Posted on January 12, 2010March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: Dangerous Curves: The Art of the Guitar by Darcy Kuronen Review: Dangerous Curves: The Art of the Guitar by Darcy Kuronen Reviewed by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #67, 2001 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013 Dangerous Curves: The Art of the Guitar Darcy Kuronen MFA Publications, 2000 ISBN 978-0878464784 It’s getting harder to write reviews of guitar picture books. I’ve nearly passed through my third decade of playing, building, and heavy reading about guitars, and I have seen the elephant and heard the owl. When confronted by yet another hip coffee-table volume, my first thought is, “Go ahead, impress me. I dare you.” Dangerous Curves is sort of up to the challenge. Photos of 110 guitars (from an exhibition held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) illustrate the evolution of the guitar as objet d’art while the text attempts — succinctly and entertainingly — to track the changes to the instrument as cultural phenomena. The book is a good thumbnail refresher course in the history of the guitar with a new twist. Guitar nuts tend to think of a few guitars as important and the rest as also-rans. Within the context of art there are no important guitars, only artistically interesting guitars. Art is dynamic. The strongest art has led its culture. With the possible exception of the Stratocaster (my own judgment), no guitar has been artistically that important. Guitar art has followed cultural trends, not led them. 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 11, 2010March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: Shoptalk 5 by Todd Sams, Don MacRostie, Dan Erlewine Review: Shoptalk 5 by Todd Sams, Don MacRostie, Dan Erlewine Reviewed by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #59, 1999 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Five, 2008 Video: Shoptalk 5 Todd Sams, Don MacRostie, Dan Erlewine Stewart-MacDonald At the ’99 Merlefest in North Carolina I had the good fortune to find myself manning a booth next to Stew-Mac. It was a pleasure to meet Todd Sams and get to know Jay Hostetler better. It was also astonishing to hear so many self-proclaimed luthiers confess that they had never heard of Stewart-MacDonald. Where do these luthiers buy their tools? My guess is that they aren’t buying them at all, that what they can’t find at Ace Hardware or cobble together in the shop they are doing without; that they don’t even know about the tools that could make their work better and their lives easier. 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 11, 2010March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Kit Review: The Riverboat Banjo from Musicmaker’s Kits Kit Review: The Riverboat Banjo from Musicmaker's Kits Reviewed by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #62, 2000 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013 The Riverboat Banjo from Musicmaker’s Kits www.harpkit.com Kit-built instruments have garnered an unfair reputation for poor quality, as though the mere gathering of components into a kit was a guarantee of mediocrity. Bad kits do exist, and the fact that most kits are generally assembled by unskilled hands certainly doesn’t let them put their best face forward. Yet many in the trade got their first taste of lutherie from a kit, myself included. There are many whose level of skill is so untested that beginning lutherie with a kit makes good sense. Others haven’t the tools necessary to begin an instrument project from scratch. And believe it or not, some very talented luthiers are happy to avoid the expense and bother of collecting and housing a bevy of stationary tools, and find that jobbing out some of the rough labor to a kit maker makes good sense without adulterating the satisfaction they find in the finished work. Of course, a kit can be anything from a stack of rough lumber to an instrument in the white that requires nothing more than sanding and finishing. At American Lutherie we’ve decided that kits have enough merit to warrant some investigation, and the only way to do it is to build some instruments. Life could be a lot worse for a journalist. 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 11, 2010March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Kit Review: Musicmaker’s Hurdy-Gurdy Kit Review: Musicmaker's Hurdy-Gurdy Reviewed by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #66, 2001 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013 Hurdy-Gurdy from Musicmaker’s Kits Imagine the following scene played out in some Medieval dialect. The inventor of the hurdy-gurdy proudly shows his new gizmo to his wife. She puzzles over it for a moment. “What’s this, Joachim? Another Noah’s Ark toy?” “No, Lambchop, it’s a mechanical fiddle. It makes music.” “Hah! Good one! No, really. What the hell is it?” 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 11, 2010March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: Tambura by Dusan Brankov Review: Tambura by Dusan Brankov Reviewed by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #57, 1999 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Five, 2008 Tambura Dusan Brankov Tamburitza Association of America, 1998 ASIN B0006FDGZK The tambura is a Yugoslavian version of the guitar featuring four courses (the first string is doubled), a Fender-style headstock, a floating bridge, and an oversize pickguard inlaid into the top. Back and top are ladder braced. This only describes the middle member of the tambura family; the smallest tambura has a body carved from a solid board and a much smaller scale, and the two largest members have cello-like scroll heads. I gather that tambura makers in eastern Europe have always taken an individual approach to the size, shape, and construction. Brankov’s mission is to garner international recognition and respect for the instruments he loves, and to standardize them as much as the violin family has been standardized. He doesn’t anticipate the first happening without the second. Only time will tell if he is successful. Brankov’s book is a good one. Anyone wishing to build tambura should find all the information they need here. Instruction is put forth in a formal and reasonable manner. There is a lot of math for those who wish to study it, along with a good dose of scientific theory about the way stringed instruments function. This scholarly approach is no doubt part of the quest for international status for the tambura. 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.
