Hicklerbanjo's Blog

Anxiety is a Choice

hicklerbanjo — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 17:33:25 +0000

I read William Glasser’s book entitled Choice Theory. Glasser asserts that depression, anxiety and anger are all choices we make. In fact in his counseling method he does not allow expressions such as “I am depressed.” Instead he encourages his patients to think of a phrase such as “I am depressing.” This sounds funny at first and can be misinterpreted, but he is encouraging the patient (or you or me) to take responsibility for our choice to depress or anger or anxietize.

This morning I was tempted by debilitating anxiety mostly caused by a lack of money. My wife and I have started doing some stretching exercises in the morning and somehow this lifted my feeling of anxiety just enough that I was able to think about choosing something else.

We choose unpleasant feelings like anxiety and depression because there is some payoff. Sometimes they are useful for a time. For instance it is better that I depress for a brief period if I would otherwise express my anger by throttling someone. I have discovered that I sometimes depress when I feel overwhelmed and I wish to be saved. This is a pattern established in my childhood in relation to my parents who would often seek to intervene when I seemed to need it. Now there is no one around me to take that role. I found myself transferring that hope of rescue towards my wife who does not play by my twisted rules. Choice Theory has helped me countless times from going down a fruitless and wasteful path of depression.

The Transition from Artist/Artisan to Businessman 002

hicklerbanjo — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 18:48:15 +0000

I will NOT make another Mastertone clone… er…. well maybe…

When I started making banjos I fantasized about putting my mark on every aspect of banjo design, including peghead, inlay and more. Now that I am trying to survive as a businessman I have noticed that my own designs do not have the immediate mass appeal that I imagined.

Customers seem to trust the look they are familiar with. While designing is fun there is also joy in setting out to make something and having it come out as planned. I will settle for this joy and add to it the joys of satisfied customers and money in my PayPal account.

The Transition from Artist/Artisan to Businessman 001

hicklerbanjo — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 16:02:37 +0000

I make banjos because it is a total expression of myself and my interests which include music, engineering, beauty and ergonomics. I went into full-time lutherie in 2009. I want to document my journey to survive as an artist and businessman.

Many people have artistic urges and may fantasize about a life that reflects these inner desires. The popularity of “The Secret” and expressions such as “Just do it” attest to this.

Fantasizing about a thing and doing it are quite different. The daily struggle for survival can be exhausting, but for me at least, it is too late to go back to punching the clock. My struggles and triumphs may or may not be typical, but somewhere out there is a person I may help. Also writing about it is therapeutic.

There may be a book in this head of mine, but if I do not take the time to write, it will never materialize. Therefore I have initiated this WordPress blog.

I leave you with the Luther’s Theme Song. The song is sung to “Soldier’s Joy” a traditional fiddle tune.

Oh the glorious life of a luthier
The glorious life for me
The glorious life of a luthier
Hurrah for lutherie

I got glue on my fingertips
Lacquer up my nose
But I’m not unhappy
As you might suppose
This glorious life makes up for all of those
It’s the glorious life for me!

The New Feminism

hicklerbanjo — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 07:04:19 +0000

Back in the late 60s I was so enamored of the women’s movement that I joined a male liberation group. The idea was to respond to the women’s movement by attempting to rid ourselves of the bad aspects of being male. Sadly I can’t say it improved me much, but I mention this to make the point that I was sympathetic to the aspirations of the women’s movement and could understand that some assumptions about the roles of men and women were just wrong. It was only through being married that I came to understand that women and men both have issues and harmonizing the nature, goals and desires of men and women is a mighty challenge.

A few years ago I saw a cartoon in the New Yorker magazine. Two men were watching a couple of women walk by. One man says to the other “Women. They get better and better.” The meaning of the cartoon — to me at least — is not that women are getting better, but the man’s perception of women was changing over time. Perhaps the man had matured and the filter of selfishness through which he viewed women was clearing. The destination of this maturation process and shedding of selfishness must be that men look upon women as precious mothers, daughters and sisters.

The women’s movement of my youth to some extent, set men and women at odds. The anger at being oppressed caused separation and many women felt that they needed to define their value apart from men. Ultimately, men and women need and complete each other. In an ideal relationship harmony and mutual respect would rule in such a relationship, men and women would feel appreciated, cherished and valued.

Reverend In Jin Moon, Senior Pastor for the American Unification Church has proclaimed a new era in which women should feel their value as precious daughters of God. Men should learn to appreciate, respect and value women as precious daughters of God. Women should be liberated from the suffering of the past based on this self respect and requirement that they be respected. Nor should their be any limit to their right to self determination or to what they can accomplish. God is the harmonized essence of masculine characteristics and feminine characteristics. Therefore men and women should be harmonized in dynamic giving and receiving action in which neither is to dominate the other.

The goal of the new feminism is not separation, but dynamic unification and familial love.

Two songs about God that make me cry

hicklerbanjo — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 13:45:27 +0000

Unification theology stresses that God is not removed from our suffering. God’s experience in creating us has been a painful one. If we understand this, we can even shed tears for God.

Regina Spektor’s song, Laughing With, captures how easily we can move God to the periphery of our thinking. When we encounter tragedy and fear; when matters of life and death emerge as a reality, superficialities fade.

Eric Bazilian’s song, One of Us, performed by Joan Osborne, captures God’s loneliness. God can be lonely. God really is one of us. She/He wants to give and receive love.

Stuggling to learn jazz chords… again

hicklerbanjo — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 12:33:08 +0000

My own musical adventure began mostly with banjo and some guitar, failed attempts at fiddle, but almost all in folk, bluegrass and old time music. Gradually I brushed up against chord progressions that were more sophisticated than three-chord folk songs. My cousin played songs from the ragtime-influenced bluesmen of the Delta and I was fascinated by the unexpected twists and turns these progressions would take. Now after over 40 years of using the “primary color paintbox” of folk chords, I hunger to inherit the gorgeous and subtle hues of jazz chords.

The first two chords I was able to recognize the sounds of were major seventh chords and diminished chords. Major sevenths overused have started to sound corny to me. Perhaps this is a mark of progress! I invested in three products from 99 Cent Guitar Lessons. I for less than ten bucks I bought “Dirty Dozen Jazz Chords”, “Dirty Dozen Progressions” and “EZ Comp: Day in the Life of a Fool.” I am listening to it over and over on my ipod trying to hear 6/9 chords, minor 7 flat fives, augmented 7ths and so forth. It makes me sympathize with my newbie students. I am struggling to create new musical spaces in my brain that do not exist.

Older brains do not do this as easily as younger brains. However, someone once said that knowledge is like velcro. The more you have, the more things you can stick to it. The music and music theory I have done up to this point help tremendously, but it is still a matter of forging new neural pathways.