Imagine blog post
IMAGINE THE FUTURE YOU
FREE Nov. 10-12
By
Ada Brownell
Our oldest son, Gary Brownell, grew up playing the electric bass guitar. He
studied music in college, also played the trumpet, but has spent his life as a professional
sound engineer and stage designer. He believes his work in electronics and light is a calling and every
church sound and electronics worker should also be a musician.
Gary, widely known in Christian music circles for his talent
with sound, would have loved to meet Paul Tutmarc, inventor of the electronic
bass.
Gary also loves my glossy chocolate frosting. Following is
the recipe.
I tell about Paul Tutmarc because as a young man he caught a
dream. His story is in the first chapter of my book, Imagine the Future You. Here’s part of that chapter.
DREAM
Paul Tutmarc of Seattle, Washington, traveled in a band and often
felt sorry for the acoustic bass fiddle player, who always drove alone because
his huge instrument left room in his car only for the driver.
An upright bass
fiddle is as tall as many adults, quite fat and wide, and doesn’t bend in
convenient places as a human body does. So the bass player missed the fun with
the other band members, whose vehicle rocked with conversation, laughter, and
joking among friends. The bass player had the company of only his silent
instrument.
From age fifteen, Paul Tutmarc had an interest in steel
guitars—the ones usually used in Hawaiian music. He became an accomplished
musician and wanted to magnify the sound of the steel. He looked at the innards
of the telephone to see how it worked to pick up sound and began tinkering with
it. Bob Wisner, a radio repairman and another friend, Art Stimpson, worked with
Paul, and they figured out how to use electronic amplification on musical
instruments.
Paul electrified zithers, pianos, and Spanish guitars.
Then he carved an electronic “bass fiddle” about the size
and shape of a cello and the first electric bass guitar came into being in
1933. Paul eventually made a forty-two-inch-long solid-body bass, which was
lighter and smaller. The guitar was featured in the 1935 sales catalog for
Tutmarc’s company, Audiovox.
The bass guitar, however, didn’t become popular until the
1950s, when Leo Fender, with employee George Fullerton, developed the first
mass-produced instrument.
Next time you hear a loud, pulsating bass guitar behind a
band, remember Paul Tutmarc,[1] who
began his music career in a church choir and caught a dream.
CUT LOOSE YOUR DREAMS AND IMAGINE
Paul’s dream took work, practice, and trial and error, and
so does becoming the person our Creator planned for us to be.
The earlier we start working toward our dreams the better.
When we are young, we are like clay that can be worked and changed by
circumstances, relationships, decisions we make, what we experience, and what
we put into our heads. When we become adults, our spirits might become
hard—perhaps even like clay that has to be hurt and broken—before it can be
changed.
So good choices now save heartache later, and we make those
decisions every day.
There is no one else exactly like you, and God loves you
just the way you are. Yet, He expects you to allow Him to lead you into a great
and wonderful life.
Excerpt from Imagine
the Future You ©Ada Brownell October 2013
GLOSSY CHOCOLATE
FROSTING
2 ¼ cups sugar
3 1-ounce squares chocolate
(unsweetened) or substitute 9 tablespoons cocoa
½ cup margarine
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup milk
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
Combine sugar, chocolate, margarine,
salt, milk and syrup. Cook, stirring frequently, to 232-degrees F. or until
softball stage. Cool to lukewarm. Add vanilla. Beat until thick enough to
spread.
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