SWPL?

I saw this clip a few months ago, and I conjectured it was an NPR-style hustle based on the quality of the bows and instrument cases.

I like your blog.

> why conclude that the film is a "hustle" without looking into it.

How about because there is a film? Every artifact of media is in some sense a lie, a contrivance that would not exist without the intent to appeal to the attention of the presumptive audience. Who is the audience for this film? Can you insist that it's not SWPL folks? They are the ones promoting it. Are SWPL people easily hustled? Please...

Next, as above, bows and instrument cases are expensive, in relation to the cost of instruments. Given that many of the children are housing their landfill instruments in good-quality cases, I'm thinking there is probably enough money available to them to buy used instruments -- of which there are millions in American pawn shops -- but that wouldn't do anything to mau-mau SWPL sentimentalists.

I could be wrong about all of this, but skepticism seems well warranted to me. When the details of the narrative -- in this case bows, cases, brass instruments, etc. -- belie the overarching yarn, it seems plausible to me that the whole thing is a stunt devised to incite precisely the reaction it is getting.

My apologies for introducing myself to you by way of controversy. I do like what you're doing, and I don't mean to be churlish.

I agree with Swanny, but am ready to risk be snooty about it: This clip is trite.

Sure; people who have the design skills can build instruments out of lesser materials. To prove it, Beneditto, one of the best, once built an archtop of knotty pine... But he didn't get all pouty and sanctimonious about it:

> My biggest desire is to shine light over the
> children of Paraguay.

Shine light!

Children!!!!

PARAGUAY!!!!!

I find it plausible. I come from a part of the U.S. that has a long history of homemade and improvised instruments: the cigar-box banjo, the washtub bass, the comb-and-paper harmonica. That's what a jug band is -- a band that uses improvised instruments.

> That's what a jug band is -- a band that uses improvised instruments.

Quite right. This is how the predecessor of the banjo was invented.

When people make home-made instruments now, is it a matter of necessity or affectation?

Hour for hour, would it be cheaper to make a banjo from scratch (mastering logarithms in the process) or work at a job and buy one?

There are poor children all over the world playing classical music on pre-owned instruments -- millions in China, millions more in India. As I said before, I could be wrong, but this story reeks to me of SWPL treacle.

> When people make home-made instruments now,
> is it a matter of necessity or affectation?

'Zactly. For less than a hundred dollars, you can buy a better electric guitar than Hendrix ever dreamt of. Surdier build, more reliable, easier maintenance, tighter tuning, better tone. The electric guitar is a new instrument... Hendrix was not that long ago.

The whole point of the industrial revolution was than "authenticity" is overpriced.

> affectation?

> For less than a hundred dollars, you can buy a better electric guitar than Hendrix ever dreamt of.

Indeed.

> affectation?

Behavior affected as a pose.

Right, I was trying to credit you with the sentiment.

And payoff of the pose isn't just small, it's cheesy. It's the thrill of clucking about the shine over the children in Paraguay... Because whaddya know, but some pieces of trash are resonant.