Post-freeze fun in The sun!

Birdsongs for 2024 are rolling…

So excited to see these beautiful Birdsong basses coming together with such care and devotion. Those are very important to me – skills can be taught, but if you have no ethic for detail or sense of what’s sacred, that’s a job for bigger hands to instill. Goede’s a masterful craftsman himself; there’s not much I ever really had to teach! MY hands are thrilled to tell you that, when you get your hands on a Jake-handmade Birdsong Corto2 or Cortobass, or one of the 5-strings, you’re getting the best that these have ever been.

And yeah, they’ve BEEN really good – that’s why we’re still here after 20 years. So yes, that really IS saying something, which also tells you I wouldn’t have things headed in any other direction. Birdsong for 2024 is bringing the highest craftsman skills to the most fine-tuned versions of our classic basses. I am SO excited. To get an order into the spring batch, or if you have questions, call me. I still run this joint! 512-395-5126 anytime. OR scott@birdsongguitars.com, put “INQUIRY” in the subject. Or find me on Facebook and PM me!

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I’m rocking on the handful of Birdsong special orders I’m still working on as my list winds down. A mesquite and turquoise C5, lined fretless and scrolled Bliss6 in Texas pecan, Birdsong Sport mini bass in mahogany, bloodwood and old brewery redwood… and a weirdo Sport with 4 courses of strings tuned a bit differently. Birdsongs in progress

I’m also recording music and writing another book; more on these as they happen more this year. My on-the-side-of-Birdsong life and work can be found at www.sbeckwith.com, including the Sport (and other) mini basses!

Central Texas has been giving us temperatures that read like a lottery ticket – 70 26, 14, 78, 43… What in the cornbread, chicken fried, hickory smoked hell? Actually, it’s not all that surprising. This is what Texas does when it really doesn’t have a winter of its own and those from elsewhere blow through for a visit. We’re all fine, it’s all good, and we’re on it all around this sort of thing. I definitely needed a few days off and really just hibernated in the ol’ housetruck with some great food, good books, and an ancient ES-125 to strum on… with a stack of jazz material to stumble through! Good times.

Thanks so much for checking in - I’ll keep you posted right here! Brethren, stay warm and be cool.

Scott Beckwith, Chief Woodgnome

Listening to: Fleetwood Mac, Mose Allison, The Cars, Lonnie Johnson, Jack DeJohnette, bhajans, and some live stuff from Texas guitar slinger extraordinaire Mason Ruffner


HAPPY 2024!

Happy new year, friends! And welcome to Birdsong’s 20th Anniversary as a company. There were some pre-company years, and some pre-Birdsong “Scott” years before that, but in 2004 Jamie and I went legit in a rented shop with borrowed tools and a dream and launched this website.

Birdsong has always embraced change - heck, we’re based on it. Short scale basses for the most part were old designs that didn’t balance all that well, cheapo stuff for kids, or the occasional hi-fi super custom from the coast that cost as much as a car. In 2004, that changed with the Cortobass. (Guitar length!)

We’ve always kept it small and personal, kept the menu of offerings small and manageable, and our players love us because it’s a very safe bet to just order one and know you’re probably going to LOVE it. It’s how people get Birdsongs, it’s been that way for 20 years.

Year 20 will be devoted to four classic Birdsong models in our proprietary 31” scale length: The Cortobass, my original design for lots of useful tonal options in a smaller, comfy bass; The Corto2, a version of that with two humbucking soapbars in “J” bass positions for a variety of traditional tones, but fuller sounding; and the mysterious Birdsong short scale 5-strings with low Bs that really work, in TWO of the body styles from their history.

These are all being hand crafted in a small Texas workshop (as always). Head luthier Jake Goede has made hundreds of basses and guitars with us over the years, and the “hand” is now his. Every quarterback has to pass the ball off at some point having given his all - for his own health, and what’s best for the team. I’ve ALWAYS had help and for many of those years, that help WAS Jake. And where I’ve had to source components and find help, Jake can do it all! So Birdsongs for 2024 are not just hand built - they’re fully hand MADE. He’s carving every one of your necks by hand! The ultimate in craftsmanship meets the ultimate in big sounding, easy playing, gorgeous, bench crafted bass guitars.

