imiltoMmgalkeiPTHE ASSOCIATION OF STRINGED INSTRUMENT ARTISANS

Laminate Trimmers

David LaPlante's "Spanish Connection"

Yuri Dmitrivsky's Interview

James D’A

Environmental Control In A Small Shop

by Richard Mermer

Roger Sadowsky's Symposium Transcription

On "How To Deal With Your Most Neurotic Customers"

and much more...

The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans

ssociation ofmfringedi nstrumentESrtisans

PURPOSEThe Association O f Stringed Instrument Artisans, a non­

profit trade organization under the provisions o f Section 501 (c) (06) o f the Internal Revenue Code, was established in 1S>88 to help provide a sense o f community and professionalism to the field o f stringed instrument making and repair. The goals o f the association provide fo r but are not limited to: the establishment o f a comprehensive database o f resources, supplies and technical information; a means o f providing multi-level education within the profession; assistance in marketing and promotion; health and insurance packages at group rates; repair or service certification; an advertiser’s marketplace; and the publication o f informative newsletter/joumal.

Annual Membership is $35.00 plus a first year processing fee o f $15.00. Donations and subscriptions are not deductable as charitable contributions.(Membership application on inside o f back cover)

A.S.I.A. Bi-Monthly Newsletter #9 Copyright © October 1990 “A.S.I.A.” “Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans” All rights including editorial are reserved.

No part of this journal may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. All submissions will be juried. We strongly encourage submissions from all members, but we will not be responsible for loss or non-return of unsolicited photographs or manuscripts. Address all correspondence and subscriptions to-.

Association O f Stringed Instrument Artisans 14 South Broad Street Nazareth, PA 18064

CALL FOR ARTICLES/PHOTOSAs a member generated publication, we greatly depend

upon the submission of articles and photographs for use in our publications. Please do more than consider what part you can play in the "coming to fruition" of this association.

BOARD MEMBERSIf you have input, concerns or suggestions about the association, you are welcome to contact any of the board members to discuss your ideas:

James Rickard; President600 Wildcat Hill Road; Harwinton, CT 06791(203) 485-9809 shop

Duane Waterman; Treasurer1027 S. Sierra Madre; Colorado Springs, CO 80903(719) 473-8444 shop

William Cumpiano; Secretary c/o The Luthier’s Collaborative 31 Campus Plaza Road; Hadley MA 01035 (413) 253-2286 work

William Laskin; Vice-President192 DuPont Street (rear); Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M5R 2E6 (416) 923-5801 work

Roger Sadowsky; Public Relations1600 Broadway #1000B; New York, NY 10019(212) 586-3960

Dick Boak; Editor; Exectutive Directorc/o Church Of Art, 14 South Broad Street; Nazareth, PA 18064(215) 759-7100 home; (215) 759-2837 work

Yuri Dmitrievsky; Correspondant in Leningrad

Jon Natelson; Legal Advisor

HONORARY MEMBERSHIPSLifetime Achievement Awards

James D’Aquisto Mario Maccaferri Manuel Velezquez

Awards for Excellence in the FieldJohn Monteleone

ON THE COVER________________New York City luthier/repairman Roger Sadowsky pictured

here against his wall o f satisfied customers. Note Paul Simon, Lou Reed and Billy Squier in this tiny section. Roger has personal testimonials from just about everyone. He is known fo r his quality and his trustworthyness. A specialist in setup, his "Sadowsky" brand guitars and basses are owned by top musicians: Sting, Mick Jagger & Keith Richards to name a few. Roger's Symposium '89 talk is featured in this issue. Look fo r an in depth interview in the next issue (#10) o f Guitarmaker. Roger has been serving as a member o f the A.S.I. A. Board o f Directors since last March.

2

The Association Of Stringed Instrument ArtisansLETTERSBIG APPLE REBUTTALDear Guitarmaker:

Thank you for your efforts in producing the best issue of Guitarmaker (#8). I’m afraid, however that I’m going to have to take you to task for your absurd comment regarding next years summer NAMM show: "....middle America dealerships are petrified at the prospect o f getting mugged and swindled in the big apple.”

As a native New Yorker who both lives and works in Manhattan, I am genuinely offended by your remark. First o f all, the convention is being held in Manhattan at the Javits Center, one of the major conference facilities in the world. It is NOT being held in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, or in South Bronx where your remarks might have some legitimacy. Second, New York is much safer than the media portrays it to be. I personally know more people outside of NYC who have been robbed, raped or otherwise been victimized by criminal elements. Third, anyone who plays "Three Card Monty” on the streets of New York or allows themselves to be swindled in any other way is just plain dumb and deserves what they get! Fourth, we are proud of the term Big Apple, and you should have capitalized the name, as it is a proper name synonymous with Manhattan!

The bottom line is that traveling in any major urban center in the world requires some heads up consciousness regarding criminal elements and swindlers. And editing a journal requires some heads up consciousness as well! With great respect and affection:

Roger Sadowsky; Professional Guitar Services 1600 Broadway; R oom 1000B

New York, NY 10019 (212) 586-3960

Believe it or not, A.S.IA. Board Member Sadowsky can be seen on page 25 o f Guitarmaker #7 being happily embraced by the editor whose questionable comments have inspired the letter above. You will also fin d an article containing Roger's wisdom beginning on page 13 o f this issue.

SCHOENBERG UPDATE

Guitars, Inc.Dear Guitarmaker,

Just a quick note to inform you about the progress so far with our reorganization. Schoenberg Guitars has incorporated recently, following a split o f the two owners, Eric Schoenberg and Dana Bourgeois. Dana has accepted a position with Paul Reed Smith, designing and building acoustic-electric guitars. I have stayed with the company and will be continuing operations much as before. Working with Dana has been a rewarding experience, and he is responsible for much of what our company has become. His drive and energy will be missed.

As for the future, I am thrilled to say that Dana’s vacancy will be filled by T. J. Thompson of Lansing, Michigan. T. J. has been making the beautiful pyramid bridges on Soloists all along, as well as working on various other aspects o f the manufacturing and warranty repairs of Schoenberg Guitars. As head repairman

for Elderly Instruments, he has been doing some of the best repair work on vintage instruments in the country, and has built a number of wonderful guitars as displayed at the last Symposium His Brazilian Rosewood 5 Style Ukulele is extremely beautiful (too new to have made it to the Symposium). W e’ve been talking about numerous exciting ideas and plans that bode well for the future. His “new blood” will be a welcome transfusion into Schoenberg Guitars.

Plans are basically to continue operation as before, working with C. F. Martin as the manufacturer of all Schoenberg Guitars with a unique collaboration between factory and luthier developed by Dana and the people at Martin. We will continue building instruments designed primarily for fingerstyle playing. These are designs that have grown out of our love for the smaller-bodied instruments made by Martin over the years, so far concentrating on the OM and 12-fret 000. Sincerely,

Eric Schoenberg Schoenberg Guitars

38 Shore Drive Concord, MA 01742

(508) 369-2272

GABRIEL BLODGETTDear Guitarmaker,

I’m a little late in responding for renewal because my second son: Gabriel, was being born on August 7th. He and my wife, Cindy are doing quite well and things are beginning to settle down around here. We’re looking forward to Symposium 91. And I’m in favor of the switch to recycled paper; great idea! Regards:

John Blodgett 6 Lake Road

Rockland, ME 04841

ENJOYING OUR INTERVIEWSDear Guitarmaker,

I just wanted to add a note with my renewal check to let you know how much I’ve been enjoying Guitarmaker. Its quality and professionalism are getting better and better. I’ve particularly been fascinated by the interviews in the last couple of issues.

Elaine S. Hartstein 57-07 225th Street Bayside, NY 11364

(212) 210-5283 days

CASES ANYONE ?Dear Guitarmaker,

Here's a suggestion for a topic that may be of interest to members: a review of case makers... particularly the high end ones. Thanks for your continuing efforts to maintain a high quality and relevant information network.

Abraham Wechter 35654 32nd Street Paw Paw, Ml 49079

If you would like to review case makers, correspond with us, or express your opinions about some of the articles or interviews contained in Guitarmaker, please don't hesitate to send them to:

A. S. I. A. Letters 14 South Broad Street Nazareth, PA 18064

3

The Association Of Stringed Instrument ArtisansFOLLOW-UPDear Guitarmaker,

I am writing with some suggestions regarding Michael D resdner’s Tips column on “Calculating Neck Resets" which appeared in the *8 issue of Guitarmaker. I always find Michael’s writing to be as helpful as it is well written. Since I have my own methods for determining how much to take off the heel of a neck, I was fascinated to leam of a formula which could generate a number or measurement to use for this purpose. I will try it on the next reset I perform.

