Harmen's new Jazz bass project completed

My new home built kit, Jazz Bass 

Today I finished assembling my new bass guitar.
I spent some time screening all the cavities in the body prior to fitting the electronics. I chose to use aluminium foil from some pie dishes obtained from our local store. I cut and fitted each piece of foil to shape, and set them in place with double sided tape. The wiring cavities I shielded by rolling foil around the stem of my Philips screw driver to create tubes which linked both the pickup cavities with the control assembly cavity. It was a simple matter to slip these tubes into the predrilled holes and terminate each end by cutting tabs into the protruding ends of each tube and folding these back against the shielding in the cavities.

I found that after assembling and doing a rough set up yesterday that the neck needed to be set back a little  to get the string action into the right range. I downloaded a PDF from the Fender website which turned out to be an absolutely brilliant reference for me during the dry run and final set up.
I fitted a .5mm shim in the lower end of the neck pocket and screwed the neck firmly in place.
I then fed the strings through the saddle and adjusted the intonation of each string with the help of my Boss tuner. They were all a bit flat so I unscrewed the adjusters until I achieved a true octave from open to the twelfth fret.
Next I set up the action, adjusting the string heights at the saddle and measuring the clearance at the 17th fret. After this came the pickup height adjustment, a simple matter of turning the four height adjustment screws..

I then re tuned the guitar and went up to our studio and switched on my beautiful 1961, Jansen 50 Bassman valve amp and plugged in my new guitar.

 My 1961 Jansen 50 Bassman valve amp and quad box.

You can't imagine my delight at what came out! It sounds just like a bought one. My new bass feels amazing, solid and positive to the touch. It really is incredible to me that a group of inanimate objects, assembled in the right way, with some care and attention to detail can produce such a quality instrument. YAY!

I finished the guitar body in Sanding sealer then automotive primer (Grey) followed by several coats of water based enamel each coat was sprayed with a small  De Vilbis  touch up spray gun.
The neck got two coats of sanding sealer, and 4 of semi gloss polyurethane varnish applied by spray gun as well.
The fret board is finished in 3 coats of Danish oil applied by brush and wiped back with a cloth.

My semi rigid, bass guitar carry bag arrived from Lenker Music also by courier.
It's constructed from 600 denier nylon, closes wit a heavy duty zipper. The padding is high density polystyrene with a black velvet liner. It's lightweight and very durable.

I made a guitar strap from an old webbing belt to which I hand stitched some synthetic braided spectra line.

Harmen

Kitset "Jazz" Bass guitar project

I recently won an auction for a Guitar Spares kitset "Jazz" style electric, solid body bass guitar. It came by courier in a cardboard box.

This is what the components look like straight out of the box

All the parts come with the kit and all the pick up and control cavities are routed out.

Headstock cut out all ready for 
sanding sealer.

This is the Jazz bass model I've long admired so here's my opportunity to replicate one.

I've loved Sea foam green as a guitar colour since I was very young so I found a similar colour in a local paint supplier's range that they call "Vista Blue". Sealer, primer and one 
topcoat on.

Trial balance of elements and set out 
logo design. I think that the tortoise shell pick guard looks amazing against the green paint finish.

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My custom head stock scroll design is slightly larger than Fender's and closer to a double bass scroll profile.

Head stock varnished, I used a gold paint pen to write the script for my "Harmen JAZZ BASS" logo outlined with a fine black paint pen.

Second coat of semi gloss water based  enamel. Beautiful still weather for painting!

This Jazz Bass kit project has been one of the most satisfying that I have undertaken in quite a while. I've loved researching the various processes on line, finding some great links and tips to assist me with my build. The scale of this project has suited me too. I've had to call on many of the skills that I have acquired over my lifetime, I chose materials and processes that would cause me and the environment minimal damage.
I chose to do this because I could not find an instrument of the quality and characteristics that I wanted for the budget I had available. All in all I'm very happy with the result so far, more later.

Harmen

Adams and Gavin to play a house concert in Pakanae

                                  Richard Adams and Nigel Gavin 

                                            with special Guest 
                                      Harmen Hielkema

(ex Jews Brother Band) on percussion.

Acoustic swing Jazz with a twist of Reinhardt & Grappelli. Guitar and violin.

Old Pakanae Schoolhouse, 30 Waoitemarama Gorge Road.

Sunday 20^th May, 3.00 pm. afternoon concert. Ph: Harmen and Julie 4057855.

Great music and art comes about by some kind of alchemy: it is the result of painstaking study, a rare mix of ingredients, the moment of inexplicable magic, a wondrous consequence revealed . . .