My life has changed and freed me up locationally a bit, and I aim to roll with those changes. I’m still running the show though; I answer the communications and handle the orders. And like that quarterback, I’m still doing what I do - but just part time. I’ll be having fun building some super short scale Sport basses and a few guitars at www.sbeckwith.com. But it’s the same phone, it’s on, and a small Texas “Hill Country” workshop is working all year making Birdsongs! Check out the models and pricing here. We have a good handle on parts supply now again, and wait times are currently very reasonable.

Wishing you a great start to the new year, I’ll update this news page a little later in the month! Thank you all for being part of Birdsong’s first 20, and I’m resting a little easier being FAR more confident in there being a next 20 to look forward to now. Much love and groovin’ low notes,
~Scott the woodgnome

My Birdsong projects: https://www.birdsongguitars.com/client-builds
2024 Birdsong progress pics: https://goedeguitars.com/birdsongs-in-progress-1
Jake’s OWN guitars (legendary): https://goedeguitars.com/
My site: www.sbeckwith.com
TO ORDER or inquire:
Call Scott at 512-395-5126 (no texts)
Email: info@birdsongguitars.com
Facebook: Birdsong Guitars or Scott Beckwith

END OF YEAR MESSAGE

Workshop made in the Texas “Hill Country” by devoted and skilled hands… as always. Always for us means since 2004 “officially” as a legit company with a workshop and a website and a tax # and a bank account. Birdsong as a brand? Y2K, baby. Born in uncertain times, rolling through uncertain times, and rolling ON. Almost makes you feel like all times are uncertain, and to have something going for decades that keeps going is something really special, doesn’t it? Yes. That’s the truth. Truth you can count on in an ever-changing world. What a Birdsong is, what a Birdsong does, and how a Birdsong is made. Tiny in terms of the world perhaps, but if it’s an answer for YOUR world it’s pretty big!

This is the last news page update for 2023. The “Birdsongs in Progress” BUILDS page will be updated through the Holy days and into January, and maybe changed up a bit to work better going forward. WE ARE WORKING THROUGH. There’s no break this year other than days with our various circles – we’re building basses, because you want them and this is what we do. There is a batch in process for early ’24, and one for spring right behind it getting started. Most orders for clients but some for inventory will appear too. Some amazing Corto2s and Cortobasses happening, head luthier Jake doing what he does.

Other than me, nobody on the planet knows how to make a Birdsong. Nobody else knows the recipe. And we’re cooking up some beauties for Birdsong’s 20th my friends! What will show up in Birdsong inventory? What will Chief Woodgnome Scott be selling in his Reverb store? What will the 20th Anniversary celebration look like? Will Jake shave his headsides or stache up like 2009? Who knows! Stay tuned…

Life is full of decisions, and sometimes the most difficult parts are because we choose not to decide. Change lets you know it’s time, gives you signs, puts things in place for it to go as smoothly as it can when engaged in a healthy way. Most people ignore. Many resist; I don’t. Because change brought this all to me in the first place. And change will carry it on. It is the end of the year, but the beginning of another - a time to ponder change and decide how we will see it, as continuous loss, or as springtime rebirth? It’s a dance, a balance. The Holidays bring the realization of both; but in that, YOU have choices and it’s your life. And the new year comes regardless, like the seasons. Ready or not.

Be kind, but be courageous. If the new year comes with change that needs to happen, trust it and trust you and have faith in the process. Guide it with your best and know you’re not alone – just about everybody I know is in change in some way right now. No matter what it is or how big it seems, after this long this deep in the woods in a workshop, I can’t help but see it like the butterfly emerging from the caterpillar; like a sunrise washing away the darkness with dawn; like a piece of something being worked by greater hands and process over time to become, to sing its new song in its new chapter.

From all of us in the Birdsong family – Scott, Jamie, Deb, Jake - and all of our individual circles – we wish you and yours warm Holy days, holidays, days off, and whatever they are to you. Much love and we’ll talk again in January. Thank you so much for being with us and peace be with you.

ORDERS and INFO DURING ALL OF DEC., THROUGH THE HOLIDAYS: WE ARE WORKING! CALLS ARE WELCOME.
SCOTT 512-395-5126
Email: scott@birdsongguitars.com
Scott on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scott.beckwith.35
Birdsong: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057190700974
“Jaaake to the world…” www.goedeguitars.com
Scott’s on-the-side site: www.sbeckwith.com

(Follow, favorite, like, subscribe, fly like an eagle, genuflect as felt, and otherwise just join us on the journey. OK? OK! We love you.)

