Posted on June 22, 2020May 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips Brazilian Guitar Makers Brazilian Guitarmakers by Roberto Gomes Originally published in American Lutherie #33, 1993 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 The guitar has been the main musical instrument in Brazil since it was brought by the Portuguese colonizers centuries ago. In those times, Baroque guitars were the most common string instruments. They had five courses of gut or wire strings. Since then it hasn’t changed much, as we can see in the “Brazilian viola” which is used for a kind of Brazilian country music called musica sertaneja (countryside music). The shape of the soundbox of this viola today resembles more a small classic guitar. Unfortunately there are very few records of those times, making it difficult to make a better study of those guitars and their makers. It’s known that most of the instruments were made in Portugal, Italy, and France. The first decade of this century brought three immigrant families from Italy: the Gianninis, the DiGiorgios, and the DelVecchios. These families were luthiers in their country of origin and later they founded the main Brazilian guitar factories which became the backbone of Brazilian-made guitars for nearly eighty years. They made mostly classic guitars and some violins, along with Brazilian violas. They also made mandolins, first with vaulted backs like lutes and later with flat backs, which are used to play choro music. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on June 17, 2020May 5, 2025 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: Donald Warnock Meet the Maker: Donald Warnock by Cyndy Burton Originally published in American Lutherie #26, 1991 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 Are you working entirely by yourself now? Yes. I have had many people in my shop over the years, one fellow for three years. My main teaching efforts consisted of my sojourn at Boston University where I taught the general concepts required to design and make plucked and bowed instruments for early music performance. That was two days a week for upwards of ten years. (See p. 16 for a description of that program.) What kinds of projects are you working on right now? To a large extent my workaday occupation is in filling orders that were placed a year and a half to two years ago. I try to finish instruments in almost the exact same order in which they are accepted. At the moment I am working on two undersized 7-string French bass viols I’ve designed to meet the size and proportion requirements of two customers. They are specifically for French music for two bass viols, but will also be used in conjunction with other instruments. These are a matched pair, and are intended for use in halls of restricted size. The fact that they are small is more for the convenience of the players. Ordinarily the French viol was a little larger than the later English concert bass, although it seems probable that the French Baroque players preferred English instruments renecked to suit their basically lute-style technique. Such instruments set the standard for tonal characteristics. And it’s interesting that the French, in the case of viols, repeated what they’d done with the harpsichord, namely took the Flemish harpsichords and adapted them to their own musical usage. I have another standard bass I’m working on that will be patterned on the Smithsonian Barak Norman. And I have four tenor viols: two will have back, sides, and neck of maple and two will be figured pear. I just finished a treble and a tenor shortly before I left for this convention and also received an order for a treble. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on June 17, 2020May 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips Hellfire! or How Not To Build A Banjo Hellfire! or How Not To Build A Banjo by Harold Turner Originally published in American Lutherie #32, 1992 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 My grandfather came down from the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina in the year of 1907. He was a jack-of-all-trades like most of the original settlers in the area, but living was hard so he pursued a career in a textile plant south of the border in South Carolina, where he became locally famous for building fine furniture and musical instruments, especially violins. He died in 1927 from influenza. My father was only one year old when his father passed away, and this specter of a wonderful man always hung over him. Dad was a great carpenter and cabinet maker, and became a well-known woodcarver, but those musical instruments just wouldn’t go together right for him. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on June 10, 2020May 20, 2025 by Dale Phillips Roy Smeck: Wizard of the Strings Roy Smeck: Wizard of the Strings by James Garber previously published in American Lutherie #11, 1987 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 Roy Smeck is one of the treasures of American popular music. For nearly seventy years now he has entertained millions with his virtuosity on fretted instruments and his warm sense of humor. He has also been mentor, teacher, and friend to dozens of fretted instrument enthusiasts, and has been the inspiration for countless others through his numerous instruction books. Roy was born on February 6, 1900 in Reading, Pennsylvania. His musical development closely parallels that of the dawning 20th-century American popular culture. The birth and adolescence of the recording industry, radio, film, television, and the golden era of American instrument making all occurred during his rise to stardom. In the vaudeville circuit he made his name solely as an instrumentalist. He also achieved prominence as a recording artist under his own name and as a backup studio musician for a number of other well-known stars in the early days of recording. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on June 1, 2020May 19, 2025 by Dale Phillips Antonius Stradivarius in South Dakota Antonius Stradivarius in South Dakota by Joseph R. Johnson Originally published in American Lutherie #12, 1987 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2000 When the name Antonio Stradivari (1644–1737) is mentioned, images of fine quality violins, master craftsmanship, and exorbitantly large price tags come to mind. Stradivari is known to the world primarily as an excellent violin maker. However, the members of the violin family were not the only stringed instruments that he made. Stradivari’s output also included a harp, three known guitars, and patterns for lutes, mandolins, mandolas, and violas da gamba. The Shrine to Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota, is home to the “Rawlins,” one of three extant guitars made by Antonio Stradivari in Cremona, Italy, between 1680 and 1700. The second is in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University in England. The third, much altered and in need of restoration, is privately owned in Italy. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
