Tonewoods

 A Western Red Cedar and us

Garret our youngest son has taken a shine to the West of late so we have been doing some traveling out in that direction over the last few years.  We love the natural environment, our parks and seem to have a logical attraction to trees of all kinds.  In this blog, I'd like to feature some trees that fortunately will not be turned into instruments.   They represent a bygone era when old growth giants such as these were the norm rather than the exception.  I'm so grateful that we at least have parks where some of these spectacular trees can still be appreciated and preserved.  The first one we visited was this Western Red Cedar on the Olympic Peninsula in the state of Washington.  It is a good shot of the three of us so you can get its scale.  It is hard to get good shots of the overall height of any of these giants though. Quartered Western Red Cedar is excellent for classical guitars and other fretted instruments.


The next tree we visited was fairly close to that Cedar.  It is the oldest and largest Sitka Spruce tree in the world.   Quartered Spruce has always been one of the most popular woods for soundboards in fretted instruments, violins and the occasional hammerer dulcimer.

Oldest Spruce

Top of the Oldest Spruce

 A Sequoia in Mariposa Grove with Garret

In a recent trip to Yosemite's Mariposa Grove of Sequoia Redwoods we got to see some beauties.  The scale of these trees is difficult to capture.  It is an amazing experience to stand in their presence.  The cross section of a Coastal Redwood in Muir Woods near San Francisco indicates this tree is around 1392 years old. This is the wood I use for hammered dulcimer soundboards and other instruments.  I used to be able find some of this old growth wood at small owner operated lumber yards but most of that material is now gone.  The wood was used from everything from siding to signs.  I'm currently using Redwood that is being harvested from stumps left from when they were still cutting down old growth trees. In my career, I've probably used a quarter of one tree.  These babies were so big when felled that they used to drill holes in them and place dynamite in the holes to bring them down to a manageable size.

Grizzly Giant in Mariposa Grove.  About 2400 years old

Garret next to a Coastal Redwood cross section in Muir Woods

If you get a chance pay these trees a visit.

Note: You can double click on any of the photos and get it's full size. 

If you'd like to get better descriptions of these three species visit these links.

Western Red Cedar
Sitka Spruce
Redwood