1 disagree with Michael on his advise to readers to saw through the fretboard at the 14th fret. Most repair people that 1 know use the method of removing the next fret into the body (the 15th for a 14-fret guitar and the 13th for a 12-fret guitar, etc.) and simply drilling a 3/32" hole through the bottom of the fret slot off center so as to bypass any truss rod detailings. This method allows the repair p>erson to steam out the neck and the fingerboard integrally and has several advantages. First there is the aesthetic advantage of having the whole job completed with a minimum alteration to the instrument. Second, it provides an excellent visual reference for alignment of the neck on center. Third, some argue that sawing through the fretboard could compromise the structural integrity of the neck-to-body joint by allowing the neck to “creep” forward slightly due to an absence of connection with the fingerboard 0 don’t believe this, but I felt the need to mention it).

I know that some repair people slice off the heel cap in an effort to introduce steam into the neck joint (Martin does this on their neck resets), but I am not fond of this method either. Also, Michael's method of cutting through the fret board doesn’t address what to do about bound fingerboards. This task can get quite messy, particularly on older guitars where the lacquer has become tinted through age. If one is careful about heating the fretboard extension and sliding the spatula only from the soundhole side to loosen the fingerboard, it is virtually impossible to determine that any work has been done to the guitar.

Also, just before gluing the neck into the body, I make a very thin saw cut between the fingerboard and the front edge of the dovetail to address the issue of the “tipping” phenomenon that comes about because of the new angle of the neck. This saw cut allows the fingerboard to glue down smoothly over the body, mitigating any hump that might occur.

As all repair p>eople know, performing a good neck reset is a difficult job. It requires a variety skills and judgments that, if not performed properly, could not only compromise the playability of the guitar, but the value of it as well. I am pleased that Michael’s article is able to help crafts people everywhere understand and appreciate this delicate operation more fully.

Sincerely:Bruce Ross; Acoustic Guitar Consultant

1148 Western Drive Santa Cruz, CA 95060

(408) 427-1819

MEMBER S SPOTLIGHT_______No one sent in any biographies fo r the Member's Spotlight

section this month, so fo r the time being, our publication has been deprived c f the hundred or more fascinating stories about those artisans who have not yet shared their story with us. We'd love to hear from all o f you. This space awaits...

TIPSClothes Pin Modification

While teaching my guitarmaking course at the Peter’s Valley Craft Center in Layton, NJ (See Page 7), it once again became painfully obvious that the traditional wooden clothes pins (as they are purchased) are quite unsuitable for use in gluing ribbon linings, without a minor and fairly simple modification; the purpose of such modification to allow the clothes pin to clamp deeper and lower down the taper of the ribbon, thus preventing the annoying “kick-out” that pulls the thin edge of the ribbon from a flush glue joint against the side.

Scott Yembrick offers these tips:The dremel attachment used for cutting the binding has a

particular cutter recommended for it. I suggest that you do not use it. I threw mine out in disgust. Use a standard router bit instead. There are small ones available at your local hardware store that work perfectly with the attachment. (See Mark Stanley’s article about laminate trimmers on page 6. Ed.)

If you cannot afford a jointer/planer, you might want to try a “Safe-T-Planer”. This is a relatively inexpensive hand-held overhead planer that can remove small amounts of material from top»s, backs, and sides. It works fairly well and is infinitely faster than planing by hand.

If you have tips, questions about specific techniques, clever solutions to common or uncommon problems, or requests fo r more information on a certain topic, send them in to A.S.I.A. Tips, or A.S.IA. Q& A.

The Association Of Stringed Instrument ArtisansVIDEOS_________________________“BUILDING THE HERRINGBONE

ACOUSTIC GUITAR KIT”84 Minutes; VHS Format; Available from:

Stewart MacDonald Guitar Shop Supply 21 North Shafer Street

Athens, OH 45701 (614) 592-3021

This video is intended for those who have purchased a herringbone dreadnought guitar kit from Stewart MacDonald’s Guitar Shop Supply Catalog, though viewing it will certainly be of interest to anyone in our craft. I first learned about it from A.S.I.A. Member Keith Bowen, owner of the musical enterprise “Acoustech” in Orangeburg, NY. Keith had purchased the video prior to taking the course that I was offering in guitar making this summer at Peter’s Valley Crafts Center in Layton, NJ. After hours of listening to my tedious and often frustrating descriptions of the endless number of guitar related techniques, Keith suggested to me that it might have been easier for me to simply play this video in advance to my class o f eight. He was right.

After the course was over, I came home and called my friends at Stewart MacDonald and ordered the video. I viewed it and made the following notes:

The video is narrated by Don Macrostie, who demonstrates clearly in the video his obvious mastery of the tools and techniques of the trade. Off camera background commentary is offered by veteran luthier and repair expert Dan Erlewine. Dan points out and stresses those aspects o f building at critical points in the process where errors are most likely to happen.

The process is basically a true to form representation of the Martin style of Dreadnought construction, with some necessary diversions from the luxury of having all o f the jigs and fixtures common to an experienced luthier’s shop. I was impressed by the well thought out, thorough and clever methods that had been developed to minimize the fixturing for the kit builder. Instead of the traditional external mold, a simple makeshift corrugated cardboard internal template (similar to the type used in violin construction) was utilized, and to maintain the shape, a waist width cutout was fabricated out of plywood in a fashion identical to that used in dulcimer construction. The pace of the video moves quickly, but without skipping any pertinent details. Naturally, if you miss something, or need to review a particular process, it is easy to rewind and replay that topic.

There are a number of tips worth noting in this video. I was impressed by the mention of using diagonal grain only, in fabricating a bridge plate. This is obviously to prevent bridge plate failure from splitting along the bridge pin holes; a sensible but very subtle point. Tucking bridge plates, side braces and tone bar braces into notches made in the X-brace is another nice feature; though some would disagree with tucking the bridgeplate under, since this makes subsequent removal for future repair quite difficult. An interesting and simple fixture is suggested for putting the correct angle on the ribbon lining of the back. This involves a 4-5° tapered sanding block approximately 24" in length, with rough sandpaper held at one end for flushing the ribbon lining as well as the front and rear blocks with sweeping motions. This is a clever approach to an often difficult and incomprehensible task.

The use of giant rubber bands for clamping bindings was another clever point; evolved no doubt from Irving Sloane’s suggestion of slicing sections of rubber inner tubes. The use of

nipped staples installed on the underside of the fingerboard to prevent slipping during glueup is nothing less than brilliant.

The explanation of the neck fitting process was handled well, though their recommendation of a backpitch that yields a gap of 1/8" is perhaps a bit extreme, causing the necessity of an awfully high bridge or worse yet a high saddle likely to tip over. 3/32" is more typically appropriate, but Stewart M acDonald’s specific batch of parts might lend themselves to this dimension. The absence of an adjustable truss rod, in favor of the old style square tube reinforcement bar makes for a simpler neck assembly and neck to body joint, but there is no explanation of pre­stressing for string tension which is surely critical with this approach.

Cutting the soundhole out by hand with a utility razor knife after the top has been installed onto the body seems a tedious and unnecessary task; one that could be easily executed for the customer by the kit supplier at the point the rosette trenches are circle-cut. Installing the frets off o f the neck is also a controversial point.

Though there may be some minor disagreement over a few techniques of construction, the fact remains that this is an instructional video for no doubt a first-timer. If one chooses to continue in the craft, there is plenty of time to formulate other methods and opinions.

Throughout the video, Don provides helpful tips about the use and maintenance of specialty tools used in our trade; how to sharpen a scraper, ways to use a chisel or a hand plane, etc.) Don also provides an interesting mandolin solo while waiting for the glue to dry, and Dan Erlewine is given a rousing ovation at the end of the video for his camera finesse and occasional commentary.

Though this production bears little resemblance to slick productions of the type you may have seen on public television (Norm Abrahms or Bob Vila productions), there is an informal charm to the very direct and simple approach that the people at Stewart MacDonald have taken with this project. As all o f us in the field are learning, it is most important to capture and standardize the most correct and efficient methods of our artisanry, especially the difficult and tricky jobs like fretting, neck fitting, binding, etc. In doing so, much of the mystery is removed from what in the past were quite guarded secrets. There is still plenty of room for style, evolution, and growth as in any skilled profession, but this video in conjunction with the kit concept, certainly provides an excellent diving board for would-be makers to entrench themselves with a knowledgeable and patient teacher who will guide them much closer to some instantaneous level of success a lot quicker than in the past.

Reviewed by the editor.

OR WRITE TO:BOX 900Y, ATHENS, OHIO 45701

PARTS, TOOLS AND LUTHIER'S SUPPLIESFOR FREE CATALOG CALL

-848-2273

The Association Of Stringed Instrument ArtisansTRENDS

The Music Distributors Association (MDA) Advisory Board Report for the 2nd Quarter of 1990 yielded the following interesting findings. The most saleable styles of acoustic guitars are now the moderately priced ($300-$700) acoustic-electrics, with Dreadnought cutaways toward the top of the pack. Also decent sales of Ovation-style shallow bowl back acoustic-electrics were reported. Least saleable styles were classical guitars, especially on the upper end. (A very tight professional market.) General acoustic sales were rising, up approximately 25% overall from last year at the same time.

