Scientific American February 2021|Environment| “The Day The Music Died” “’Swamp ash.’ The wood behind the world’s most famous guitars, is vanishing because of flooding and a tree-boring beetle.” By Priyanka Runwal
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Image source commercialforestproducts.com
Summary of the Article
Who knew that the Jimmy Page shredded that iconic Stairway to Heaven solo on his swamp ash Dragon Telecaster? As it turns out the swamp ash wood is less dense than most suitable wood and “gives the instruments a warm but crystal-clear twang.” Also known as “music ash” it is primarily green ash but may also include black or white ash the key being these are grown in the bottom lands of the Lower Mississippi river. Ideally for swamp ash seedlings to thrive forest floodwaters must come and go. A cycle of flooding, receding and drying in summer eventually produces an adult tree with wood consisting of “thin-walled cells with large gaps between them." In this way this unique low-density wood when used as an electric guitar body facilitiates that special sound.
Observers believe the swamp ash forests are now struggling to survive the endless flooding of the bottomlands along the Mississippi river. "Between June 2018 and July 2019, the U.S. experienced its 12 wettest months on record” and according to a 2018 study in Nature “the area’s flooding has become more frequent and severe over the past 150 years.” Civil engineering efforts to build more “dams, walls and levees” have made matters worse. Lee Jones (J.M. Jones Lumber Company in Natchez, Miss.) commented that “The river has been up for so long, and for so much, that it’s killed a lot of the trees.” Foresters worry too that an invasive tree-boring beetle may soon reach the swamp ash forests with the potential to hasten the demise of these forests. The beetles tunnel through wood and "disrupt trees’ ability to transport water and nutrients.” In combination the flooding and worries about the Emerald beetle are prompting lumber companies to over-harvest adult trees.
There are alternative woods like alderwood but Brian Swerfeger (Fender Guitar R&D) laments that “Ash has a very fast attack. Think of a bright clap … alder has a warmer, softer attack. Still a clap, but it’s rounder.” Musicians like Richie Kotzen (Poison and Mr. Big Rock Fame) admits he can adapt but says “…I’m much more bothered by the environmental issue.”
Image source wood-database.com
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