Listening to: Speed of Light; The Allman Bros. (The Fillmore Concerts, both CDs); Skip James; Clutch; Masters of Reality (Sunrise on The Sufferbus); Niyaz; Freddy Hubbard (Straight Life); and Soul Heart Transplant: The Lamp Sessions by the Ebony Rhythm Band.







BACK AT IT!

Scott here, I’m back in the workshop after a whirlwind 6000 mile road trip! Well, there was wood forming into basses even while I was out covering ground, delivering a few special projects, and marking my arrival into autumn as a life season. Jake is rocking hard head-luthier-ing a batch of classic Birdsong models, definitely our direction forward. Check this out - patterning the best neck features into new standard specs, crafting bodies, this reminds me of the first project we gave him. He was fresh out of guitar building school, it had to be 2007 or so. I handed him a Cortobass body and said “I need a really good copy of this” and he came back with one - and I couldn’t tell which was which. A revelation in that moment of what can happen with the right helping hands. Now heading into 2024, here we are…

The trip was amazing, holding answers and adventures and clarity… though the car is unpacked (car camping in the “small adventure box” this time, not the housetruck) I’ll be unpacking this trip for months to come.

For now, back to work on my end of things including this mesquite 5-string, two very custom Sport basses, and a 6-string fretless Bliss bass. AND a little something for me; that last body pictured with the two humbucker routs was the last project of “Uncle Johnny” Kirtland in 2006. Johnny lives on large in his influence on my path, and it’s time for it to sing. No matter how I leave it, he’s not coming back to finish it. My life cannot be a museum and a garden at the same time. It may not be summer anymore, but it IS springtime.

While I’m on these Sports, if you’re interested in the latest version of Birdsong’s experiments into the super-short-scale “pocket bass” world, where a tiny bass in standard tuning plays effortlessly and fills the room with the voice of a MUCH bigger bass, I can fit in 2 more standard BIRDSONG Sports and this one-off mesquite custom bodied version before the SPORT migrates into a “Scott” signature model. Like the Shortbass - a different headstock with my “Scott” signature on it, not something in the Birdsong lineup. Anyway, these are one of my favorite designs ever, on this whole adventure that started decades ago. If you want a Birdsong version, now is the time! The wild walnut, 1 pc. mahogany, alder & walnut 3pc., 2 cherry, and the mocked-up mesquite custom bodied… all available NOW.

And OF COURSE if you want one of the proprietary 31” scale basses that built us as a company, that have played everywhere from jam basements to 80,000+ festival crowds and New Years Eve at Madison Square Garden, the Cortobass - Corto2 - and TWO versions of our 5-strings, check those out here and get in touch too! Now is the time to order, build times are reasonably quick and parts supply is not a problem. Happy to answer any questions and get something special rolling for you!
512-395-5126
scott@birdsongguitars.com

Stay warm, be cool…

NEWS FOR NOVEMBER!

Contact info for November, 2023:

BEST: Call Scott at 512-395-5126.

GOOD: (response time will be 3-5 days)

Email: scott@birdsongguitars.com

PM through https://www.facebook.com/scott.beckwith.35

Messaging through Birdsong Guitars Facebook? I’ll get back to you as I can.

Greetings folks! Scott the Captain here. Workshop force of nature Jake is getting rolling on a batch of Birdsongs. If you want to get in on this batch, do get in touch. I worked really hard over the past couple of years catching up, and the wait times won’t stay this low for that long with us making Cortobasses, Corto2s and 5-strings after a brief interruption due to parts supply & help issues. NOW SOLVED!

I’m going to be in and out of the shop this month. The bass orders near completion will all be going out over the next week, and I’m onto a Bliss6 and mesquite 5-string and more Sports next month. Between Jake and I, that’s two little Texas Hill Country workshops working through the winter! It may be late fall, but it’s springtime again for Birdsong.

WHEREVER I AM, CALL ME AND I’LL ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS AND TAKE ORDERS. You’re not bothering me, you’re helping us float the ship. :)

Here's your lineup heading into 2024: Left to right. (Inquire about body woods available & cosmetics)…

Cortobass, 31” scale, 2 pickups designed for maximum variety of tones from bridge pickup punch to woody warmth, but all unique to itself. The bass that launched the company in 2004 – next year it has its 20th year along with Birdsong the company!

