Three Sessions in Guadalajara

“You play like someone who's afraid to stop.”

Guitar in a small recording studio — —The ten-string. Rodrigo built it in 2019 from wood he collected in Michoacán.

Met a luthier named Rodrigo who has a small studio above a taquería in Analco. His walls are covered in instruments, half of them unfinished, none of them for sale. He told me he doesn't sell instruments, he lends them to people he trusts and waits to see what comes back.

Street in Analco neighborhood, Guadalajara — —The street below the studio, early morning before the taquería opened.

He lent me a ten-string guitar I'd never played anything like. Spanish-shaped body but deeper than usual, with a tone that sat somewhere between a classical and a harp. I recorded three things in two days: a piece I'd been carrying in my head since Mazatlán, one improvisation that I think is actually finished, and something that isn't music yet but might become it.

The best thing about recording in other people's spaces is that the room has opinions. Rodrigo's studio has a low ceiling and a window that rattles in a specific wind. Both of those things are on the recordings now.

I left him a copy of my last record. He listened to twenty seconds and said: you play like someone who's afraid to stop. He wasn't wrong.

#music #recording #people