Japanese addition to the family!

Come to think of it, the family is already pretty Japanese... since I have two Yamahas.

I went to the Meiji Park flea market behind the National Stadium in Tokyo today, just one subway stop away, and found myself buying this lovely little thing!


It's a Suzuki Violin company mandolin. According to the vendor, who also had about eight guitars, three tambourines, four harmonicas, and two ocarinas, it was made in 1945. I question his ability to translate numbers into English, but it's certainly possible. The label says Suzuki Violins Kojo, Nagoya. Since Suzuki split hither and yon after the war, I would probably need an expert's help on this one. The writing in the red lining, which was helpfully read to me by a hotel staffer, is just an owner's name and address. When I get around to it, I'll post it on mandolincafe and see who knows what.

In original case, which is worn around the edges but will get it home. Condition is poor. Finish very worn, a couple of tiny cracks in the bowl back where the wood is pulling apart, I think. But look at how lovely it used to be. The inlay around the edge and soundholes is outrageous, and so is that butterfly:


It's missing both sets of upper strings, and the ones on it look like hell, but the sound is still in there somewhere. I'll get it all fixed up in Chicago. Oh, and it's very tiny. If Peri, the Soviet mandolin, was not playing size, this is like a child's. But I had to get it. I paid about US$40. Maybe I could have bargained more, but I think I did all right. The vendor was hesitating, and I gave him my best hopeful puppy eyes -- something I would never do if I could actually communicate with language.

I was going to come up with a cool Japanese name for it, but I'm afraid it's named itself 'Puccini.' You can connect the dots.

Oh, and I was also looking at a taishi-gato, a kind of five-stringed pianolin. You press keys and pick. I would have loved to get it, but it was new, and he was asking US$110. I figured even if I got him down to $50, I'd rather find something old... and I did!

[ETA: make that a taisho-koto.)

Little shops of heaven

I played a Brian May Guitar today!

And I only had to go halfway around the globe to do it. I'm in Tokyo, and today I hit the famous guitar shops near Ochanomizu -- also near the famous bookstores of Jimbo-cho. I can't believe that any city can sustain that many guitar shops. Up and down the street, one after another, guitar after high-end guitar, a shop of ukeleles on one floor and acoustics on the next...

Anyway, I played a BM, which was surprisingly small in the body. I always thought it just looked small because he's huge. Solid. Neck not quite as wide and thick as I had heard. I do see the complaints about the hardware, but I really think it's not bad. At the same time, for the $1000 or so they were charging, I'd rather get the used Jaguar I saw at Chicago Music Exchange for $980.

As is becoming all too common a theme on these trips, I was the only girl, except girls trailing after their boyfriends and sitting down with their shopping bags. Less disturbing, perhaps, than consistently being the only girl in the music stores. I stopped in two more branches of Disk Union, Tokyo's big music store, that of course were amongst the guitar stores.

No BM going home with me, but I got a Live Line guitar strap made in Japan. I don't think it's going to be much less slippery than my cheap one, but it does have a red covering with little stenciled rabbits and flowers and gold leaves. Too appropriate.



Also grabbed a couple of picks from the store brand, Shimokura, and a Takamine pick ring. In a striking demonstration of Japan's culture that so despises theft, the picks were all just in an open tray between the cash register and the door.

What else? Saw tons of K. Yairi guitars. Woods of all kinds, and a lot of places had a little explanation panel with samples of the different woods. Crowded shops, hip but helpful salespeople, unobtrusive but around.

Everything old is new again

Why did I resolutely hold out against buying wirecutters, asking my friend to come cut my guitar strings once and then borrowing another's? Second friend didn't even think to wonder why I didn't just buy them. As a matter of fact, she said she didn't know what they looked like and asked her husband to dig them out.

I happily laid my old college Physics 15b wirecutters down on the shelf next to my guitar today. Just simple little wirecutters with a notch to strip insulation, and little red rubber slips on the handles. I sneaked them out behind my dad's back. He wanted me to solder some things for him, and before he put the toolkit away, I whipped the wirecutters out and sat on them. Of course, mom spotted them when I was packing and said, "Heidi, why do you need to take these little scissors?"

Alive and collecting

Visiting my parents in NJ briefly, and dug out an old Peanuts pencil with Snoopy playing the guitar on it while cleaning out some things. I think my parents bought these for me in Korea, where (as in Japan) Peanuts is still extremely popular. That being said, this pencil is probably close to twenty years old. I'm going to take it back to Chicago to add to the collection on the shelf. I can tell that I'm going to become one of those people who starts getting guitar-themed gifts, like cat people who have cat everything not because they bought it, but because friends inflict the tchotchkes on them.