I suppose it is only natural that someone who hates waste has also made a habit of making do. It seems those things go hand in hand, although when I think about it, there certainly is no requirement for them to go together. It is a fairly logical step from repurposing things instead of wasting them to making do with whatever is available. I think I also got a lot of this mindset from my grandparents; you may recall that they lived through the Great Depression which, like most others of this age, left a permanent mark on them even after they reached a point in their lives where they did not have to “make do” to get by. I am very thankful that they instilled this in me as child and I try to apply it in everything I do. We can even apply it to music, but I’ll save that for the end.
I did not have a lot growing up as the oldest child of a single parent who decided to leave the protection and support of the family. Before we moved away I spent every day with my grandparents and after we moved I still got to spend most summers with them. It was during this time that they taught me about waste and about how to make do with whatever was available. Watching my grandfather modify and fabricate tools out of scrap and my grandmother make fishhooks out of safety pins immediately comes to mind. However, watching them make do with what they had instead of running off to the store every time they needed something left a lasting, positive impression on how to live. Sure, my grandmother wanted that new sewing machine, but in the meantime when something wore out in the old one, she would find a way to fix or make a new part to keep it going. Eventually she would save her money from doing the seamstress work to buy a new part or a new machine. Alternatively, my grandfather would sneak off to the store and buy her the machine she wanted for a special occasion. However, that was not the first reaction to the situation; the first reaction was to figure out a way to get the machine going again with whatever was available at the time.
Growing up I had to do much of the same. I built and repaired my bicycle from parts of broken bicycles other kids had discarded. It was a hodge-podge of different colors, types, and sizes, but in the end it was ridable and it was mine. Later on I did the same thing with a car. I got parts from the junk yard, often for free, or others that were being discarded. I fixed, modified, or did whatever was required to get that thing running. Eventually I traded up from my hodge-podge bicycle to a hodge-podge automobile. The down side to hating waste and making do however, is that when things break it is difficult not to hang on to things that “might be useful” at some point. After my grandparents died I had to go through the shop, the attic, and other storage areas and I often wondered why in the world some of those things were there. Simultaneously, it would make me smile to remember how resourceful those two people where and how thankful I was that they passed that on to me during their lives.
Years later while I was helping teach at a luthier school it became a pretty common practice for the master luthier to ask me how we could save the project when he was confounded about how to make a tricky repair on a vintage instrument or how to save an instrument when a student made a significant mistake. It was the combination of spending one’s life making do and repurposing things that provided the perspective that was missed by the classically trained whose first instinct was to scrap the project and start over. During this time the same master luthier faced a personnel dilemma that resulted in him losing the place where he stored his personal collection of antique wood planes. Most of these planes had been used by his grandfather and many where quite valuable as collector items. Others where planes that had just been collected by his family over the years. I had space in the trailer I had been using as a shop before I started helping him and offered to store the planes there until he could resolve his situation. He took me up on the offer and the planes had a safe home until he could work something out.
A few months later after he had worked through everything we loaded up the truck and laid out all the planes on a series of long tables in the shop. There was about sixteen feet of table space cram packed with planes of all shapes and sizes. I recognized some of the vintage Stanley planes as being quite valuable and some of the specialty planes were particularly interesting. It was an impressive collection. After we laid them all out the master luthier said, “I really appreciate you storing my collection for me; I thought I was going to have to sell them; I want you to have one of them, pick any one you want and it is yours”. I told him it was not necessary, but he insisted saying, “If you do not pick one, I will”. After a while I recognized that he would not take no for an answer, so I started looking closely at all of the planes. There were many that caught my eye, but then I came across a small, handmade plane. It looked like it had been made by a cabinet maker based on the parts used to fabricate it. Neither of us was sure how old it was, but it was well used and still functional. I said, “Since you are insisting that I have one of these, I’ll take this one”. He looked extremely surprised and said, “But that one is worthless; there are some planes here that are worth thousands of dollars by themselves; why do you want that one”. I told him that while I did recognize some planes in his collection were extremely valuable in terms of dollars, that this particular plane was priceless to me. This plane represents someone who probably made his living from building cabinets who had a job to do, but did not have the right tools. So he made do by taking parts and scraps that he did have and fashioned them into the tool that he needed for the job. I told him that the mindset represented by this handmade plane was more important to me than any dollar amount. Today that plane sits on the shelf of my shop as a reminder to make do.
The same mindset can be applied to everything in life, to include making music. We all have the ability to make do with the instrument and skills that we have to have fun playing music during the course of a jam. Sure we want to develop our skills through focused practice and instruction, but when you get the nod, sometimes unexpectedly on a tune that is going faster than you thought possible, we can make do with what we have. It may be that all we can do is play eighth notes on any string while hold the chords. Perhaps we can keep the cadence of the melody while hitting any string or alternate between long bows and shuffle bows while playing arpeggios on the fiddle. Maybe we can even get in some bits of the melody and fill in the rest with notes from the chords or some kind of lick or run that fits. If we can play the basic melody and nothing else, that works too. Of course if you can play the melody with some interesting fillers that is the gold standard, but in the end, we can all make do when we get the nod even if we are not even close to the gold standard. So long as we know the chord progression of the tune and stay in time with everyone else who is playing rhythm, we can do it. At first you might have to force yourself to try, but over time it will become more natural.
So from sewing machines, to construction tools, to bicycles, automobiles, wood planes, and even taking a lead break at a jam, the mindset of making do comes in pretty handy. When you can make do with what is available there is nothing you cannot do. Sure, it may not be the prettiest as you have to hodge-podge things together, but you can get the job done. Let’s face it, particularly when it comes to music, even the professionals are just making do with what they have. They have just spent a great deal more time honing the tools that they use to make music. Their making do sounds better than ours because they spent a lifetime making do while building up the tools they have available. It is precisely this mindset that has helped them along the way to hone those skills and to develop their own unique style of playing. So the next time you are at a jam and you get the nod to take a break, remember the mindset of making do with the tools you have. Keep time with your accompaniment and have fun making music together. The more you do it, the more ingrained the mindset becomes, the easier it is to apply the next time. You will be on your way to developing your own technique and style that all starts with making do with what you have.