Electric guitars are favoring $300-$700 strat styles and inexpensive tele copies (under $300). Basic colors were the most popular. Least saleable were the “bizarre” shapes, or the ones without whammy bars. Wild paint jobs are once again going out of fashion. Electric guitar sales were stable or slightly rising from last years figures.

The Iraq situation will no doubt have an impact upon available leisure time dollars, in turn having some downward effect upon guitar sales through next year, but often these trends are very erratic and unpredictable. Economic recessions can often cause a rise in popularity of folk, blues, and country music which tends to counterbalance the expected drops in guitar sales.

Most companies and established builders are being cautious, not over spending, and in general playing it “close to the h ip”, at least until the Iraq situation resolves itself.

CHOOSING LAMINATE TRIMMERSby Mark Stanley

Recently many guitar builders have gone from full size routers to laminate trimmers for rabbeting binding ledges. The primary advantage of using a laminate trimmer is that it will usually operate at higher RPM’s than conventional routers, thus making a smoother cut. Generally routers turn anywhere from20.000 to 26,500 RPM’s. Laminate trimmers turn at 27,500 to30.000 RPM’s, but most laminate trimmers are in the 3.3 to 4.0 amp range, which is really not enough power to keep the RPM’s up while cutting a heavy rabbet through rosewood.

There are new, more powerful types of laminate trimmers available. A very popular one is the 5.6 amp, 30,000 RPM Bosch Model 1608. The motor runs very cool, smooth and quiet, although the tool is not without its problems. It has a usable but somewhat sloppy thumbwheel-type vertical adjustment system. A major drawback is that the standard trimmer base is slightly out of square with the shaft. Practically speaking, if you are using a flush trim bit, the tool will cut too deep on one side, and when rotated 180°, will cut too shallow. All of the Bosch l608’s I’ve examined have been built this way. According to the owner of a local tool store who sells Bosch equipment, the problem is chronic.

My choice was the Porter-Cable Model 7310. This tool became available on the market in January of 1990, so you may not have seen it yet. The 7310 is rated at 5.6 amps with 30,000 RPM’s. It has an accurate thumbwheel-type vertical adjustment system, and a well designed spindle lock. It is also heavier in construction than the Bosch 1608. Personally, I prefer the extra stability for binding work.

5.6 amps is quite powerful for a tool the size of a laminate trimmer. I intended to use one for small template work as well, but the 7310 was not made accurately enough to allow the shaft to remain in the center of the base when there is a change in vertical adjustment. In other words, with a template guide installed, you can see that the bit is not in the center of the hole

in the guide at all times. This is unfortunate, because the Porter- Cable 7310 base plate will accept the popular screw ring type template guide. Porter-Cable’s problem is the same, but not as bad as B osch’s. They both rely on the castings of their base and motor housing assemblies for accuracy. The mating surfaces have not been machined, rather simply cast.

In spite of these shortcomings, the Porter-Cable 7310 is one of those tools that feels right in your hands. I redesigned the base plate and fabricated a single handle as shown in the photo. You can see the spindle lock button on the lower center of the motor. A local tool supplier quoted a price of $139 00 for the Porter- Cable 7310.1 purchased two 7310 laminate trimmers in March of 1990 for $109-00 each from:

Tool City 14136 E. Firestone Blvd.

Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670 Outside CA 1(800) 423-7899; Inside CA 1 (800) 826-7819

In June of 1990,1 discovered another firm that carries the 7310 at a slightly better price:

Williams Tool & Hardware Supply 2017 White Settlement Road

Fort Worth, TX 76107 1 (800) 338-6668

Porter-Cable Model 7310 with author modified base and handle.The chart on the next page attempts to compare vital

specifications of several other popular brands and models of laminate trimmers. This comparison was prepared by:

Mark Stanley 20903 175th Street East

Orting, WA 98360 (206) 893-6451

The Association Of Stringed Instrument ArtisansLAMINATE TRIMMERS COMPARED

BRAND & MODEL #

POWER IN AMPS

SPEED IN RPM’s

WEIGHT IN LBS.

ADJUSTMENTTYPE

SPINDLtLOCK

Porter-Cable Model 7310 5.6 30,000 3.75 thumbwheel yes

Porter-Cable Model 309 38 28,000 36 screw-type no

Porter-Cable Model 310 38 27,500 3.75

micrometerring no

Bosch Model 1608 5.6 30,000 35 thumbwheel no

Illack&Deckcr Model 3265 4.5 27,000 3.85 thumbwheel no

Hitachi Model TR-6 4.0 30,000 39 thumbwheel no

Makita3700-B 33 28,000 3.6 sliding no

RyobiModel TR-30U 3.8 29,000 30 sliding no

SOURCESHYDROCOTE UPDATE

Hydrocote, the water-based lacquer system developed by Eric Kasner of Hood Products and distributed in bulk on the east coast by A.S.l.A. member Michael Dresdner, has continued in its development to the extent that a product of suitable quality for guitars is ready for the marketplace. Michael Dresdner is not equipped to deal directly with non-wholesale customers, and as a result has worked out a relationship with Stewart MacDonald Guitar Shop Supply for the distribution of Hydrocote for luthiers.

Stewart MacDonald has produced a video about lacquer finishing which will be reviewed in the forthcoming issue (#10) of “Guitarmaker”. They do intend to update that video to include Hydrocote, concurrently with the introduction of this product to the instrument making community. Stay tuned for details or contact:

Stewart MacDonald Guitar Shop Supply 21 North Shafer Street

Athens, OH 45701 (6l4) 592-3021

WD MUSIC PRODUCTSThrough the efforts o f A.S.l.A. Board Member Roger

Sadowsky, several major parts vendors were contacted with the objective of having these vendors include A.S.l.A. magazine cover sheets with membership applications in their out-going customer orders. This seems to be a great way of reaching potential members and spreading the word about our publication “Guitarmaker”.

One of the first to respond was Larry Davis of “WD Music Products”. In his correspondence with us, he included his comprehensive parts catalog, which features most all varieties of electric guitar hardware (tremolos, bridges, lock nuts, knobs, screws, springs, wrenches, tuning machines, pots, switches, pickguards of every conceivable variety, nuts, saddles, pickup covers, etc.) plus a surprising assortment of pre-routed electric guitar and bass bodies and necks. Also offered are routing

templates for most pickup routing needs, and a small assortment of related tools o f the trade.

For a catalog, contact:Larry Davis

WD Music Products 261-1 Suburban Avenue Deer Park, NY 11729

(516) 243-2233

EDUCATION UPDATETHE PETER’S VALLEY GUITARMAKING COURSE by dick boak

Toward the end of August, I packed up my tools and headed off for Peter’s Valley (PV), a small but substantial crafts village near the town of Layton in the north-western corner of New Jersey. 1 had taken vacation time from my job at Martin to teach a course in the basics of steel string guitarmaking to eight students who had signed up in advance and paid a tuition fee of $210.00 and a materials fee of $350.00. In exchange, I had promised them eight days of hard work and an instrument strung and tuned without lacquer. For eight months prior to the start of the course,I had consternated and planned, gathered and purchased materials, made checklists, considered logistics, and tried to do as much advance homework as possible to avoid any obvious pitfalls or catastrophes.

I was assisted by the PV master woodworker in residence, David Van Hoff, who manages the well equipped workshop and makes high end commissioned furniture and beautifully crafted jewelry boxes. The shop was clean and ready with eight workbenches. Upon arrival, I unloaded my assortment of materials and tools, and eyed up my dubious situation. I really had no idea whether I could actually pull this off, but was certainly ready and excited about the challenge.

Most of my students arrived the night before the start of the course. We met the next morning at 9 am, and after introductions, 1 began explaining my proposed schedule and handing out materials. Since I had some extra materials, David Van Hoff decided to join in and try making a guitar himself.

I was impressed by the caliper of student the course had drawn. Three A.S.l.A. members had signed up. Bob Taylor of Clapping Tree Instruments in Montclair, NJ (not the one from Taylor Guitars) is an Autoharp maker and had all the skills necessary to make an extraordinary instrument without my help. Keith Bowen is a car restoration specialist, Finishing expert, guitar player, and Martin guitar dealer from Orangeburg, NY, He also had a great grasp of the basic woodworking skills necessary. Carl Mesrobian, a master carpenter, professional musician and aspiring archtop maker from Boston, was so adept with hand tools that he was an extreme help to others struggling with the complexities of the neck to body dovetail nightmare.

Among the non-A.S.I.A. members, were Richard Frey, a local electrical contractor and amateur guitarist who has the manual dexterity, common sense and patience to pull off any project that he undertakes. Barbara Levin, a social worker and guitar player from New York City, was very eager to leam and had more than enough dexterity and feel for woodworking to do a good job. Greg Ritter, a camera shop owner from New Brunswick, had few woodworking skills, but was driven with an ambition to build a guitar for his father who is musically talented. Doug Ralt, a dentist and guitar player from New York City, brought the obvious manual skills of his profession, though he had only a marginal experience with

The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisanswoodworking tools. Steve Jacobus, a machinist from Liberty Corners, NJ knew exactly what he wanted to do and proceeded accordingly without much need for supervision. All in all, it was a remarkably qualified groupof people.

