Posted on January 14, 2010March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: Aux origins de la guitare: vihuela de mano by Joël Dugot Review: Aux origins de la guitare: vihuela de mano by Joël Dugot Reviewed by Bryan Johanson Originally published in American Lutherie #81, 2005 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 Aux origines de la guitare: la vihuela de mano Joël Dugot ISBN: 2-914147-23-6 Paris, France: Cité de la Musique, 95 pp. 2004 www.cite-musique.fr When I started high school, I was given the choice of taking French, Spanish, German, or Latin. This was in addition to the regular “boy” curriculum of math, English, P.E., biology, social studies, and metal shop. (“Girl” curriculum included secretarial studies and home economics.) I had heard that cute girls took French (a gross inaccuracy, as it turned out), so French seemed like a good choice. It was taught by a very round, short, bald man who insisted we call him Maitre. Every day he would breeze into class, walking quickly to the front saying, “Bonjour la classe!” as he went. We would drone back, “Bonjour, Maitre.” We could normally tell from his voice what kind of day it would be. If he was jovial, it would be bad French jokes day. If his voice was stern, we would be covering new material. If his voice sounded tired, we would be conjugating verbs. On rare days he would say nothing at all. That was the silent language of pop quiz. For two years the main focus of the class was to learn to have a conversation with correct pronunciation. My conversational French was never very good. This was mostly due to the fact that I could barely hold a conversation in English. It was a harsh thing to take a shy, sensitive fifteen-year-old boy and stand him in front of class with an equally shy fifteen-year-old girl and make them speak to each other in clear, enunciated tones: “Hello Claire! Are you going to the library? I heard the record player does not work. Have you seen Jean? He is at the bakery. I think it is going to rain today. It is very moist....” 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 14, 2010March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: Folk Harp Design and Construction by Jeremy H. Brown Review: Folk Harp Design and Construction by Jeremy H. Brown Reviewed by C.F. Casey Originally published in American Lutherie #83, 2005 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 Folk Harp Design and Construction Jeremy H. Brown www.musikit.com 150 pp. You’ve got to like a book that begins, “Anybody can spout off his own opinions into a book if he puts his mind to it. Why a person would want to go to such trouble is a question I’ve been asking myself lately.” I should point out that there’s an alias at work here. Jeremy H. Brown, author, is in another life Jerry Brown, founder and head honcho of Musicmaker’s Kits, Inc. (See John Calkin’s “Kit Review: Musicmaker’s Regency Harp” in AL#69, BRBAL6.) Does that mean the book is a shill for selling kits? Not at all. Naturally, most of the references are to Musicmaker’s designs. That’s reasonable enough; they are, after all, the designs Brown would be most familiar with. You wouldn’t expect Chris Martin to write a book on Gibson designs. However, Brown doesn’t stop there. I counted over two dozen references to the approaches and opinions of other harp builders throughout the eight chapters of the book. 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 14, 2010March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: Left-Brain Lutherie by David C. Hurd, PhD Review: Left-Brain Lutherie by David C. Hurd, PhD Reviewed by R.M. Mottola Originally published in American Lutherie #81, 2005 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 Left-Brain Lutherie Using Physics and Engineering Concepts for Building Guitar Family Instruments: An Introductory Guide to Their Practical Application David C. Hurd, PhD ISBN 0-9760883-0-4 Ukuleles by Kawika, Inc. www.ukuleles.com A prepublication copy of David Hurd’s Left-Brain Lutherie was given to AL for review. A draft of the following review was sent to the author prior to publication so that any factual errors in the review could be corrected. During the early 1980s I worked at a small engineering company that made instrumentation used in biomedical research. As the company grew, the product line expanded to include devices used in other fields, including analytical chemistry and materials science. I count the time I spent on this job as some of the most precious in my life, in no small part because it provided the opportunity to spend a good deal of time with research scientists and to be directly involved in some of their efforts. This contact taught me the value of scientific methodological inquiry, and it shaped my consideration for the folks who do this work as some of the most creative and open-minded people to be found. That scientists are smart, careful, and highly analytical fits well with the general image of those in the field. But the fact that they approach their research subjects with high levels of openness, objectivity, and general creativity unfortunately somehow gets lost in the general stereotype of scientists. 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 14, 2010March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: The Vihuela de Mano and The Spanish Guitar: A Dictionary of the Makers of Plucked and Bowed Musical Instruments of Spain by José L. Romanillos and Marian Harris Winspear Review: The Vihuela de Mano and The Spanish Guitar: A Dictionary of the Makers of Plucked and Bowed Musical Instruments of Spain by José L. Romanillos and Marian Harris Winspear Reviewed by Bryan Johanson Originally published in American Lutherie #80, 2004 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 The Vihuela de Mano and The Spanish Guitar: A Dictionary of the Makers of Plucked and Bowed Musical Instruments of Spain (1200-2002) José L. Romanillos and Marian Harris Winspear ISBN 84-607-6141-XGuijosa, Spain: Sanguino Press, 585 pp., 2002 In the world of players and makers of fine classical guitars, the name José Romanillos stands tall. For decades he built some of the finest classical guitars ever made. His work with Julian Bream is legendary. With the 1987 publication of his first major book, Antonio de Torres: Guitar Maker — His Life and Work (with an extensive revision published in 1997), we were introduced to another side of this impressive artist, that of author, scholar, and fact-sleuth extraordinaire. We now have his latest contribution to the realm of fact: his amazing new book on Spanish luthiers, The Vihuela de Mano and The Spanish Guitar; a Dictionary of the Makers of Plucked and Bowed Musical Instruments of Spain (1200–2002). It is a rare thing these days to find an author (in this case coauthors, Romanillos and his wife Marian Winspear) tackle the concept of writing a dictionary. The result of this ambitious undertaking is a highly readable reference book that includes much information not ordinarily included in a dictionary proper. 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 14, 2010March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: Baxter’s Database of Violin and Bow Makers v3.0 by Edward D. Baxter Review: Baxter’s Database of Violin and Bow Makers v3.0 by Edward D. Baxter Reviewed by Randy DeBey Originally published in American Lutherie #84, 2005 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Five, 2008 Baxter’s Database of Violin and Bow Makers v3.0 Edward D. Baxter CD-ROM, 2002 www.violinmakersdb.com. On the rare occasions that I need information about the maker of a particular instrument, I don’t like to spend a lot of time getting it. Due to the ridiculously high prices of violin-maker reference books, I have to get whatever I can from the web, and sometimes that’s a complete waste of time. Now there’s another option that’s less expensive than buying books, and likely more productive than web searching. Edward Baxter of West Camp, New York, has compiled a database from twenty-four violin and bow maker references. He actually started his database several years ago, and the version reviewed here (v3.0) was released in June 2004. It contains information for 19,506 makers. The ViolinMakers Database software was created for PCs running Microsoft Windows (sorry Mac users). It comes on one CD and is easy to install. It includes a stand-alone version of the Microsoft Access database query engine dedicated to searching this database. 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.