Richard Adams and Nigel Gavin have worked like few other New Zealand musicians, crafting their art in rehearsal rooms and recording studios, and presented their magic in concert halls and to festival audiences at home, australia, the US and in Europe.

Violinist Adams is a gifted painter whose work has been exhibited internationally and who believes the visual and musical sides of his personality each set the other on fire. Richard has played for many years in the popular Nairobi Trio and co-founder of Neon Quaver--

Guitarist Gavin is probably well known to more people than they realise: he has played with the Nairobi Trio, the Jews Brothers, Bravura, created the guitar orchestra Gitbox Rebellion, and has been on albums by Wayne Gillespie, Whirimako Black, and most notably with Robert Fripp.

Here is that rare alchemy at work where each inspires the other, where melodies can twist on an emphasis, and the improvisation is instinctively taken in a new and rewarding direction.

This tour will bring together both the artistic adventures as well as the fun music Richard and Nigel have played and sung over the past years with the Nairobi Trio and the Jews Brothers.

"There is an ECM-ish feel about this collaboration between two of New Zealand's most original thinkers. The improvisation is of the highest order and , while there are occasions if you wonder whether they are just playing for themselves, the chemistry is engaging enough, particularly on the toe tapping "Sacred Hill" and the impressionistic "Daisy Chain". With crystal clear sound, it's seriously good listening. "

The Sunday Star Times

"first class musical alchemy!"

"...incredibly wonderfully intelligent!"

National Radio

"These performers play with a passion and flair that international audiences adore"

Stephane Grappelli

"Richard Adams beautiful light-and-shade violin solo playing will stay in memory for a long time"

Hastings Blossom Festival

"melodic, dazzling in its virtuosity and inflected with every sort of musical treasure"

The Daily Times

"There's genuine humanity, wit and even humour in Gavin's creations"

Tone Magazine

"... courageous ... sonically naked."

"..(Nigel Gavin's).. finger's must be wired directly to his brain!"

"Gavin's guitar is ringing with ideas and to simply sit back and soak them up is unadorned pleasure!"

Radio New Zealand's "the sampler"

No Direction Home

I'm not at all sure how I came to this point in my life.

Bob Dylan once said that he was born a long way from where he was supposed to be. I feel the same way! ( though, thankfully, I was not born in Duluth, Minnesota)

After watching Scorsese's "No Direction Home" I was moved to reflect on my creative output.

The day before, nursing an aching heart, I read Pippa Blake's auto biography "Journey"

I knew Sir Peter Blake reasonably well over many years as I had been involved on the margins of his various projects when I was a spar maker and rigger (Ceramco and Lion) and then again later as a sign writer (ENZA and NZL 32, Black Magic).

My son Robert was the youngest member of Team New Zealand for two successful defenses of the Americas cup in Auckland and earlier attended Takapuna Grammar school where the Blake's children studied when living in NZ.

Pippa's story reminded me of my own, but it also got me thinking. Like Bob Dylan who spoke of the journey in terms of never arriving at a destination; to arrive would mean death.

Sailing, art, music, family, mortgage (death pledge) all the distractions, self doubt, parental and societal disapproval and lack of support of a chosen path.

I have to leave all that behind me now and take a fresh new path.

I believe that my almost obsessive involvement with the marginal and the different is profoundly symbolized (for me) in the proa.

Perhaps I was drawn to activities and interests that very few knew much about as a way to withdraw from a society that shunned those that were different.

New Zealand is a new land of immigrants that have settled here in successive waves over the lat 1200 years only.

Each new wave has had to fight for a place and for acceptance. Only the third or fourth generations finally feel as though they have been accepted as a legitimate New Zealander.

This blog has given me an outlet for expression on an international level. My writing has connected me indirectly to an community that I feel a part of at a safe distance. Perhaps that community shares something in common with me other than simply odd shaped sail boats. Reading between the lines of all my writing I begin to see a recurring theme.

Michael Scacht said; "Harmen comes to proas in a way with which I can personally identify: as a vehicle for understanding more than just sailboats. A way of looking at the world. And when I say “the world”, I don’t mean the atoms, I mean the invisible connective tissue".

'"Seek and ye shall find" one of the great teachers said. The seeking itself is the finding, since one can fervently seek only what one already knows to exist.' so says Gabor Mate, MD in his excellent book " When the Body says no"

In many ways my eccentric quest to explore the different has been an attempt to express a creative urge, though tainted with a pathological fear of success and acceptance. I think I avoided anything that set me up against anything mainstream or conventional for fear that I would be compared with someone more competent than myself and found lacking.

So much of my activity in the arenas of art and sailing has been in isolation, at a safe distance from my community. Frustration has been the result. perhaps this stems from a feeling of being so close and yet so far from what I truly wish for, that sense of belonging, reciprocated by those I love or admire.