Corto2 – a Cortobass but rear routed and twin humbucking soapbars for huge, high-fidelity response. Imagine “J bass” but much warmer & fuller, with the ergonomics of a Birdsong! And that neck pickup, turned down a hair, gives a great “P bass” family thump.

5-strings! THE short scale 5s that work, since 2007. The C5 is the Cortobass shape filled out to work with the wider neck; the H5 is the original “Hy5” model body, back into the line again! Smaller, balanced, easy playing 5s you don’t have to stretch to play.

Sport, the guitar-scale wonder! All we know about making small basses sound BIG thrown at a “pocket bass” concept and this stunning original design. Tiny for travel or anybody wanting a great LITTLE bass. Tunes standard, plays like butter, sounds HUGE. (Shown next to a Les Paul).

And there you have it! More info? THIS PAGE. Questions? CALL ME. Undeniable gotta-haves? Let’s get you on the clipboard and in the que. I’ll be happy to send a hand-written note for Christmas to that special someone that their gift will be along in a month or two and is being lovingly benchcrafted by the hands of Birdsong. Every year that works; it’ll work for you too.

For any special posts I decide to do this month, friend/follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scott.beckwith.35

I’ll have a full report for you here in a few weeks! ‘Til then take care, tune up, and rock on.

Listening to: Mose Allison, Back Country Suite; Willie Nelson, Willie and Family Live; J.B. Lenoir, Down in Mississippi; Living Country Blues Vol. 1, Bowling Green John and Harmonica Phil Wiggins.


Temptation Tuesday!

Temptation Tuesday! Birdsong Cortobass number C333 from Sept. of 2015, walnut and spalted pecan. This one is out there somewhere singing its song; this week's special is to order one "333 style" with NO upcharge for the beautiful 3-pc. body, rear routed controls, OR the black hardware! Front More on this iconic 31" scale Birdsong main model (since 2004) here on the models page. Call 512-395-5126 or email scott@birdsongguitars.com through Friday.

YOU are the best!

Well it’s been a wet week out here in the Hill Country, that’s something you don’t hear often as a sentence. Rain! We got rain, like REAL rain. I’m so happy. Oh there’s a leaky spot in the tin roof where they sealed the screw holes after taking the old internet tower down, or it may be where the building got struck by lightning a few years back. I’ll get the caulk out and fix it at some point; for now, I’ve got a bucket for the little drips of life; bring on the showers! We need it more than we have in years out here in the Texas hills. One of my favorite sounds is rain on a tin roof, and all the roofs are tin. In that, I am a blessed man. A blessed man with roofs of tin in a rainy season.

For those not tuned in to the Scott Facebook page (go friend/follow https://www.facebook.com/scott.beckwith.35; it’s where the action happens), SD Curlee has changed hands after many years under the wing of Birdsong! All our best to the new caretakers, who will manage their own announcements in their own time. (UPDATE: The new SD Curlee page is up! https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553058141920 - please head on over and like/follow to see what the next chapter of SDC will be... and I do appreciate you showing them the same patience & encouragement in carrying it on as you showed me in bringing it back. ~Scott B.)

It was such an honor to be a little part of the legacy and get to know the absolute legends from the original company. I am working on the SD CURLEE INFO BOOK to put some more accurate info out and shine much-deserved light on their contributions. More on that to come! Thank you to all of the SD Curlee fans, I did my best with it but now it’s best it’s with folks who can do more with it. Thanks to these guys - this was the crew in and around Birdsong when I decided a little tip o’the hat to an influence was going to become a revival. ‘Twas a band I could not keep together, but some good times were had and some great instruments got made! I can’t believe this was 12 years ago.

But Jake… Jake is back and we’re tooling up for NEW Birdsong Cortobasses, Corto2s, and 5-strings in two (TWO) body shapes. Check that all out here. As we enter this amazing next chapter of Birdsong, there’ll be other little changes to serve that and serve you, refinements and focus. I’ve been saying this all year, but now more than ever “It’s springtime, baby!” If you’ve been thinking about a Birdsong during the past couple of years of crazyworld, do get in touch because I got caught up during the times I stopped taking orders and the supply chain went nutty, and with much of that sorted out, the wait time on an order right now is the lowest it’s been in almost 20 years. Oh we’re busy, but we’re “busy within our means” and with Jake aboard, our means just increased a bunch. So we’re on it, is what I’m saying. Hop in for half down and have the experience. Life is short.

