, bridge, bridge pins, headplates and soundport “bung”, Bubinga with Maple lines for the binding and Spalted Beech for the neck which will look like it's been tattooed. I wanted to incorporate a representation of the Liver bird for the end-graft and given the injuries to Big Virgil and Joe Gomez I was inspired by the Henri Matisse paper cuts and used wood pieces of Pequia Amerello (Yellowheart) and Cocobolo. The design represents the “breaking” and “putting back together” of Virgil and Joe.
As for a first recording there was only one possible tune – even more so with the sad passing of Gerry Marsden. Thanks to the Leo Roberts (leoroberts) – to whom I am eternally grateful – I have been able to be on the Kop on a number of occasions to experience the magical ritual of the singing of the Liverpool FC anthem. This is my fingerstyle arrangement – in DADGAD of course.
"YNWA"