Bob Taylor on "The state of ebony"

[larryp58]

I still have to watch this a few more times to digest it all.

 

[fortyearspickn]

Wow. I wish 'we' had this information 10 years ago. Palm oil plantations are part of the problem. Our granola bars, peanut butter, etc. We've been brainwashed into thinking it's the best and healthiest. So, rainforest is slashed and burned, not even harvested in many cases. I am glad that Taylor is becoming proactive and representing 'our' industry so well.

[milod]

I think this is the same vid that was on the forum a cupla years ago - and it's quite interesting.

 

OTOH, one of the problems is how "we" tell folks elsewhere how they can and should live. Yeah, it's slash and burn and the waste of resources isn't "good," but I think also of folks who are living far below what folks around here would consider poverty level and we tend too often to offer no options.

 

Would that it were easier to care for folks as well as "natural resources." With bursting populations I think that's as much a challenge since folks are a resource we work to save too - I hope.

 

m

[E-minor7]

"Let's embrace the way ebony actually is today", , , , well, yes, I'm right behind mr. Taylor.

 

Now we have adored Brazilian rosewood since don't know when for its flames and colors.

Of course the same should be possible with ebony. It can be be dyed - into exciting 2 or 3 hue-tone woods and it can stay as it is

 

Vanilla sounds good to me, , , maybe especially for blonde or natural guitars, but let's see it happen.

 

If the resource is failing, then let's go for exotic vanilla-blend or double-hued fretboards and bridges - no choice, , , and no big deal - they'll be beautiful.

Certainly in the light of the absurd thought of having to cut down 20 trees to get one jet-black log out there 8 kilometers from the jungle road.

 

Now we sit back and wait - what else can we do. Changes will arrive in our lifetime if B.T. is right - we are ready.

 

In fact we can take a lot as long as it isn't compressed paper or micarta.

[milod]

E....

 

I think I'll be gone before it's standard, but I'll wager that in the next 50 years of pickin' you're gonna see more micarta by far than rosewood or ebony.

 

I look back at some rosewood I worked with making hunting knives back in the late '60s and early '70s and then look at fingerboards and... ain't a comparison as far as I can see.

 

m

[fortyearspickn]

I think this is the same vid that was on the forum a cupla years ago - and it's quite interesting.

 

OTOH, one of the problems is how "we" tell folks elsewhere how they can and should live. Yeah, it's slash and burn and the waste of resources isn't "good," but I think also of folks who are living far below what folks around here would consider poverty level and we tend too often to offer no options.

 

Would that it were easier to care for folks as well as "natural resources." With bursting populations I think that's as much a challenge since folks are a resource we work to save too - I hope.

 

m

 

I guess my 'take away' is that, I can't do anything about the inevitable extinction of the Sumatran Tiger due to the proliferation of palm oil plantations, nor can I tell poachers not to kill Rhinos so they can make a living, nor tell those in China getting rich off the powdered horn that it isn't going to do for their customers what they promise. Nor can I bring relief to the billions of people who do not have as nice a house as I do. But I can at least 'contribute' to the greater good by by accepting ebony that has vanilla streaks, and by encouraging those who are learning about guitars to accept it as well.

[BluesKing777]

I think this is the same vid that was on the forum a cupla years ago - and it's quite interesting.

 

OTOH, one of the problems is how "we" tell folks elsewhere how they can and should live. Yeah, it's slash and burn and the waste of resources isn't "good," but I think also of folks who are living far below what folks around here would consider poverty level and we tend too often to offer no options.

 

Would that it were easier to care for folks as well as "natural resources." With bursting populations I think that's as much a challenge since folks are a resource we work to save too - I hope.

 

m

 

 

 

I saw the video quite a while back too.

 

It would be good to see an update to hear if BT has helped or hindered. If Gibson had bought the Ebony plantation, we would never here the end of the fuss.

 

Nobody mentioned growing some more Ebony - is this too difficult? Clear fell a million square miles of Palm plantations and put in Ebony, Rosewood, Mahogany.......

 

I don't care if it has some stripes and grain and other wrinkles - it is only what we get used to wanting, isn't it? The blonde streak in the ebony looked great.

 

 

BluesKing777.

[BobF_]

My Yamaha A3M has a streaky ebony board. I like it better than solid black.

[mountainpicker]

It bears repeating and grokking: We are living during the largest extinction rate since the dinosaurs. If you live in a city you don't see this because most of what you see is the proliferation of the human species (7 billion and counting). But if you live somewhere and can see more of the natural world you know that it's true. We humans are systematically destroying the systems that support life on the planet,and on every front, and mostly to make a buck. Who knows when some super critical link in the web of life will be snuffed out that then will lead to our own demise but any thinking person should be able to run the iterations out to the end game and draw the only conclusion that can be drawn. Ebony?, we can do without ebony and without elephants and without songbirds but sooner or later, on our current trajectory, something we can't live without will get swept away and then we will go too. Unless we can make a collective change. Maybe it's time to buy up old junker guitars that have ebony boards with an eye towards future value...or some such. Oh well.

[JuanCarlosVejar]

I agree with MP ... we are living in a time where we are on the verge of imploding as a planet .

at the rate things are going I give the human race another 50 years maybe 75 years before everything is gone .

 

 

 

 

 

I support Bob in retraining our brain as consumers to see the beauty in nature

 

 

 

JC

[Hall]

"How is it we are here?" Q. B. by M.P./mbs

[milod]

For what it's worth, I gave up on the politics of eco-nuts of various descriptions decades ago on grounds that they ignore the foundation difficulty of increasing populations and instead continue adding restrictions on various resources that at some point will make eating much of anything beyond synthetic porridge - if that - impossible as we live packed into hives of some sort.

 

But to suggest that is quite politically incorrect today to folks all across the political spectrum. Then again, my great grandfather left Vermont and anywhere else "back east" in the U.S. in the 1850s 'cuz it was far too crowded and regulated - and that's been a spoken or unspoken family trait long before that. In my case I chose not to have children precisely because I saw the consequences ages ago and it's nothing I'd care to be responsible for placing my "blood' into such travail. Cynical? I freely admit it.

 

Guitars can be built with various sorts of synthetics. Watch, there'll be at some point after I'm long gone, a "gee these guitars just work better and sound better and play better than the silly old attitude where folks wanted real wood that has all sorts of weaknesses since it's a natural material."

 

Some of that arose soon after the solidbody electrics. I once had a plexiglass "SG" clone back around 1970. A horrid piece but it indeed had sustain. My old early '70s AE Ovations are far better but still have far less wood. It's a matter of marketing and putting wood into a category of "bad for your art, too expensive, too unreliable and too eco-unfriendly." After all, a plexi-plast-fiber neck will last forever, won't warp and...

 

m

[BobF_]

We agree again m ... the people count is the root problem. Yes, we can prolong the inevitable ...

 

The last few months have been very different for me. Maybe my ears are failing in my 50s, but I'm less and less a snobbish purist. Day before yesterday I even brought home a Peavey AT200.

 

I'm liking my RP1000 and Guitar Rig 5 more and more too. Yes, I have tube amps that are everything except "vintage".

 

I'm having *fun* with all of this. Too much uptightness drains the fun right out of it.

 

When the sun gets into it's red giant phase the extinction rate on this planet will accelerate until we're swallowed up in it's body. The real answer isn't here. It's "out there".

 

The guitar music I've enjoyed the most has come from the hands of sloppy players playing second rate guitars. I try to always remember that when I started getting too obsessive about my own gear.