A contemplative alap with a middle-eastern feel, played on an acoustic guitar refretted to 17 tone equal temperament. Goes well in the morning with strong coffee and cardamum muffins.

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Written May 30, 2004

This is the first piece on an old steel guitar refretted to 17 tone equal temperament.

Over the last year, I've been hankering to make a 17 tone acoustic for when I want to leave the house or just be off the grid.

Anyway, I was timid to hack a guitar and also did not have a fretting bladesaw. But I did have a Japanese Dohzuki saw which is maybe even better - it has a paper thin kerf and razor sharp blades that cut on the pull stroke -- it's for extremely fine accuracy japanese woodworking. My procedure was to get a couple packages of frets at the music store, then mark out the fret spacing with a special ruler I have that goes to the 100th of an inch, then remove old frets, cut new frets, saving sawdust. Mix sawdust with animal glue and fill old fret slots and sand smooth, then put in new frets, then file edges off and polish smooth.

Only notable problems -- the old fret areas are noticeable up close. And pulling the old frets up nicely is the hard part - try cutting under the edges with a razor blade before pulling.