Master Class offered by Rick Turner at Cairns Uke Festival

[Allen]

As many of you are aware, Cairns is going to be holding a Ukulele Festival next year the first weekend in July. In the week leading up to the festival Rick Turner is going to offer his Uke building course and it will be staged at the Cairns and District Woodworkers Guild.

In an effort to help secure funding for some of the costs of holding the festival, and hosting the Uke building class, we are looking at various ways of adding value and diversity to the festival and community as a whole. One thought was that while we had Rick up here, there is an opportunity to get a bit of extra milage out of his limited free time away from his other commitments. One was to offer a Master Class targeted at people with more than just the rudimentary understanding of how to build an instrument.

So my inquiry is to anyone that may be interested in attending, what sort of topics would you be interested in covering? It's just tentative, and testing the waters at this point. I'm sure that Rick will pipe in once this gets rolling

[Bob Connor]

Carbon fibre in luthiery.

Rick probably knows more about this than anyone else on the planet.

I'd love to attend a session like this but I may be in the States in July next year.

[ozziebluesman]

G'day Allen,

I have no doubt I would be able to learn some good tips from Rick so I'm interested in attending a workshop. As far as topics go I'm keen to learn anything that will improve my understanding of how to achieve maximum tone from a stringed instrument.

Cheers

Alan

[Rick Turner]

If you all can help me come up with topics, I'll write up some handouts for such a class. Yes, carbon fiber. Also where to use different adhesives, a range of info on finishes, turning drawings into working templates and fixtures, pickups and electronics, and ????

[kiwigeo]

A tutorial on how to look cool in a Hawaiian shirt?

[Hesh1956]

I wish that I could attend....

Here's an idea - I know that Rick has also worked with and investigated some of the newer alternatives for fretting which include ceramic frets. Make sure you ask him nicely to tell you about these.

[liam_fnq]

i'd be keen as mustard to attend a Rick Turner workshop. not a huge number of luthiers knock down your door in far north queensland

as for topics, i think i could learn from just about anything Rick has to say although looking at some alternative materials and methods (ie carbon fibre and ceramic frets, neck joints etc) could be interesting. it can be difficult to get quality information away from the traditional methods. Rick's probably ahead of the curve on some of these things.

[John Maddison]

This'd be a great opportunity Allen!

'Voicing Soundboards' would be a good topic to get some finer points on. Also the techniques, pros & cons of using (so called non-toxic) 'alternative' finishes (have been using Tru-Oil lately but it aint that durable), and am yet to have a go at French Polishing. Though I imagine a class on finishing would chew up a fair bit of Rick's free time.

Have you & Rick given any thought to scheduling the Beginner Builder's group AND the Master Class(es)? i.e would the Master Class be just prior to the Festival weekend or at some other time during the week (evenings??)? That last week of semester at TAFE that will be the week prior to the Festival gets a bit frantic, so am not sure how a leave application will go down. Cheers!

[Allen]

The Uke building class would be the week leading up to the Festival, so those building an instrument will be able to have strings on it to play along.

The Master Class is just an idea at this point. Gauging interest, etc. I thought that the best place to do this was on this forum, as there a fair number of experienced builders that might like to take the opportunity of getting in on something like this, should it eventuate.

Let's keep the ideas rolling, and perhaps we can get an idea of what length of time would be required to cover some of this area, and how much free time Rick will have available either before during or after the Uke Festival.

[John Maddison]

(Master Class) after the Uke Festival.

... would be a personal preference (school holidays in WA), but happy to leave it to you & Rick to schedule. From experience, scheduling David Hurd to run his hands-on technology session after Playmakers worked pretty well, as there was a frenzy of activity for most participants leading up to the PM09 weekend. A class after the UkeFest might also give anyone from the Beginner Builder's group the opportunity to join in for some more advanced tuition - just a thought. Cheers to you both, and thanks for the idea of trying to incorporate a Master Class while Rick is in Oz.

[John Maddison]

... how to look cool in a Hawaiian shirt

PM David Hurd for supplies of same; he did a roaring trade in shirts at Playmakers, and knows where in his home town (Hilo) to sniff out a bargain .

[xray]

I am going to propose something here. I think that those people who do attend should organise someone on a video camera to record ricks tuition. The reason for me mentioning this is that the topics covered in the booklet being made i would kill for as there is no way i can make the trip personally. i fully underdstand that the course may cost something but i think that a number of people would pay for a copy of the booklet along with a dvd.
Now with all that said, Rick i am happy to Fully edit the film into a proper dvd with chapter references and if the sound is bad subtitles too. What does everyone think. It could be a cool resource?

[Rick Turner]

In "Master Class" situations, I do best with a Q & A format. I want to talk about what you want to know, not some canned spiel of my own. When I do this, I usually start with a bit of a "slide show"...photos from my computer, hopefully hooked up to a big screen. I talk a bit about how I started, and then about the twists and turns in my career. I can cover a pretty wide range of topics from large PA system design to glues to finishes to resawing timber to pickup design to carbon fiber usage. A lot is extemporaneous, though with you Aussies here, I could probably be pretty nicely prepared before I came over.

I think an all day event with a nice lunch in the middle of the day devolving into cocktails, wine, beer and lascivious behaviour at the end of the day would be about right...

See, I can even spell behaviour!

Uke club here tonight, gotta go play guitar and uke in the house band...

[Nick]

the day devolving into cocktails, wine, beer and lascivious behaviour at the end of the day would be about right...

Where do I sign? The "master class" you mention sounds like a good system Rick because it would cover a multitude of sins... oops sorry...skills & techniques .

[Allen]

Rick goes up in my estimation with every post he makes here. Going to fit right in just fine.

[Rick Turner]

Well, four glasses of nice Merlot spaced over about four hours tonight was just fine. I'm getting used to playing under-rehearsed with these pickup bands as long as nobody complains about music stands and chord charts... "Back in the day"...when I gigged more or less professionally, we rehearsed a lot. I knew the licks, the leads, the turnarounds, and all that. Now I am loving going in with the threat of a train wreck happening at any moment, and I'm playing better for having to pick up on it fast.

There's a parallel in there to lutherie...get in quick, just do it, and get back out before you can screw up what your're doing... It takes time to f... things up...at least as much time as to do it right...