Parts were supplied in more or less a kit form; sides were pre-bent, tops were thicknessed, joined and rosetted, backs were sanded, to approx. 1/8", unjoined and supplied with a back inlay strip, necks were partially machine shaped and dovetailed to match the front block, fingerboards were slotted and tapered, braces were partially pre-shaped and ready to glue, truss rods were pre-assembled, outer bindings were pre-cut from standard boltaron, and students had the option of binding the top w ith herringbone and inlaying their personal "logo" in mother of pearl or abalone.

Top row left to right: David Van Hoff, Doug Rail, Bob Taylor, Keith Bowen, Carl Mesrohian, Steve Jacobus. Bottom row left to right: Richard Frey, instructor Dick Boak, Barbie Levin, and Greg Ritter.

The class made every attempt to adhere to the following schedule:DAY 1:

DAY 2:

DAY 3:

DAY 4:

DAY 5:

DAY 6:

DAY 7:

DAY 8:

Assemble sides to front and rear blocks. Install end piece and ribbon lining.Join bookmatchcd back to inlay strip.Begin glucup o f back braces.Shape back braces.Fit and glue back to rim.Begin glucup o f top braces.Conclude glucup o f top braces.Shape top and back braces.Facilitate glucup o f top to rim.Trim overhang and prep sand for bindings. Rout and install bindings.Open body dovetail.Pre-fit neck to body.Drill headstock for tuning machines.Install adjustable truss rod.Glue fingerboard to neck.Prepare and install frets in fingerboard. Rough and fine shape neck.Final sanding o f body and neck Final neck fit and glueup o f neck.Install nut. Locate bridge. Glue bridge.Final setup and adjustment.String and tune.D iscussions about finishing.

Because of the need to establish specific work stations, it was necessary to rotate work through various processes. This forced amendments to the schedule and encouraged teamwork. In spite of having nearly 100 assorted cam clamps, we still had work delays due to clamp shortages. Neck fitting was a real snag. Nearly everyone had some difficulty with this. We had attempted a countersink screw attachment for the neck, through the front

block, so that instruments could be strung up and checked before a final commitment to glueup, but this was only marginally successful. Some were forced to abandon the screw and glue the neck in due to “questionable” fits. It’s fortunate that glue is somewhat forgiving and that neck joints are eventually invisible.

I had anticipated fretting to be extremely difficult for everyone, but it went surprisingly well thanks to .019" wire in a .020" slot. We experienced some back-bowing regardless, since I hadn’t had the insight, time or equipment to have everyone pre­stress the tension rods and re-level the fingerboards before fretting.

In spite of these few problems and the incredible rush that eight days imposed upon us as a group, the success was startling and the level o f craftsmanship was extremely high. The experimental guitar that I made was dubbed the spruce goose (spruce top, back and sides) and developed a small crack in the back of the neck, but it was nothing a little cyano couldn’t correct.

Midway through the final day we all rushed outside with our instruments into the sunlight for a group photograph. Some of the instruments were totally playable, some were still in clamps. Our quick breakup and departure was anti-climactic to say the least after sharing eight consecutive 14 hour workdays... living, breathing, eating, sleeping GUITARS! The class is going to meet sometime in the late fall after the finishes have been applied. Then, a final critique and wrap-up of the experience will no doubt happen in the midst o f the social thrill o f re-gathering into a group that shared so much common intensity. Ten guitars in eight days! The course was popular enough (there was a lengthy waiting list) that plans are in the making for a similar course next year, though one of the jokesters in the class has been saying that next years course will be titled “How To Repair the Guitar You Made Last Year”!

I’m not sure I want to do it again, but it sure was satisfying to see the results o f such a concentrated effort.

8

The Association Of Stringed Instrument ArtisansARTICLESCOMPUTING ACCURATE FRET SCALES

Throughout the centuries, a few methods have evolved for calculating the fret positions o f fretted stringed instruments. Correctly placed frets are actually only approximations of the true notes. This tempering is done on pianos as well so that the player can quickly switch keys and still be more or less in tune. The rule of 18 was a reasonable method that provided a much greater accuracy than frets placed randomly by ear, but it did have its problems. With the rule of 18, the maker divided the desired total scale length (without the compensation allowance factored in) by the number 18. The result was subtracted from the original scale length, then this new number was redivided by 18, and so on. Gradually the divisor 18 was adjusted to 17.817 to increase accuracy.

The following fret scale was simply programmed onto a PCby:

John Sulir Rudy’s Music

169 West 48th Street New York, NY 10036

(212) 764-4286We have chosen to show these calculations in two ways; first

we set the desired scale for an instrument with a scale length of one unit. The three columns of numbers generated below represent the distance from the nut to the fret (first column), the interval between frets (second column), and the remaining distance from the fret to the bridge. Because a scale length of one has been used, you can use the numbers below as a universal scale calculation by simply multiplying any number times the scale length you are trying to achieve, for example:

If you would like to calculate a scale length of 25-34", multiply 25.34 times the nut to first fret factor 0.056126 (6 places is much more than ample) to yield the actual measurement from the nut to the first fret, which equals 1.42223284". Repeat this process for as many frets as there are on your guitar to complete the scale.

For those of you who have a personal computer, drop down to the second chart which explains how you can create a relatively simple spreadsheet to calculate any desired scale length. The second spreadsheet shows the exact formulas needed to produce accurate fret calculations for variable scale lengths. Leaving seven rows at the top of the spreadsheet for titles and column labels, begin entering the formulas starting with row 8; column C (=D8). Make sure to copy the formulas exactly as they appear. If you are familiar with spreadsheet “making”, you may be able to speed this process up by utilizing the “fill down” or “copy down” capability. After all the formulas are in place, double check them. Enter the scale length you wish to calculate in row 8; column A, then execute the calculation command (if your spreadsheet is not set on automatic calculation). The formulas will appear instantaneously and you can print them out for convenient use. If you have a drafting program that is numerically generated, you may be able to easily produce an accurate paper template.

If the above spreadsheets are too tedious for you, you may order a floppy disc for your Apple Macintosh, or for your IBM Compatible PC from us at A.S.I.A. as follows:

Macintosh 3 1/2" Floppy (Specify “Works" or “Excel”)

IBM 5 1/4" Floppy(Specify “Lotus 1-2-3” Version or Other Format)

$10 ppd. ($7.50 members)

FRET SCALE CALCULATIONSBASED ON THE RULE OF 18 (ADJUSTED TO 17.817")ENTER DESIRED TOTAL SCALE LENGTH IN COLUMN A; LINE 8ROW A B C D E* SCALE" FRET' NUT-FRET" INTERVAL" BRIDGE FRET"

8 1.0000" 1 0.05612617163383" 0.05612617163383" 0.94387382836616"9 2 0.10910219612539 0.05297602449156 0.8908978038746010 3 0.15910487917386 0.05000268304847 0.8408951208261311 4 0.20630110305140 0.04719622387754 0.7936988969485912 5 0.25084838356712 0.04454728051572 0.7491516164328713 6 0.29289539577080 0.04204701220367 0.7071046042291914 7 0.33258247015084 0.03968707438004 0.6674175296491515 8 0.37004206098258 0.03745959063174 0.6299579390174116 9 0.40539918838997 0.03535712740738 0.5946008116100217 10 0.43877185559601 0.03337266720604 0.5612281444039818 11 0.47027144275456 0.03149958715855 0.5297285572454319 12 0.50000307867786 0.02973163592329 0.4999969213221320 13 0.52806599170038 0.02806291302251 0.4719340082996121 14 0.55455384085004 0.02648784914966 0.4454461591499522 15 0.57955502843213 0.02500118758208 0.4204449715678623 16 0.60315299506893 0.02359796663660 0.3968470049310624 17 0.62542649818006 0.02227350311113 0.3745735018199325 18 0.64644987483269 0.02102337665263 0.3535501251673026 19 0.66629328963899 0.01984341500630 0.3337067101610027 20 0.68502296992885 0.01872968008965 0.3149770300711428 21 0.70270142477934 0.01767845485048 0.2972985752206529 22 0.71938765563867 0.01668623065932 0.2806123443613230 23 0.73513735224067 0.01574969660219 0.2648626477591231 24 0.75000307866839 0.01486572642752 0.2499969213316032 25 0.76403444878297 0.01403137011458 0.2359655512170233 26 0.77727829181025 0.01324384302727 0.2227217081897434 27 0.78977880863069 0.01250051682043 0.2102211913693035 28 0.80157771929855 0.01179891066786 0.1964222807014436 29 0.81271440228118 0.01113668298262 0.1872855977188137 30 0.82322602588329 0.01051162360211 0.17677397411670

