Letter: Kenny Hill Responses in AL#98

by Alan Carruth

Originally published in American Lutherie #100, 2009



Tim —

I found Kenny Hill’s response (in AL#98) to R.M. Motolla’s study of ports (in AL#96) interesting. I’m not going to answer every point he made; some are more properly addressed by R.M. himself. However, there are a couple of things I would like to comment on.

Kenny wrote: “I’m guessing that Al’s cool Corker was not really constructed as a concert instrument, that it does a good job at its original intended purpose but was not built to prove or disprove the validity of soundports as a useful design element.”

I think the concept of what is or is not a “concert instrument” is slippery enough that we won’t settle it here. Nobody is likely to appear on the stage with something as rough as the “corker” so that in itself excludes it from that class. I will note, though, that several people, including one very fine maker, have remarked that it is at least “not bad”, and R.M. told me that most of the players had a much higher opinion of it when they were blindfolded.