Joiners (TTT 023)

When I pick up my guitar, my relationship with the instrument is informed by many different worlds. I work as a guitar technician, which means that I think about setup work and am perennially worried that something terrible is slowly taking place within my instrument. I am struck by how beautiful wood is as a material every time I work with it. I think about how old trees were when they were milled. I think about the classist undervaluing of trade skills in the United States. When I walk through forests, I think about Eastern White Pine and navy ship masts and the fact that there are no more large old-growth groves in the Northeastern United States (or most of the rest of the country). I think about how many monarch sequoia trees pre-date the common era, and how in spite of their gargantuan size their cones are smaller than a tennis ball.

I feel love when I hold my instrument. I marvel at the complexity of its existence and its creation. A joiner is a woodworker who specializes in joinery, or the practice of cutting pieces so that they fit tightly together without the use of adhesives like glue or nails. A dovetail joint unites the neck and body of many guitars. Woodworking meshes trees with human epistemology. An instrument’s existence is a reflection of the joinery which unites all things.