In my other existence I have been a professional and semi professional musician. I practiced in complete isolation to become a reasonably competent drummer. Later (perhaps frustrated by my lack of success) I rejected this pursuit and chose a very marginal instrument, the one string bass,
(skiffle bass, wash tub bass, tea chest bass). This instrument I made completely my own. I was considered by my musical peers as a freak, a virtuoso, and much else besides. Few people understood how it was played in tune. Trained musicians of extraordinary skill and virtuosity marveled at its uniqueness (and its strangeness). Somehow though this activity was acceptable in a community that could tolerate (even admire) such eccentricity and I was safe because there was so little to compare me with!

To qualify for those patient enough to have read this far I simply mean to share what I am learning about myself in the hope that I will say or do something that triggers recognition, that catalyzes something that might provide an insight to themselves and in so doing myself as well.

I have an idea for an exhibition featuring self portraits in the context of my journey to date. Another project in the wings are a series of paintings based on Henry Winklemann's 19th and 20th Century, black and white photos of famous New Zealand Keel boats. It could be interesting to look back on my journey whilst moving forward, somewhat like rowing a boat.

Harmen

Joseph Herscher does it again

Joseph Herscher has made several more Rube Goldberg machines since the "Cream that Egg" machine featured in an earlier post on this blog.

This latest one "The Page Turner" Is brilliant and very funny with as many unexpected twists as an Agatha Cristy Murder mystery. Like the last machine this video also features a sound track featuring my old band "The Jews Brothers Band" (with me on Tea Chest Bass and vocals).

Please check it out!

Harmen

My first kit

My Father (a classical Oboe player) wanted me to learn the accordion but I hated the idea and failed miserably at that. I had been listening to Shocking Blue, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, all of whom my father hated! I was mesmerized by the drum and bass combination. I had to learn how to make that exciting sound for myself.
My father relented but insisted on my taking lessons from a drum Tutor, Gordon Dougie. I was in despair being forced to learn snare drum rudiments, mama-dadda's and parradiddles, trad jazz was not where I saw myself heading. Funny how life goes I love that style now! I remember throwing several tantrums when I could not grasp what Gordon wanted me to learn.

Back in 1972 I bought my first kit, a red Trixon. It cost me the princely sum of $50.00 NZ, a real bargain!
It had a Ludwig speed king kick pedal and a pair of Premier copper timbales and Premier stands. Cymbals were Zynn 14" hi hats (which turned inside out), a Krut 16" crash and a zyldjian 20 inch ride (with a crack which had been repaired with a hole drilled to stop the tear).
This kit (pre international) featured calf skin heads which by then were becoming difficult to find.
I learned a great deal about tuning!
I found this photo on the net as I have no surviving images of my particular kit.
This kit is very much the same as mine with identical wrap.















From the Trixon catalog late 1960's


















I wanted real volume so my next kit was a Hayman like this one. I bought this from someone going overseas in 1976. Again no surviving images though the kit was exactly like this one though a little beaten up.



















Seeking yet more volume, in 1978 I bought a Stainless steel on fiberglass Fibes kit from Frank Gibson Snr at Drum city Balmoral. It had previously belonged to Brent Eccles of the "Angels".



From the 1972 catalog





















Then in 1989 when living in Helensville I bought a Slingerland kit like this
off Gabriel (our postman).





















Slingerland produced a choice of vinyl wraps in 1976. My kit's finish was raised embossed vinyl, patterned in golds the same subdued green tones as in the image below called "Green Aztec."





























On reflection this kit remains my firm favourite for tonality. I wish that I still owned it. I improved it with the best cymbals I was ever to own and eventually sold it back to Gabriel to pay an overdue tax bill. I wonder where it is now?


1/2 size red Aria kit 1991 was purchased to get me back into playing at next to no cost. A child's sized kit it was no match for my hard hitting style so it had to go.


Tama Swingstar I bought from my sign writing colleague Mark in 1992.
One other of my colleagues decorated it for me in his traditional Samoan tapa design in cnc cut vinyl over the gloss black wrap. It looked sensational and very Polynesian. Again no surviving pictures. It was a very versatile kit which I learned to play sweetly as well as my harder style.










My last real kit 1998 was a Drum Workshop, champaign sparkle, 4 piece (with Sabian cymbals) just like this one. This kit was purchased from Frank Gibson Senior of Drum City just before he passed away. It cost me close to $5.5K, the most I have ever spent on an instrument.


I didn't get to play it much as in 2001 I developed Rheumatoid Arthritis which badly affected my wrists. It was sold when we moved to our Northland home in 2005. Drums faded into the past for me while I learned a new instrument, the acoustic bass guitar.