Posted on January 5, 2010May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Step by Step Guitar Making by Alex Willis Review: Step by Step Guitar Making by Alex Willis Reviewed by John Mello Originally published in American Lutherie #94, 2008 Step by Step Guitar Making Alex Willis ISBN (paperback): 9781861084095 Guild of Master Craftsman Pub. Ltd., 2008, $17.95 In the predawn (1960s) of the current somewhat optimistically termed “Golden Age of American Lutherie,” nascent craftsmen and craftswomen roamed the land, struggling on their own, haunting the few professional practitioners, and occasionally wheedling an apprenticeship, where they spent long unpaid hours in the shop, after which they trudged to their dwelling, inscribing their hard-won knowledge on stone tablets dutifully stacked at the back of the cave for future reference. Hard data was difficult to accrue; the only readily obtainable publications being the helpful but maddeningly brief offerings by A.P. Sharpe, H.E. Brown, and Joseph Wallo, and the seminal Classical Guitar Construction by Irving Sloane, an inspiration for many, but at ninety-five pages, many taken up with background info and photos of older master instruments, more a porthole view of a mysterious and beautiful island on the horizon than a detailed prescription for sonic and cosmetic excellence. Art Overholtzer’s Classic Guitar Making, edited and published by experienced technical writer Lawrence Brock, and at 324 pages, the first method with enough detail to give one a decent shot at making a guitar even remotely like that of the author, was published in 1974, significantly followed in 1987 by Cumpiano and Natelson’s Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology, a thorough exposition of the craft by working professionals, its detail and clarity setting the bar pretty high for anything to follow. 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: More on Somogyi’s Responsive Guitar Review: More on Somogyi’s Responsive Guitar Reviewed by Michael Sandén Originally published in American Lutherie #102, 2010 I first meet Ervin in 1984. I was in my second year as a wannabe guitar builder, and already I had read about him in Frets magazine. Over the years we have met a few times when I have passed through San Francisco and of course at Guild conventions. I have listened to his workshops and I have read his articles in American Lutherie magazine. When I saw these two thick books of about 300 pages each, I got the feeling that Ervin had left nothing out. Finally someone has taken the time and effort to write all of this down. He goes through the many aspects of the guitar and just tells you his experience (which spans over four decades) of how everything works. Ervin makes a full chapter of some topics that are barely mentioned in many guitar building books. Take for instance the chapter, “The Functions of the Guitar Back.” I have been building guitars for almost thirty years. To now be able to read about these things that have been in my head for so long gives me great satisfaction. 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 Selmer-Maccaferri Guitar by Michael Collins Review: Building the Selmer-Maccaferri Guitar by Michael Collins Reviewed by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #96, 2008 Building the Selmer-Maccaferri Guitar Michael Collins Acoustic Guitar Resources DVD, 14 hours Available from Stewart-MacDonald, $159.98 The Selmer-Maccaferri guitar, whether D-hole or oval hole, is unlike any other commonly encountered. As far as I know, this DVD set and the accompanying book (available separately) are the only thorough guides to the construction details and how to put one together, though the DVDs only cover the oval hole model. Although Michael Collins makes references to the book and plans to help clarify specific details, I haven’t seen them, so we’ll have to examine the DVDs on their own. The most obvious and remarkable aspect of the DVDs is their ten volume, fourteen-hour run time. Editor Tim Olsen’s e-mail to his crew hoping to find a reviewer asked, “Is anyone not in prison going to have time to watch these?” Well, there I was with my cybernetic arm waving in the air. I guess I’m just a glutton for this stuff. I must confess, though, that while I try to watch video media at least twice before reviewing, once through had to suffice for this set. 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: La Chitarra di Liuteria — Masterpieces of Guitar Making by Stefano Grondona and Luca Waldner Review: La Chitarra di Liuteria — Masterpieces of Guitar Making by Stefano Grondona and Luca Waldner Reviewed by Tom Harper Previously published in American Lutherie #93, 2008 La Chitarra di Liuteria — Masterpieces of Guitar Making Stefano Grondona and Luca Waldner ISBN 8886949189 l’officina del libro, 2001 Hardback, 213 pages plus audio CD Italian text with English translation Stefano Grondona, world class performer and teacher at the Conservatory of Vicenza, and Luca Waldner, an Italian performer turned luthier, have created a beautiful text chronicling the significant achievements of guitar building from the late 18th century to the mid-20th century. The text was inspired by a well-received series of exhibitions at the Conservatory of Vicenza displaying the instruments found in the text. Rather than attempt another survey of guitar history, the authors state in the preface that they wanted to start with the intrinsic value of each instrument and “convey first and foremost what might be described as an emotional understanding of them, historical points of reference being of only secondary importance.” Their approach has created a text by which to judge others. Everything about this book is first-rate. It is well constructed, delightful to browse, and interesting to read. The content is more than a history of the instruments. It portrays a cultural context for each instrument, and when useful, states the authors’ well thought-out hypotheses about some of the mysteries of guitar history. They are good about letting the reader know when an opinion is being stated. 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: The Responsive Guitar & Making the Responsive Guitar by Ervin Somogyi Review: The Responsive Guitar & Making the Responsive Guitar by Ervin Somogyi Reviewed by Roger Alan Skipper Originally published in American Lutherie #102, 2010 The Responsive Guitar ISBN 978-0-9823207-0-9 Making the Responsive Guitar ISBN 978-0-9823207-1-6 Two-book hardback boxed set Ervin Somogyi Luthiers Press, 2009 To suggest that this two-book set is striking would be an understatement. Contained in this box is more than eight pounds of quality glossy paper, and a quick fanning reveals a large section of stunning color photographs, plus sharp black-and-white images and sharply detailed drawings throughout. Also of immediate note is the price: $140 per book, $280 for the set; that this is intended as a serious and significant work is clear. A bit of investigative work (this information is found in the introduction of one book, on the back cover of the other) reveals that The Responsive Guitar is the first of the set, with Making the Responsive Guitar an accompanying and subsequent tome. The first book’s purpose and the author’s qualifications are clearly defined on the cover: “The Responsive Guitar is about the physics, dynamics, acoustics and construction of the guitar”; “Somogyi is arguably the premier maker, theoretician and expert of the modern acoustic guitar for his generation.” The last page of text is numbered 339, but the numbering doesn’t begin until approximately fifty pages in, after a logical and concise table of contents, a brief foreword by musician and recording artist Martin Simpson, and an introduction and acknowledgments page by the author. This is followed by thirty-two pages of professional color photographs of contemporary guitars of all descriptions — innovative, artful, minutely detailed, and divinely crafted — to quicken the pulse of any luthier. Only ten pages are of the author’s work, as he pays homage to other makers. 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.
