Posted on January 5, 2010May 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars by Jonathan Kellerman Review: With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars by Jonathan Kellerman Reviewed by Walter Carter Originally published in American Lutherie #101, 2010 With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars by Jonathan Kellerman ISBN: 978-0345499783 Ballantine Books 2008 Best-selling novelist Jonathan Kellerman is also well-known for his guitar collection, particularly his affinity for the acoustic Hawaiian guitars of Knutsen and Weissenborn. Photos of those guitars make up a significant portion of With Strings Attached, but there are plenty of other unanticipated highlights among the book’s 344 pages. We’ve all seen books filled with fine guitars from impressive collections. The photos of Kellerman’s guitars by Jonathan Exley are exquisite, and the book certainly lives up to its subtitle, The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars, on the strength of photos alone. But what sets this book apart are — just as you would expect from a novelist — the stories. Much of this reviewer’s work was done for him in the introductions by Andy Summers (guitarist with The Police) and Kellerman’s son Jesse (also a novelist) and Kellerman himself. Summers tells of a visit to the studio that houses the collection. “Jon began telling me about them,” Summers writes. “For every guitar, he had a great story.... Each guitar in Jon’s collection seemed to have a true and unique character, which — to me, anyway — is the mark of a great instrument.” 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 January 5, 2010May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Building the Kamanché by Nasser Shirazi Review: Building the Kamanché by Nasser Shirazi Reviewed by Barbara Goldowsky Previously published in American Lutherie #92, 2007 Building the Kamanché by Nasser Shirazi Includes full-scale plan Available from Nasser Shirazi P.O. Box 4793, Walnut Creek, CA 94596 $30, including shipping and handling The kamanché is a traditional Persian stringed instrument, widely played in classical Iranian music ensembles in Iran and other Middle Eastern countries, which is thought to be one of the ancestors of the violin. It appears often in historical paintings and has been described in literature by travelers to Iran and other Middle Eastern countries as early as 1418AD, but it dates back as far as 1500 to 2000 years. The word “kamanché” means “small bow” in Farsi. The general shape has remained the same throughout its history, but changes have been made in construction techniques and materials. Steel strings similar to violin strings replaced silk strings, and, in the past century, the number of strings was increased from three to four. Approximately 35" in length overall, the kamanché is a spike fiddle, held upright as the player sits on the floor and braces the instrument on his calf or the floor. The instrument is slightly rotated by the player, who uses a variable-tension horsehair bow. The kamanché has a round hardwood neck; a soundbox made either from a gourd, coconut shell, or from wood that has been carved or bent; a worked metal spike on the bottom; and pegs carved from walnut, maple, or sometimes ebony. The soundbox, fingerboard, pegs, and crown may be decorated with bone, shell, exotic woods or semiprecious stones. Makers interested in building a kamanche will have to find the somewhat unusual materials needed to cover the opening of the soundbox — for instance baby lamb skin (commonly used in Iran), fish skin, or pericardium (the membrane around a cow’s heart). If the above are not available, you may substitute deer skin. 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 January 5, 2010May 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: How to Make a Living Doing Something Crazy — Like Making Guitars by Kent Carlos Everett Review: How to Make a Living Doing Something Crazy — Like Making Guitars by Kent Carlos Everett Reviewed by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #101, 2010 How to Make a Living Doing Something Crazy — Like Making Guitars Kent Carlos Everett $9.75 from www.everettguitars.com Thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of guitarists who admire fine instruments and seem to know all about them, have a fantasy life where they are a luthier. Their fantasy days slip slowly by as they sit quietly at their bench, engrossed in the pleasant task of rendering expensive wood into the most exquisite guitars the world has seen. Their favorite artists fill the background with wonderful music as they pause to admire a favorite lick and wonder oh-so-briefly what the lesser unfortunate members of humanity might be doing at that very moment. Their life is full and peaceful and maybe even prosperous. I’ve come to believe that their fantasy is the real foundation of our New Golden Age of Lutherie, and that without it luthiers would be groveling for a living in some miserable cubicle in the ever-expanding megalopolis that houses American commerce. The next time a customer or friend is envious of your lifestyle just nod knowingly and tell them you entirely understand. 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 January 5, 2010May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Guitar Voicing Class with Ervin Somogyi Review: Guitar Voicing Class with Ervin Somogyi Reviewed by Joe Herrick Originally published in American Lutherie #95, 2008 I’m a hobby builder making two or three guitars a year. I learned to make guitars six years ago by taking a two-week, one-on-one course with an experienced luthier. I went on to make seven more guitars exactly the way I was taught, just following the numbers for top thickness, brace height, brace profile, and so on. I didn’t want to make changes, only to have the guitars not be as good as I knew they would be if I just followed the “recipe.” They sounded good, but I was missing out on how much better they could be. I learned the mechanics of how to build a guitar from my first teacher. Ervin Somogyi’s class taught me the why and encouraged me to grow. Ervin gives you a starting point, and then the knowledge and the challenge to move beyond that starting point with your soundboards. Ervin is a fun, patient, and exceptional teacher, passionate about guitars and life. He enjoys being challenged and everything is fair game for further discussion. He does not come across as a know-it-all with canned responses for each question. He would often ask what we thought and then built on that with his own knowledge and experience. And he was not above saying, “I don’t know.” The class has a 4" binder of handouts. Ervin follows a syllabus that builds methodically from the ground up, but we tweaked the syllabus as we went along to delve into areas that we, as a class, wanted to pursue. 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 January 5, 2010May 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Violin Rehairing with Roger Foster Review: Violin Rehairing with Roger Foster by Ronald Louis Fernández Reviewed by Ken Altman Originally published in American Lutherie #100, 2009 Violin Rehairing with Roger Foster Filmed and presented by Ronald Louis Fernández DVD, 53 minutes $59.95 from Fernández Music Box 5153, Irvine, CA 92616 www.fernandezmusic.com Bow rehairing is a bread-and-butter job for shops that do work on instruments of the violin family. Professional players may have their bows rehaired twice a year, and even casual players may need to get new hair every year or two. It’s work that can be tedious and that must be done with care in order to do a good job and to avoid damaging delicate bows. I have quite a few bows come through my shop each week for rehairing and repairs, and unfortunately far too many of them have been damaged by careless, unskilled, and untrained workers. Educational materials that would impart knowledge about the craft of bow rehairing might just save a few bows from premature demise. The cover of the DVD case for Violin Bow Rehairing with Roger Foster carries the byline, “This DVD shows how a professional violin and bowmaker rehairs a bow in his shop,” and the video does indeed deliver on that promise. We get to watch the whole process from beginning to end, with Mr. Foster offering comments and explanations along the way. He starts by inspecting a bow for any damage that may need attention, and then proceeds to take the bow apart, clean the various parts, and prepare the bow for receiving new hair. There follows a long sequence showing how the wooden plugs for holding the hair in the frog and tip mortises are made, a critical step in doing a rehair. I thought it was good that he showed this process in real time, conveying the attention to detail necessary to insure that the plugs fit properly. There are cutaway views of a bow tip and frog, which illustrate clearly how the plugs should fit. From there he goes through the steps of selecting the hair, tying the ends, securing the hair in the tip and frog, fitting a spreader wedge, and taking care of the finishing touches. Through each of these steps he stresses the importance of working conscientiously, taking care not to damage the bow. I found this very commendable. 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.
