Posted on May 6, 2021March 6, 2024 by Dale Phillips Lutherie: Art or Science? Lutherie: Art or Science? by R.E. Bruné Originally published in American Lutherie #1, 1985 Aside from the eternal “How do you bent the sides” question asked by non-makers, the most frequent point of curiosity seems to be that of other makers: “What do you think of the Kasha guitar?” I am somewhat surprised at this. Firstly, it doesn’t really matter what I think of the Kasha model. I don’t build it, and I would think this fact says enough. The second point is that the Kasha model and theories have been around for enough years (nearly twenty if I’m correct) that, were there merit in the model, it would have been almost universally adopted by makers and players by now. It took less than twenty years for the conservative makers of Spain to adopt the design ideas of Torres, for by the time of his death just before the turn of this century, nearly every Spanish maker with the exception of José Ramírez I was using his model. The reason for this nearly overnight conversion is obvious; the models of Torres were clearly superior to anything else available, and the musicians quickly accepted them. In fact, the makers who didn’t adopt his patterns went out of business. In contrast, one does not see musicians today playing the Kasha model. I know of no professional classical guitarists playing them, and in the nearly twenty years I have been involved in the guitar world, I have never been to a concert where a Kasha model guitar was played. Yet it seems there has hardly been an issue of the G.A.L. Quarterly without some article or reference to the Kasha model as if it were definitive, and desirable. 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 April 29, 2021March 6, 2024 by Dale Phillips In Defense of the Amateur In Defense of the Amateur by Nicholas Von Robison Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly Volume11, #4, 1983 and Lutherie Woods and Steel String Guitars, 1998 This is an age of specialists, and I am by nature as well as habit an amateur. This is a dangerous thing to confess because full-time luthiers are likely to turn up their noses. “What you really mean is,” they say, “a dilettante; a playboy of the art and science of lutherie.” I’m afraid they are at least partly right. When once asked if I had a claim to fame, the best I could come up with was: I think I know more about lutherie than any other horticulturalist and more about plant life than any other luthier. I could put up a solemn defense of we who choose the overall view. “Amateur” literally means lover, and an amateur of lutherie very often loves the wonderful world of musical instruments in a way that the specialist builder probably did when he or she was young but maybe has forgotten while trying to keep up with all the knowledge that has unfolded in the past ten years. The important thing is that amateurs are lovers of whatever they are amateurs of. At least that is the excuse I give myself. I think what I have wanted most out of life is to find living itself rewarding. I’m sure that I have wanted that more than I wanted wealth or fame. As Thoreau said, “I don’t want to feel when I come to die that I have never lived.” Like Thoreau, I am inclined to say that I came into this world not primarily to make it a better place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. And that is part of the amateur spirit. I haven’t always been happy. Who has? But I have usually been interested and involved. 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 April 29, 2021March 6, 2024 by Dale Phillips The David Sturgill Story The David Sturgill Story by David Sturgill Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Newsletter Volume 2 #1, 1974 and Lutherie Woods and Steel String Guitars (?), 1998 See also, Sturgill on Wood by David Sturgill I have been making musical instruments since I was twelve years old. That makes 45 years. I still have the first instrument I made: a five-string banjo with a cat skin head. Since that first crude beginning I have made many instruments including violins, mandolins, and guitars. I have built many electric instruments, but my first love is for acoustic instruments, and today I do no build electrics. For thirty years I lived in the Washington D.C. area where I was employed by the Bell Telegram Co. I was in the General Engineering Dept., in the field of electronics and switching systems. I took a deferred pension and resigned in 1968. I wanted to have some time left to do something more rewarding and enjoyable than pushing a pencil. 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 December 28, 2020March 6, 2024 by Dale Phillips The Well-Unpublished Luthier The Well-Unpublished Luthier by William R. Cumpiano Originally published in American Lutherie #6, 1986 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume One, 2000 Gather around and listen to a strange tale; a saga of oppression and self-imprisonment and of unending, grueling effort; of frustrated expectations and missed opportunities. But it is a sad story with a happy ending. My story begins ten years ago when I, a budding young luthier, hired a booth in a large Northeastern crafts fair. It was the dawn of my career: I was green and I was anxious and I could not have known then that craft fairs are worthwhile for makers of multiples, such as ceramic pots and leather bags, but a waste of time for guitar makers. But I had to learn that for myself. Think of the exposure, I was told. Just think of the exposure... Yes, I was to learn. There I stood, an innocent with a hopeful smile on my face, my shiny wares hanging on a makeshift masonite wall behind me, each one of my little babies stamped with the mute evidence of all the care, sacrifice, and painful experience that had brought them into the world. “Wow!” a voice in the crowd exclaimed, “what are you asking for one of those?” Haltingly, I responded, a little tongue-tied: “Sev... six... five... five hundred and fifty dollars.” 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 December 28, 2020March 6, 2024 by Dale Phillips Quick Cuts: The Boujmaa Brothers’ Moroccan Lutherie Shop Quick Cuts The Boujmaa Brothers’ Moroccan Lutherie Shop by Bruce Calder Originally published in American Lutherie #82, 2005 While in Marrakech recently, my wife and I discovered the “Ensemble Artisanal,” a government-sponsored complex of shops located outside the medina in the Ville Nouvelle. Here you can watch artisans at work as well as buy their products. These range from carpet makers to makers of babouche (the typical Moroccan leather slippers) to jewelry makers to woodworkers of several types. It’s a great alternative to the heavy sales pressure to be found in the souks, and if you’re not the haggling type (an art form taken to its highest expression here in Morocco), so much the better — prices are fixed, and the things you buy are always of the best quality. Even better, the money goes directly to the artisans. It was a most pleasant surprise while in the Ensemble Artisanal to discover brothers Benaddi and Blad Boujmaa’s lutherie shop. Makers of both traditional Berber and Arabic instruments (“We make both, since we are half Berber and half Arabic, just like most Moroccans,” Blad told me), their atelier has been in its present location for about ten years. 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.
