One Special Pickup

It's been while since I came around with a story related to music. But I have one. As many of you now already, I work as a luthier. Well, I'm actually a content creator that has luthierie as a hobby. A very expensive and time consuming hobby. But I digress.

Some weeks ago, I had shown the progress of an instrument that you can see in detail here. It had been ready for some time previous to my post and it sat on a rocking chair in the living room at home. On Saturday, I got a visit where it was finally picked up by her owner. Since we spent a moment chatting and talking about the instrument and other things, I could only get bad photos for this. And I mean it.

The quality of the photos is proportional to the amount of fun we had.

One of the loveliest things I do is making instruments for people who are going to learn to play for the first time. It is an interesting duty. It could also mean a future client when they get to a certain level and want a more elaborate build.

So, as the time went by, we talked about a bit of the construction process and how to take care of the Venezuelan Cuatro. If you can guess the name, I dubbed it "Red Flower". It seems fitting for it design. It also resonates with the attitude of her owner.

You should've seen the expression of joy in her face once this girl finally had her Venezuelan Cuatro on her hands. Some of the photos have glimpses of it.

This girl is an artist in all her essence. You could tell by how she dresses, but also by the way she acts. That awkwardness in public is something not so hard to pinpoint.

As she left with her new instrument, I feel relieved. It took me a while to complete the build for several reasons. One of them being not taking enough rest between builds to understands the flaws of my work and get ready for starting a new one applying the lessons learnt previously.

Lesson learnt and rest taken.

Moving ahead with work to be done, I hope this instrument has a great life and brings about lots of music and joy.

Also, what is it with me and all this having female owners for my instrument? It's an interesting case study. I don't complain. If there's something that the Venezuelan music scene needs, it's more women doing thing differently and breaking the paradigms that have been set by men.

Also, more women in music me and more work for me.

Or, so I hope!

• Fotos/Photos 📷: taken by me (Redmi Note 8)

• Edición/Editing 🎬: by me, made with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

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