Some songs you listen to can actually be helpful to the environment.
You might be wondering what the heck that means.
Well, press play on this fun playlist, and let me explain it to you.
What do these sweet guitar tunes have in common?
The guitars you hear are played by musicians who have formed a pact against unsustainable wood. They are a part of Reverb, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping musicians “green” their tours.
These artists are “greening” their guitars.
The rare wood popular with fancy guitars — mahogany from Brazil, ironwood from Indonesia, and rosewood from India — sometimes comes from illegal or unsustainable logging areas.
It’s sometimes said that these kinds of rare woods provide a “richer” quality of sound or somehow “enhance” the performance. But many guitar-makers and players agree: Rare wood doesn’t make the music sound any better.
If rare wood doesn’t make guitars sounds better, what does it do?
Bad stuff.
Reverb talks about the many ways illegal logging affects the communities and environments surrounding it. Climate change, human rights violations, destruction of rare habitats — the effect of this “blood wood” is far reaching.
What can we do? Seriously, just ask.
If you’re wondering what you can do to make sure you’re not buying an instrument made from resources that have been irresponsibly harvested, just ask.
If they don’t know where it came from, buy the instrument somewhere else. If enough of us start to ask where our wood came from, music stores the world over will start caring. And that is how you keep responsible wood harvesters in business and make illegal logging a thing of the past.
Check out exactly how bands like Maroon 5 and Guster are helping so that these rare trees don’t get any rarer.
I know this playlist is amazing (“When Doves Cry” by sustainable artist Prince is playing for me, and I am LIVING for the fact that he is helping the environment with his music), but press pause for a few moments and learn more about this important issue.
But more than just instruments are made of wood.
And while this might be about guitars, just think: Almost everything, from doors to floors to desks to almost everything in your home, has wood in it. Do you know where it comes from?
