I'm learning a lot about guitars through this guitar. They always seem to be so solid. They are constructions of wood and metal and you pick them up and tune them and play them. That's it, right? But of course they are complex arrangements of materials of different densities and characteristics. They are held together by tension and glue and time and care. The genius of George Rizsanyi is partly his willingness to use materials that are not customary. Part of this for him is a concern for the environment, part of it is pride in Canadian woods and part of it is the challenge of thinking about guitar-making in a new way. The Six String Nation guitar was that challenge 10-fold, 20-fold, 64-fold. Not only did he have to consider the material characteristics of each piece, its acoustic or structural qualities, its aesthetics, but also its story and how it would relate to those around it. For the longest time, we couldn't convince people that this wouldn't be some Franken-guitar with hockey sticks glued all over it. So while I was confident George would create something beautiful looking and sounding and George was confident he'd be able to fit these disparate pieces together, I think for many people it was a revelation when the guitar debuted on Canada Day that it was as lovely as it was.

But as old as some of the pieces in the guitar are (the oldest is 3.96 billion years old!) it is still a new guitar. So the natural tensions of a new instrument settling in are compounded with the fact that it is running right out of the starting gate - covering a lot of ground and passing through many, many hands. Roger House and Dave MacIsaac, who gave it the first going-over in Pinehurst, had remarked that it already felt a bit like an old guitar. But out here on the road, its youth is starting to show. I remember Stephen Fearing and Colin James remarking that they felt the action could be a little higher (though Danny Michel thought it could be a little lower) but Stephen also found that it had shifted quite a bit less than a week after Canada Day when we met at Mariposa. Cockburn felt it too when he played it at Winnipeg. He said it was going to be a very fine guitar when it had settled a bit more, been played and loved a bit more.

Nicole Alosinac was the onsite guitar tech and instrument repair person at the Vancouver Folk Festival. She had heard that the guitar was going to be at the festival and was dying to see it so she came to the back of the main stage and kind of hovered at the edge of conversation as various people were passing the guitar around and having a little moment with it. She took the guitar as other people were talking and I could see her looking at it with a luthier's eye - straight down the neck from the headstock. I asked what she saw and she said (with just a hint of apology) "looks like you've got a couple of high frets and a bit of a cup in your fretboard near the top... but it's beautiful - fantastic warm tone right across the spectrum". I was grateful that she wasn't afraid to be critical but delighted that she was so impressed with the guitar as well.

It turns out that Nicole is also a talented young guitar repair and restoration artist. She has done some extraordinary work bringing some nearly dead hunks of wood from Randy Bachman's considerable collection back to bright and shining life. She began her career on the line at the Larrivee guitar factory here in Vancouver under one of the most respected names in North American luthiery, John Larrivee. Pretty soon she was in charge of quality control and was writing standards manuals for the entire plant. Guitar-craft was not only a kind of calling for Nicole, it was also a kind of paid education at the feet of a master.

Since George is on the other side of the country from here and I had only a few days before heading off to Dawson City, Nicole and I agreed that this would be the perfect (and only) time for the guitar to have a bit of a spa day. So yesterday morning we took it by her new workshop in a fairly dodgy part of town near the Vancouver portlands (actually just a few blocks from the Larrivee factory). She said no payment was necessary - that she was honoured just to have the guitar in the shop. Her friend Carol was there when we arrived - guitar in hand. She'd been told the guitar was coming and was hanging out just to see it. We did a few pictures and then Nicole walked me through some of the things she thought would compensate for the changes the guitar has been going through in its whirlwind travels: a set-up, a fret-dressing, a truss-rod adjustment and raising both the nut and the saddle - as well as securing the pick-guards. Don't worry, I didn't know what half that stuff was either but Nicole explained everything patiently and I felt OK about leaving it with her.
Today, I went to pick it up. To the naked eye, it looks exactly the same but it felt and sounded renewed - a few incremental adjustments to compensate for the incremental adjustments nature and climate have made of their own in these first few weeks of life. Tariq Hussain came by Paolo and Natasha's tonight to play it again. He was here for the party a week ago and he remarked that it felt more settled and a bit more comfortable. We are ready for the flight to Dawson.

Thank you Nicole. Thank you Tariq. Thank you Paolo and Natasha. Thank you Vancouver.

Jowi Taylor

www.SixStringNation.com