FRET SCALE SPREADSHEET FORMULASBASED ON THE RULE OF 18 (ADJUSTED TO 17.817")ENTER DESIRED TOTAL SCALE LENGTH IN COLUMN A; LINE 8

ROW A B c D Ef SCALE- FRET NUT-FRET INTERVAL 1BRIDGE FRET

8 1.0000 1 COQ■ -A8/17.817 -A8C89 2 -Sum(D8:D9) KA8-D8V17.817 -A8-C910 3 -Sum(D8:D10) KA8<D8+D9))/17.817 -A8-C1011 4 -Sum(D8:Dll) ~(A8-(Sum(D8:D10)))/l 7.817 -A8-C1112 5 -Sum(D8:D12) <A8-(Sum(D8:Dl 1)))/17.817 -A8-C1213 6 -Sum(D8:D13) KA8-(Sum(D8:D12)))/17.817 -ABC 1314 7 -Sum(D8:D14) -<A8-(Sum(D8:D13»)/17.817 -A8C1415 8 -Sum(D&D15) KA8-(Sum(D8:D14)))/l 7.817 -A8C1516 9 -Sum(D8:Dl6) KA8-<Sum(D8:D15)))/17.817 -A8C1617 10 -Sum(D8:D17) KA8-(Sum(D8:D 16)))/l 7.817 -A8C1718 11 -Sum(D&D18) -(A8-(Sum(D8:D17»)/17.817 -A8C1819 12 -Sum(D8:D19) KA8-(Sum(D8:D18)»/17.817 -A8C1920 13 -Sum(D8:D20) *(A8-(Sum(D8:D19)))/17.817 -A8C2021 14 •Sum(D8D21) *(A8-(Sum(D8:D2G)))/l 7.817 -A8-C2122 15 -Sum(D8:D22) -(A8-(Sum(D8:D21)))/l 7.817 -A8C2223 16 -Sum(D&D23) KA8-(Sum(D8:D22)))/17.817 -A8C2324 17 -Sum(D&D24) -<A8-(Sum(D8:D23))yi7.817 -A8C2425 18 -Sum(D8:D25) -(A8-(Sum(D8:D24)))/l 7.817 -A8C2526 19 -Sum(D&D26) KA8-(Sum(D8:D25)))/l 7.817 -A8C2627 20 -Sum(D8:D27) <A8-(Sum(D8:D26)))/l 7.817 -A8C2728 21 -Sum(D8:D28) <A8-(Sum(D8:D27)))/17.817 -A8C2829 22 -SumCD&D29) -(A8-(Sum(D8:D28»)/17.817 -A8C2930 23 -Sum(D8:D30) KA8<Sum(D8:D29)))/17.817 -A8-C3031 24 -Sum(D8:D31) -(A8-(Sum(D8:D30)))/l 7.817 -A8-C3132 25 -Sum(D8:D32) *(A8-(Sum(D8:D31)))/l 7.817 -A8C3233 26 -Sum(D8:D33) KA8-(Sum(D8:D32)))/l 7.817 -A8C3334 27 -Sum(D&D34) KA8-(Sum(D8:D33)»/17.817 -A8C3435 28 -Sum(D8:D35) -(A8<Sum(D8:D34)))/17.817 -A8C3536 29 -Sum(D&D36) KA8-(Sum(D8:D35»yi7.817 -A8C3637 30 -Sum(D8:D37) KA8-(Sum(D8:D36)))/l 7.817 -A8C37

The Association Of Stringed Instrument ArtisansTHE SPANISH CONNECTIONby David LaPlante

Detail o f Torres guitar headstock dated 1892.One of my major interests in addition to building guitars is

the history of the classical guitar and the early versions of the Martin guitar. Through observations, restorations, collecting and researching the available literature, I’ve noted a few interesting relationships between these well known types which I would like to share.

Later nineteenth century Martin guitars are of special interest to the guitar maker as they, with their X-bracing, are the direct ancestors of the modern steel string guitar. They are also examples of superb craftsmanship, showing a uniformly tasteful aesthetic and fine design.

This aesthetic has always been an admirable one to me, a simple square cut peghead, lovely elongated plantilla (plantilla: refers to specific shapes, sizes, templates for various guitar models) especially the smaller sizes and understated trim which always complimented and contrasted with the construction materials, enhancing and visually defining the guitars form.

The earliest Martin guitars were derived from the designs of Johann Stauffer of Vienna, for whom C. F. Martin, Sr. worked as a foreman in the years before his 1833 arrival in the United States. These traverse-braced narrow waisted guitars often had the tuning machines inset into a flat scroll shaped headstock (a

distinctive eastern European feature still seen on traditional instruments such as the domra (an east european instrument similar to the balalaika, but with a bowl type back). These guitars had a floating fretboard extension and a neck whose angle could be adjusted by a clock key mechanism. They also exhibited what has come to be known as the "ice cream cone” or separate heel, a feature common to many 17th and 18th century guitars regardless o f origin.

I had seen a number of early Martin guitars which showed various combinations of Stauffer-like features and elements of design found in much later models. It was unclear as to what influences were driving the major design changes to be seen between the late 1830’s and the 1860’s when the mature form of the Martin guitar emerged.

A recent restoration project, however, helped to clearly define much of what seemed to be happening in those traditional years. This was a Martin & Coupa guitar from the 1840’s which seemed to be entirely influenced (as opposed to the mixed character of others I’d seen)© by Spanish made guitars of the early nineteenth century.

Here was the slipper foot neck block (although the neck was still attached, using a dovetail!), transverse braces with typical bracket reinforcements, three fan braces, a squared off Spanish style paddle shaped head with friction pegs and including two small holes drilled for a cord, this being a very common feature of early Spanish guitars.

The neck also exhibited the typical Spanish heel with the extension of the back forming the heel cap in the familiar style. On the back of peghead was the raised dovetail carving so familiar now on Martin guitars but absent from Spanish made

10

Photography by David LaPlante

The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans

Detail o f slipper foot on Martin & Coupa guitar.

instruments since the 1850’s.A three ring rosette with herringbone was used, very familiar

to us now, but I noticed how strikingly similar it was to one on a guitar made by Manuel Narciso Gonzalez, made in 1833 ® Also the tied bridge with pyramid ends closely resembled that used on an 1807 guitar by Manuel Munoa.©

1 can only speculate that Martin had adapted his designs perhaps in response to the existing market climate or to follow the wishes of John Coupa, his guitar teacher associate whose New York studio was the main Martin outlet in the 1840’s. It is possible, too, that he simply felt that the Spanish instrument was superior and a better base upon which to develop his own ideas. With the dissolution of this arrangement (about 1850) some of the early Spanish features were dropped. However, many... such as the now famous square headstock, pyramid bridge, Spanish heel and peghead diamond have remained and to this day have become Martin signatures. The mature Martin style shows additional influences; however, the wide flat Spanish frelboard was not adopted by Martin as the instruments still used the narrower arched configuration found on his earliest instruments. Also, some northern European trim ideas were retained, the major of which was the use of ivory bindings. (I have seen a violin made in the late 1790’s with ivory bindings. This instrument was made in Markneukirchen, Germany, the town from which Martin emigrated.)

By the 1860’s, Martin guitars had matured into the form which they would retain for almost seventy years, until the late 1920’s when they would undergo their final transformation into the 14 fret versions now copied world-wide.

Curiously enough, it was also during the 1860’s that the early

Martin & Coupa completed restoration.Spanish guitar was being transformed by Antonio Torres into the familiar form which still predominates in this latter part of the twentieth century. The linkage of these now diverse forms, through their early Spanish ancestors helps to understand and explain their present day similarities and origins.

BIBLIOGRAPHYEvans, Tom and Mary Ann, Guitars from th e R enaissan ce to Rock.Paddington Press, Ltd., 1977. pg. 50-51, 54, 235-6

Longworth, Mike, Martin Guitars. A HLstorv. 4 Maples Press, 1988, pgs. 2-4

Romanillos, Jose L, Anton io d e Torres. Guitar Maker - H is l if e and Work. Element Books, 1987

Romanillos, Jose L., Cata logue E xp o sIc lon d e Gulttarras Antiguas Espanolas. Provincial De Alicante, 1990

Sharpe, A. P., The S tory o f The Span ish Guitar. Clifford Essex Music Co., Ltd., 1963, pgs. 20-22

FOOTNOTES:O Evans, pg. 235-6© Romanillos, Catalogue Exposition - pg. 6 © Romanillos, Antonio Torres, pg. 45

David LaPlante is an avid classical guitar enthusiast, player, maker, and restorer. He resides in Clifton Park, New York and works fo r the New York State Museum in Albany. One o f his classical guitars was featured on the front and back cover o f A S.I.A. *6.