In general music news, a big rag way more in the “pop culture” end of the biz released a “250 Best Guitarists” list or some nonsense, and that’s always shitty. Everybody’s talking about it, about guitars and bands, and that part is good. But how do you compare “best” in art and craft without missing the point and meaning of such things entirely? How do you make it a competition between, say, Mississippi Fred McDowell and Yngwie Malmsteen? You don’t. Smart people don’t. It’s that simple. Jerry Garcia vs. Ali Farka Toure? Alan Holdsworth vs. Sister Rosetta Tharpe? There is only “best” in specific quantifiable layers of measured technique. This is not a martial arts tournament. And if that’s what music is to you, we’re working from different books. I mean facility is good where necessary, but who is the best singer - Luciano Pavarotti, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Eliza Gilkyson, or John Lee Hooker? At what time, for what music, in what context? Let’s be real – I bet my ass I could find twenty singers in any Black church in the south who could move you to your knees in ways the top 100 on the charts in the world can’t even dream about. “Best?” Toward what end, defined by whom?

I don’t read lists like that, even slightly more reasonable ones that debate or numericize “most influential”… I see the beauty in Andres Segovia, Kurt Cobain, Joe Pass, alllll the way over to Cedell Davis in that wheelchair in the Delta, playing slide overhand with a butter knife in his mangled hands. Sure, it’s brutal. But you’re going to tell me any player in the universe is better than that guy given the world he lived in? We may share the planet and some words, but that’s not the same world as yours or mine or the people who made that list. How about the dude that played with his feet for the Pope that time because he has no arms? Is he on there? I’d say that’s pretty good considering he didn’t start on 2nd base like the rest of us. Are we talking best in finish line terms, or in ground covered? Because looked at like that, Hendrix isn’t even in the same league as that dude. I don’t know, man. Context is everything. So here is a list of 15 of my FAVORITE players, in NO ranked order, understanding there are probably 50 more that could shuffle IN here, from Lightnin’ Hopkins to Alvin Lee and Nuno Bettencourt. All absolutely the best Lightnin’ Hopki and Alvins Li and Nuni - and the rest of their own creative selves - in the universe.

R.L. Burnside – find the Lomax videos.

Ed Bickert – tone, touch, and chord voicings for days.

Neal Schon – his soaring notes in Journey still light me up.

John Scofield – his own thing said his own way.

Dickey Betts – start at “Ramblin’ Man” and work into the long fluid jams.

Leigh Stephens – 1st Blue Cheer album = controlled explosions that blew my mind.

Jim Hall – a jazz giant but with taste and class.

Tony Iommi – I learned how to play to Black Sabbath Vol. 4…

Neil Young - …and Neil’s electric, acoustic, and song playing on Rust Never Sleeps

Keith Richards – compositional and comping brilliance.

Mick Taylor – his work on Sticky Fingers defines that genre for me.

Jimmy Lyon - Eddie Money’s right hand man on all the No Control-era classics.

John Williams – the classical guitarist, “Spanish Guitar Music” is a fave.

Eddie Hazel – listening to “Maggot Brain” in headphones as a kid.

Jack Owens – one of my favorite Delta blues cats.

I hope it PURELY turns you on to something new that turns you on! SO many more greatest guitarists, all on their own merits of their own work and their own beauty they spread throughout the world to be parts of our lives and move us; something that just doesn’t happen for music critics and “creators” of such bogus lists. There really aren’t lists of bests one could make for them, but I bet there’d be at least 250 worst competing for the bottom.

Do you and be the best YOU that has ever been. It’s a lot more difficult, but all these years in the workshop have taught me well. I’m making changes in my life, everyone I know is too after coming out of the past few years, Birdsong is striving; pour yourself into your potential, my friends. If not you, who? If not now, when? I’ll say it again, it’s springtime. Bring that to what you do and why, and bring the best of those to IT.

Much love & music,

Listening to: Bill Evans Trio Moon Beams; the Rick Beato interview with Yngwie Malmsteen; lots of car resurrection videos like Vice Grip Garage; my next album; Dred Scott Trio Standards 2000; vintage dub reggae stuff from Scientist; Eclipse Trio Improvised Strings and Percussion.