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 March 13, 2020May 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips Commercial Graphite Acoustic Guitars Commercial Graphite Acoustic Guitars by John A. Decker, Jr. Originally published in American Lutherie #31, 1992 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume Three, 2004 Why would anyone want to build an acoustic guitar of graphite? The primary reason is that wooden acoustic guitars (particularly good ones) are fragile. They are especially prone to cracking, warping, and joint separation due to heat, humidity, and water. Graphite/epoxy technology — properly employed, which isn’t easy — can maintain the sound quality of a wooden guitar while completely removing its susceptibility to heat and moisture. During the past seven years Kuau Technology has been working with luthiers at the firm of Pimentel & Sons, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the development of acoustic guitar technology employing fiber-reinforced resins, particularly graphite/epoxy. Our approach has been to duplicate as closely as possible, panel by panel, the acoustic properties of fine wooden classical guitars, rather than attempt to reinvent the guitar de nova. This work has resulted in the development of the RainSong® Graphite Acoustic Guitars,* which we believe to be the first commercially available all-graphite acoustic guitars. 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 2, 2020May 19, 2025 by Dale Phillips Gimme Back My Minutes Gimme Back My Minutes by Rick Turner previously published in American Lutherie #26, 1991 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume Three, 2004 I’d like to share a couple of things with those in the repair business: how I handle the financial end of repair work, and what I’m trying to do to gain back some of the eight to ten hours a week I currently lose talking to customers. I do repair work for Westwood Music in Los Angeles, working as an independent contractor. I set my own hours, use my own tools, pay for my own worker’s compensation insurance, and establish the prices for the repair work. There is one other part-time repairman, David Neely, and he works the same way I do. Prices for repair work are set for each job either by direct quote from our price list or an estimate of time at $50 per hour. On big jobs or for building custom Strats from generic parts I drop the hourly to $45; I figure there’s less time wasted talking on bigger jobs. Our store sales people sometimes take in the work (the more of that the better), and they might make a ballpark estimate. We in the shop usually call the customer to give a closer price and/or suggest additional needed work. When the job is complete, I fill out a four-part sequentially-numbered store invoice which includes labor, retail-parts cost (at the net-to-musician price — we figure any applicable discounts), sales tax, and the invoice total. I keep a copy which I use to bill the store, and the second copy goes on a clipboard in sequential order. The instrument, along with the two remaining copies, is put in the front of the store in the “to be picked up” pile. When the customer picks up the instrument, he or she gets a copy, and the remaining copy is filed with the store’s daily receipts. 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.