11

The Association Of Stringed Instrument ArtisansENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL IN A SMALL SHOP_____________by Rich Mermer

Woodcraftsmen are presented with a difficult challenge: to maintain a low and relatively stable moisture content in their wood in the face of fluxuating and often high temperature and humidity (as is my particular case in Florida). In my discussions with other luthiers and woodcraftsmen, I have found there to be a general awareness of this problem, yet I am amazed at how few have developed a viable method of dealing with the situation.The solution comes no easier as most individual makers have limited resources for their small shops/studios and cannot afford large scale and expensive environmental control measures. Surprisingly it appears that many larger operations also lack this seemingly vital equipment.

The following is an overview of my method of maintaining an acceptable shop environment, about 45% relative humidity and 78' Fahrenheit (not bad considering that outside it usually hovers around 85% relative humidity and 93’ Fahrenheit in the summer). This is not meant to be presented as earth shattering news. It is just an explanation of the method I have chosen, based upon my limited finances. My 6000 cubic foot shop has been stabilized at a cost of about $800. I look at this as being a fundamental investment that will insure the stability of my shop, materials, and instruments. (As well as helping to prevent instruments from coming back with serious repair problems due to cracks. Ed.) It certainly can be done less expensively by locating “preowned” equipment (see below).

As my shop is located in the garage of our home, the first thing I did was to put up insulation in the walls and in the ceiling. This step along with the purchase of an air conditioner, is a necessity if you are planning on being comfortable in your shop (not perspiring onto your wood as you sand it; a vicious cycle of raising and taking down the grain) and not paying the local utility company the equivalent of the national debt. If you live in Alaska, you can probably forget the air conditioner and do the opposite of everything I suggest (i.e., heater/air conditioner, humidifier/dehumidifier). My recommendation would be to spend a little extra and purchase insulation with the highest “R" value possible. The savings in your utilities will more than make up for the added expense.

For those of you in work areas with large lifting doors (two car garages), if you don’t need them for access I would recommend placing some sort o f insulation barrier around them. Even jamming rags into openings and the placement of a heavy curtain or drop cloth can be of help. Building an interior or false wall would solve the problem, yet not change the outward appearance of the structure. Remember to disconnect the automatic garage door opener or you may surprise yourself one day! The same practice should follow for any windows that are not needed for air conditioners or exhaust fans. I realize it hurts to block out your view of the outside world but we are addressing environmental stability, energy conservation, and the maintenance of your profit margin.

A note of caution at this point. You are sealing yourself off from the outside with the hope of keeping moisture out. These same actions will seal in any contaminants. Be very careful when working with materials that produce toxic vapors such as finishing materials, cyanoacrylate glues, etc. Your choices are to either work in another area that is better ventilated or to incorporate a vent into the design of your shop. Of course the vent will have to be sealed (and hopefully insulated) when not in

use so as not to defeat the purpose.The next step is the costly one as you need to make two

purchases: O the above mentioned air conditioner, and © a dehumidifier to take up unwanted moisture. I purchased these pieces of equipment from Sears as they had quite a selection to choose from, and they offered reasonable maintenance programs. Doing a little research prior to your purchase will enable you to select the proper size that is needed for your shop. Helpful tip: purchase additional air conditioner filters that can be fitted outside of the intake vents of your air conditioner and dehumidifier (in addition to any filters that are placed inside the equipment) to further reduce the intake of dust. Just vacuum them off when they appear to be dusty.

Now, what to do with this equipment? W on’t it get expensive if I leave them on all day and night? I worried about this for a long time and then realized the answers to my prayers. The Hunter Fan Company (2500 Frisco Avenue, Memphis, TN 38114) produces a programmable digital thermostat that plugs directly into any AC wall outlet. The air conditioner is then plugged into this unit which can be programmed for up to four different times/ temperatures per weekday and two different times/temperatures on both Saturday and Sunday. When the shop temperature reaches two degrees above the thermostat setting the unit turns on and cools the shop down to a temperature that is one degree below the thermostat setting. Hence the air conditioner is not turned on all the time and the shop temperature is kept in a fairly narrow range (within three degrees). There is even a mechanism for monitoring the daily use of the air conditioner so you can determine exactly how long it runs each day. All this control for only $35.00.

The dehumidifier has its own hydrostat/hygrostat (I’m guessing that’s what it’s called) which does not allow you a great deal of control, but by referring to your shop hygrometer or psychrometer (every shop needs one) you should be able to find a hydrostat setting that will keep the relative humidity of your shop in an acceptable range. Make sure to empty the catch bucket daily, unless you work out a system for it to drain automatically.

Now, when my wood comes out of the drying cabinet, I don’t worry about it gaining back all the moisture that has been forced out. My shop environment is manipulated so that the equilibrium moisture content of the wood should remain at an acceptable level throughout the building process.

Richard Mermer, Jr. received his B.S. in Marine Science at Stockton State College, and his Masters Degree in Science Education from the Florida Institute o f Technology. Richard received basic training in instrument construction from the Roberto-Venn School o f Luthiery. He has been building and repairing fretted instruments since 1983 having worked fo r the Oscar Schmidt Autoharp division o f Fretted Industries o f America (Washburn) in Union, NJ (1983), and Phil Kubicki's "Guitar Technology" in Santa Barbara, CA (1986). Richard is currently building steel stringed acoustic guitars in his home/shop/studio. Photographs o f his current instruments will be featured in the next issue (*10) o f Guitarmaker. He is also working as an environmental specialist fo r the Florida Depiartment o f Environmental Resources, Bureau o f Aquatic Preserves. He is happnly married to a woman named Sue and their address is:

Richard and Sue Mermer 150 Columbus Street Sebastian, FL 32958

The Association Of Stringed Instrument ArtisansTRANSCRIPTIONSROGER SADOWSKY;AS TRANSCRIBED FROM HIS TALK AT SYMPOSIUM 89Transcription by William R. Cumpiano

Roger Sadowsky with trademarked bass neck andfretfile in hand, working hard at 1600 Broadway in Manhattan.

Symposium Co-ordionator Dick Boak's introduction:Our final speaker of this o f this evening is someone who

also exemplifies excellence and integrity in our craft. A friend of mine for the last ten or fifteen years, I first met Roger when he was working at Medley Music in Philadelphia. He was considered to be one of the finest repairmen at that time. He was unhappy. He wanted to make a change and he started talking, over the course of several months, about moving into New York City and quitting his job. I thought to myself how scary leaving a situation like that was. How could you possibly just dive into New York City without knowing where your next paycheck was going to come from. I thought to myself that I probably wouldn't do it myself. But Roger did it. Boy, did he do it!

He’s very successful. He’s very good at what he does, you all know that. Let’s give a warm welcome to Roger Sadowsky...

Thanks, Dick. Hello. It’s nice to be here at my third Symposium. It’s nice to be here with all o f my colleagues and all of my friends, and all the people I haven’t met yet.

Paul [Reed Smith], it’s nice to see you be here tonight. Paul and I started having a phone relationship many years ago BEFORE phone sex became popular and we continued to have that relationship over the years.

But Dick didn’t give us a break tonight, so as it’s running late I thought instead of me talking we could all go to the College Tavern and I’ll buy every one a beer, [laughter]

Okay. The first thing I want to do is thank Dick for his untiring efforts with the Symposia. Also to thank Chris [Martin] and the C.F.Martin Company for allowing Dick to BE Dick.

A few weeks ago, I asked Dick casually on the phone if there was anything I could do to help out with the Symposium He said he’d like me to speak on Friday night, and I said, ok. In ’85 I talked about fret jobs, and I said, “what would you like me to talk about?" and he said, “ethics and integrity in lutherie.” And I said “Dick, I thought you were my FRIEND! How could you do this to me?” What he said to me was, “I didn't know ethics and integrity in lutherie existed until I met you." I was very flattered by that, at the same time he was laying it on so thick I thought it was time to get my hip-boots out.

But it was hard to say no. What I don’t want to do tonight is preach or cop any type of attitude about anything. I just want to share with you how I deal with certain situations that very loosely fall under the category of ethics and integrity, and if anything just raise some questions for you to answer in your own mind in whatever way is appropriate for you. I left Dick a rambling message on his phone machine that I thought his title was wrong, and in many ways, I actually got my thoughts down in notes which were really boiling down to something like, “The Sadowsky Guide to Customer Relations,” subtitled “How to Deal with Your Most Neurotic Pain-in-the-Ass Customers." So w e’ll deal with a lot of that stuff.

Some of you may remember an article that I wrote in ’83 for Frets Magazine, entitled "Zen and the Art of Guitar Repair,” and this was the first time I had tried to conceptualize some of these thoughts. Todd Taggart of Luthier’s Mercantile has been kind enough to keep that article still alive by reprinting it in his catalogue. The bottom line I was thinking about when I wrote that is that lutherie is craftsmanship, and w e’re all aspiring craftsmen. We want to get better at that. It’s also a service business of the most basic typ>e. How willing you are to get pleasure out of serving customers is just as imp>ortant as our skills as craftsmen.

