JAKE WILDWOOD || Vintage Mandolin

Jake is well known for sharing photos of his vintage project string instruments. Here he's working on a mandolin and playing quick-paced improvisation.

ANTEBELLUM INSTRUMENTS

Maxitone Tiple

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If you love beautiful vintage instruments then

be sure to check out Jake Wildwood's site,

just click on this blog's title and "pooof" you're there...

This is a Stella Tenor Guitar

...

And this is a Hawaiian Parlour Guitar

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Jake purdies up old ukes, banjos, and guitars of all varities

Jake - Antebellum Instruments - Old Cigar Box Uke

I periodically like to check my link to Jake Wildwood's Antebellum Instruments blog. I have been looking at some of these "homemade" instruments recently on eBay. [Keni Lee Burgess has some great videos on YT with 3, 4, and 6 string cigar box guitars.] Some are fretless for sliding bottleneck blues. Jake takes pictures of his adopted and repaired instruments as if they were his children - click the title above to see this old cigar box ukulele entry as well has hear him sing play on this vintage instrument. Thank you Jake, HU

JAKE WILDWOOD INSTRUMENT APPRECIATION

Jake Wildwood has some great vintage instrument photos. I wonder how this would sound tuned to CEA? You know by now that I enjoy finding photos and posting them. Jake is quite the photographer of his restoration projects. I was thinking today about one of those of wood pot bellied mandolins and how one might sound if it were tuned GGCCEEAA. I am a workin' man and I find that it's quite easy to get addicted to an instrument but I don't think I have the time or the room in my noggin' to learn a whole other set of chord shapes. The baritone ukulele changes are taxing enough for me.

NOTE: Jake responded and gave string dimensions in his comment. Thanks Jake, HU

Jake & Bonnie / Music, Art & Creativity

CREaTIViTY. Rhan Wilson told me that when he created his "Altared Christmas Show" that he intentionally under-rehearsed certain parts of the show. He just gave a guideline to certain participants and welcomed the unrehearsed moments as opportunities to be open and trust in the creativity of the art. He says in his Rhan's World blog that... "I wanted us all to rely on our professionalism and skill to be "in the moment" and to react accordingly. To make a few mistaken notes here and there was worth it to me to be able to create magic that no one could have predicted..."

I like to take the long way sometimes. To explore and to enjoy. This is an unusual post for me in that there are musical, artistic, nostalgic, aspects to this little journey. I'm not sure where I'm going but I continually find something new, and something old but new to me.

Those that have read chunks of my blog will know that Alistair Wood’s Ukulele Hunt site is a great inspiration to me. http://www.ukulelehunt.com/. Alistair makes great use of search tools to provide us readers with many avenues to search. Recently, he posted some favorite YouTube videos and I looked into a multi-instrumentalist and vintage instrument repairer named, Jake Wildwood and found out about a family living in Vermont

Jake's music and handiwork are very interesting to explore. His wife, Bonnie. also has a blog where she has some of her skilled craft work is displayed. If you have a nostalgia for handicrafts, old furniture, Hoosier cabinets, and vintage instruments then pull up a chair and sit a spell in beautiful Rochester, Vermont:

http://www.youtube.com/user/jakewildwood
http://www.jakewildwood.com/work.html
http://www.thewildwoodflower.blogspot.com/
http://littlewhitepaw.blogspot.com/

[Jake has many songs posted as mp3’s on his “music” section of this “work” page. ]


At the end of May 2008, my wife, Wendy, and I were in Ketchikan or Juneau, Alaska and we came across an unusual 2-story indoor shopping mall that had a music store in the very center. I think is was about 8 feet wide and 15 feet long. Full of different instruments, comfy chairs, and a welcoming vibration. I saw an inexpensive Gold Tone banjo there and thought that one day I want to try a banjo or a banjolele. I’m going to keep an eye on Jake Wildwood’s work in the future. I'm also curious about those old pot bellied mandolins.

http://www.jakewildwood.com/instruments/uke_1920s_maybell_banjo.html

I was also intrigued with Bonnie’s work. I noticed some Scandinavian aspects to her craft work. For those that are interested in things rustic and handmade the Wildwood Country Store may be worth an e-visit or more.