Obviously, we know our clients can be very neurotic. I think one of the reasons they’re so neurotic is if you look at your possessions, materially, they’re probably more attached to their instruments than any other object they own in their life. They might have a comparable attachment to an automobile or something, but for the most part, they’re extremely attached to their guitars. And then you combine that with the fact that historically they probably had more negative than p>ositive experiences with guitar repairmen and custom builders. At least in the old days: I think things are really changing in that regard. But that’s their history. They come into the shop and they’re really very nervous and apprehensive.

I want to give you an example of a bad experience that one of my clients just had with a shop in Southern California, as an example of the kind of disasters that can occur. He brought his bass in to have a commercially available preamp installed. He was quoted thirty-five dollars installation on the assumption that they w ouldn’t have to rout a battery compartment, that there would be room for a battery. He goes back the next week and he

The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisanspicks up his bass and he found that a battery compartment had been routed in his bass, and he was given a bill for seventy five dollars. Now obviously, he was upset that he was not called and given the opportunity to choose: 1) if the battery compartment should be routed in his instrument and 2) where it should have been placed. And he w ouldn’t have chosen to put the battery compartment where the shop had chosen to put it. He complained to the proprietor. The proprietor got very defensive, and just said “we do good w ork”. There was no communication going on. So, this client of mine stopped payment on his check when he got home and then decided what would be fair in the situation was send a check for the original thirty-five dollars that he had contracted for and not pay the balance.

"Doctors get paid whether you live or die...

...we only get paid if we produce results and the customer’s happy."

What he got instead was a summons to appear in Small Claims Court. Then he called me and asked me if I would write him a letter in defense of his position on this end of the problem. That was a difficult one for me. I respectfully declined to write his letter for two reasons: one, I was sure he would win in Small Claims Court, I said you don’t need my letter. Number 2,1 didn't want to antagonize another repairman on the coast who was obviously a little nuts to begin with... especially if he’s going to take a customer to Small Claims Court over forty dollars.

A month later I run into this guy in the street. Believe it or not, he lost in Small Claims Court. He had to pay the full seventy- five dollars. And I felt so guilty because I didn’t write him a letter, that I offered him seventy-five dollars worth of free work [chuckles] at my shop the next time he had the chance to bring his instrument in, which he took advantage of the next day. [all laugh]

But I think the bottom line of this whole thing is that for seventy-five dollars you can’t buy more effective advertising than I earned in terms of word-of-mouth with this guy by the gesture that I offered. Conversely, hundreds of dollars of advertising can’t undo the negative stuff that comes from taking a customer to Small Claims Court over forty dollars.

"I think happy and dissatisfied customers

are best viewed as good and bad advertising." * I

There’s no doubt, that given what we do, we have a very difficult time. Our work not only has to sound good, it has to look good, it has to feel good. Doctors get p>aid whether you live or die. And dentists get paid whether he saves your tooth or not. Lawyers get paid whether your jury decides you’re guilty or innocent. We only get paid if we produce results and the customer's happy.

I think it’s really important to realize that your clients are ALWAYS talking about you to their friends and fellow musicians. In essence, it is a totally word-of-mouth business. Whenever anyone has work done on their guitars, or picks up an instrument that anyone of you has built, you can bet that they’re running home to talk to their friends about it. So that’s the bottom line. 1 think happy and dissatisfied customers are best viewed as good and bad advertising. 1 think most of us don’t sp>end a lot of

money advertising and we should look at happy customers AS our advertising.

Let me give you another situation I had to deal with not too long ago. This gentleman I would say is probably as busy as any studio guitarist in New York right now, mostly a lot o f jingle work and record dates. 1 finished a Strat-style guitar that 1 thought might interest him so when it was finished I gave him a call and invited him to check it out. This makes me think, if I can digress for one second, of something Paul Reed Smith had told me years ago which really stuck with me. I had asked him about his guitars and I remember him saying that whether they were Strats or Gibsons or whether they were hybrids, he very succinctly said, “I make my guitar. Either you love them or you don’t. If you love them, you should buy them; if you don’t, you should get something else.” That made a very big impression on me. It's one that’s always stayed with me, so I called Ira and said, “why don’t you try the guitar, and if you like it you like it, and if you don’t you don’t." So he came in and tried it. He insisted that he be given the opportunity to take it into the studio and try it out and I said absolutely. I gave it to him for twenty four hours and he used it and he came back and said he absolutely must have it. And then this gentleman, being who he was, asked me to do about three hundred dollars o f additional custom work on the instrument gratis, but I wanted him to have this guitar.

About a month later he calls me and he tells me he can’t use the guitar any more. I says, “what’s the matter?” He says the engineers complain it's not as warm-sounding as his old previous main ax. So what am I to do? I mean, I can buy the guitar back from him: that’s one p>ossibility. I can tell him to go to hell. That’s another possibility.

What I thought might work, and that was worth a shot is the neck... it was a map>le neck. He was complaining it wasn’t warm enough. So I thought the only shot I had in winning in this

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The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisanssituation was to try to reneck it with a rosewood neck and hope that that would warm the sound up a bit. So I told him I’d like to reneck it. His altitude was not, will it make a difference, or will it give me what I want. His only attitude was, "how much is it going to cost me?" I said, “don’t worry how much it’s going to cost you, just let me take care of it.” So I renecked it with a rosewood neck and when I had the neck ready I called him and told him to bring in the instrument and I put on the neck and he came to pick it up, and again he said, “what’s this gonna cost? What’s this gonna cost?” I said, “if you like this neck, it won't cost you anything.”The implication was there: if you don’t like it, I'm going to charge you a lot. (all laugh]

"I win because I have a very busy, successful guitar player

saying nice things about me and my instrument."

The bottom line is it all worked out. He was very happy. It wound up costing me about an extra two to three hundred dollars in parts and materials. But again, it was a win-win situation: he wins cause he’s got a guitar now that he uses every day and is his main ax. I win because I have a very busy, successful guitar player saying nice things about me and my instrument. But I think the question you have to ask is... when he first called and told me the instrument wasn’t working, I got REALLY irritated. I mean, I really wanted to tell this guy to take a hike. It was like, “I gave you twenty chances not to buy this guitar. Why are you doing this to me?” But again, the bottom line is, what is it going to cost you to have an unhappy customer?

But does this mean we all have to be wimps when it comes to these types of guys? We don’t. There are certain things I just have no tolerance for with customers. One of which is customers asking me to reduce my price. When a customer asks me to reduce my price, I usually will say something like, “my reputation is for being good at what I do, not for being cheap. If you want cheap there are lots o f other shops that you can go to." That

"There are certain things 1 just have no tolerance for

with customers. One o f which is customers asking me to reduce my price." * I

usually handles it right away. I’m also willing to decline doing a job ifl just don’t like the person, or his guitar. This is a tough one I discovered just by experience, in eighteen years of it, that every time I have just a bad feeling about an instrument or a bad feeling about a customer, it always turns out to be a nightmare. I’m not going to elaborate too much on it, just to say, “trust your gut.” If you get a real uncomfortable feeling about a person, that he’s going to be impossible to please, or just... whatever, don’t get involved with it. It's that simple. If you look at an instrument and you get the feeling this is going to be a can of worms, if I start doing a thirty-five dollar job on this it’s going to turn into a two- hundred dollar nightmare, don’t get into it. It's that simple.

I have to add that it’s easier to say these things when you’re making a living. When I was putting a hundred bucks a week in my pocket and living in Manhattan it might not have been as easy to turn things away. I still think I did from the beginning. Just trust your guts, that’s all I can say on that one.

What I want to look at now, though, is how can we avoid having unhappy customers at all? One of the first things that we all have to do is give the person confidence when they come into the shop. As I said in the beginning, they tended to historically have had a lot of bad experiences with guitar shops. The important thing is for the player to trust you. Assure him that you don’t want to waste his money. Let him know that you don’t want him to invest more money in his instrument than the instrument is worth. And let him know that you understand how he feels, and that you promise to take good care of it.

I’ve had six service calls on my refrigerator in the last four months. During the last four months every service call has been an opportunity for me to remember what most of my customers probably feel like when they come in the shop. I think it’s good for all of us to connect with situations WE go through that probably are very similar to how our customers feel.

Another thing is you have to talk to your people whether they’re commissioning you to build an instrument or bringing in something for repair, for customizing: you have to talk with them until you're crystal clear what they want. If your customer is unsure about what he wants, then it’s premature for you to do the job. If they’re not sure what kind of guitar they want you to make for them, tell them to go out to the stores and play as many guitars as they can and come back to you in a few weeks with a clearer idea. Same thing with customizing work: if they come in and say,”I want a different sound,” but they can’t articulate the kind of sound they're looking for, how can you give them anything? So, go out, listen to some pickups, listen to some friend’s pickups, find out what Seymour Duncan humbucker your friend has in the bridge position that he likes so much. Have them get a lot more specific.

"If your customer is unsure about what he wants, then it’s premature

for you to do the job."

Another thing with feel factors: so many customers are not aware the basic string tension differences between a [Fender! scale length versus a Les Paul scale length. Have them do dieir homework. You can help steer them in the right direction so ey can do their homework efficiently.

Fretwire size: another very common problem. I leame my lesson on this one about nine years ago. I had a customer come in with a Strat with original small frets on it and he neede a refret. During that time about 90% of all my customers W'1 sma frets were moving up to jumbos. I basically told ̂ im l^al' e . hadn't given any thought to fretwire size at all when he came in.

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The Association Of Stringed Instrument ArtisansPrimarily out of my conversation, he decided to try jumbo frets.He picked up his guitar and a week later he gave me a call. He was miserable. He could just not get used to the feel of these jumbo frets. So 1 refretted it back again to small frets at no charge, but the lesson I learned from this one was unless the customer knows that they want to change to something else, give them what they’re used to. Don’t try to change it. If THEY know they want to change, great. Whatever the fretwire size that’s on their guitar, match it as closely as possible.

"Does it make sense to put six hundred dollars worth o f customizing

into a four hundred dollar guitar?"Another factor that’s very important is knowing whether

what the customer wants can be achieved in the most cost- efficient manner? Does it make sense to put six hundred dollars worth of customizing into a four hundred dollar guitar? I’ve never felt comfortable doing that. There are times that it could be really easy just to do it. But I’ve always refused to do that. It’s a matter of cost-of-customizing versus value-of-the-instrument. Most customizing never translates into any increased resale value of the instrument. So, the only value of the work is the increased usefulness to players as a tool for expressing themselves. I’ve always felt a responsibility to not allow my customers to put more money into an instrument than the instrument was worth. An example is a Floyd Rose installation. I can’t install a Floyd Rose (with an average retail price of about $185) and do a countersunk installation for less than three-hundred and fifty dollars. The customer can go out and buy a pretty nice Ibanez with a licensed Floyd for $4-500. It doesn't make any sense.

So I have a hard time recommending that people do that, especially if it’s a guitar that they’re already familiar with, put a Floyd on the guitar, it’s going to sound different, it’s going to feel different. Again, it's going to be a huge can of worms. For the most part, I find myself doing fewer Floyd Rose retrofits and recommending that people BUY instruments with factory- installed Floyds.

"If the customer isn’t committed to the instrument I’m not going to get involved

in serious work on it."Another thing I discovered a long time ago is that I can make

a good instrument a very good instrument, and I can’t make a poor instrument a good instrument. Again, you have to walk a tightrope, in terms of YOUR assessment of the instrument versus the custom er’s assessment of the instrument. When I have someone in the shop and they’re looking to put some serious money into an instrument, what I try to do is get a sense of what their relationship is with the instrument. Before I pass any judgment on the instrument at all, it’s “where are you at about this guitar? Is this your main ax? Is there something out there that you would like better than this? If the customer isn’t committed to the instrument I’m not going to get involved in serious work on it. I’ll tell them they’re better off taking the money they’re willing to spend on the customizing, take the value of the instrument and put that into a new guitar, rather than put all this money into a guitar they’re really not that attached to. Again, it all went back to a situation about ten years ago where a guy brought me this Strat and I did a fret job and I shielded the electronics and I put a new bridge on it, and I put new pickups in. My work was good, but it

really wasn’t significantly a better guitar than it was before he brought it in.

That’s when I started focusing in on the acoustic quality of the wood, even in solid-body guitars. You can tell very quickly how good an instrument is. There are a few good ones out there and there are a few terrible ones out there, and there are lots of average mediocre ones out there. You’ve got to walk a bit of a fine line here. It’s absolutely appropriate to say to someone, “you know, I think you’d be better off looking for a better instrument rather than putting all this money into the one you’ve got.”

"The good vintage guitars are too expensive to begin with

and anything that you do to customize them undermines or destroys their value."

Given the reality of the vintage market now, I’m becoming increasingly reluctant to modify vintage instruments. Ten years ago a lot o f my work involved people buying the best old Strat or Jazz Bass they could find, then bringing it in for fretwork, shielding, custom electronics and everything. It was a good way, ten years ago, to end up with a decent instrument. Today it doesn’t make any sense. The good vintage guitars are too expensive to begin with and anything that you do to customize them undermines or destroys their value. So I think it’s time to take a different approach with that, and the approach I have now is, if they’re GENUINE vintage instruments, and I mean real vintage pieces, I w on’t do anything much more than a setup or fix a high fret or whatever—just the minimum to keep them rolling along in totally original condition. It’s difficult with the guitar market. Most other things... cars, whatever, there are all sort of legitimate ways to restore things and have them still be

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The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisansauthentic. Somehow the vintage market has gotten wired up so that the only thing that’s authentic is something that has not been touched, by human hands. There's no room to do reasonable restoration work and still have them be vintage pieces. If you’re going to do anything, make sure you keep all the old parts. Give them back to the customer. I think you have to run people through, "are you a player, or are you a collector? If you're a collector, take your instrument, stick in under you’re bed, look at it every once in a while and fondle it, but that's it.” That’s all you can do in today's market and have the instrument retain it’s value. If they’re a player, then they have to decide, is this an instrument they think they’re going to want to hold on to for a long time and use it as a professional tool? If a player decides to use it as a tool, he has that right, if he wants to spend $5000 for an old Strat and then have you take a router to it, he does have that right. Then YOU have the right to accept or decline whether you want to do that to the instrument as well.

"If you’re going to do anything, make sure you keep ail the old parts.

Give them back to the customer."

If you take in a job from a customer, estimate it very completely. It’s always better to over-estimate and charge someone less when the repair is done or when the instrument is completed, than to call someone and have to raise an estimate.Or, estimate with a high-low range. “If it goes real easy, it’ll be a hundred bucks; if it goes as hard as they ever are, it’ll be a hundred-fifty bucks.” Give yourself a little room. Discuss all possible contingencies that might arise, like whether or not something might need a battery compartment routed in it, and with separate estimates: "It will be thirty five dollars if it doesn’t need a battery compartment and it will be seventy five dollars if it does, and if it does, where would you like the battery compartment?”

Quote accurate delivery time especially on repair work. You’re dealing with pieople who in many cases are making a living with their instrument. Keeping your word about when a job will be done is essential to your reputation. It’s okay to charge extra for rush work. Everybody else does: the photo finisher does it. If you need something done next day or same day, you have to pay for it. We have the right to do the same.

If then the customer is not satisfied, you have to ask yourself, “did you communicate with him effectively? Did you give him false expectations? Are you blaming the customer for your work not being as good as it should be?”

Don’t do anything irreversible to an instrument without a customers consent. Anything you can undo, fine. If you have to

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make a decision without the customer being there, no problem: you can always change a low action to a high action, whatever. But you can’t undo a battery compartment that you’ve routed. So if you can’t undo it, make sure you talk to the customer first.

Most people don’t realize that there’s a gestalt to the instrument. The instrument is greater than the sum of it’s parts So, if you change the body, or you change the neck, it’s not the same instrument. Even with a simple renecking, you’re asking the customer to spend $300-$400 with no way to predict what the end result is going to be. It may be good, but it’s going to be different from the instrument that he left you with. If the customer wants a new neck or a new body, I suggest it’s time to look for an entire new instrument. Find one you like and buy it.

Don’t give customers too many choices. All it does is confuse them and make them crazy. You’re laughing... I’m sure out of experience. Three choices and they start to short-circuit.[laughter] I consider it our professional responsibility to come up with two choices for them. My recommendation is, do A or B. I think the more you leave C out, the happier everyone will be.

I’ve noticed that no matter how loyal your customers are, no matter how happy you think they are, no matter how well you’ve taken care of them, they’re always going to hop around to other shops. Don’t get bummed out when you find out that they’ve been doing that. There’s an irresistible urge just to check out what the other guys are doing. I used to think I could earn loyalty from customers. It seems to be an imp>ossible task: they're always going to hop around to other shop».

"Most people don’t realize that th ere’s a gestalt to their instrument.

The instrument is greater than the sum o f it’s parts."

Don’t bad mouth your competition. If a guitar comes in that someone else has done a less-than-satisfactory job on, it’s ok to say “if I’d have gotten it first, I would have done it this way,” without saying, "he did it wrong" or “he did it lousy”. Similarly, you have to be careful when you refer people to your competitors. I love to be able to refer people to my colleagues out there who I know do certain things better than I do. But at the same time, there are times where I have to refer people to other people where I’m not sure of their work. I think if you make a referral, you have to be willing to stake your reputation on the person you’re referring them to.

D on’t gossip about your clients. I’ve discovered by reverse gossip that one of the things that a lot o f my customers like when they come into my shop is that I don’t have a lot o f chatter going on about what they’re doing. There’s a difference between being cordial and friendly and being nosy about p>eople’s business. I’ve heard second hand that pieople appreciate the fact that I don’t do that, so I’m just passing it on to you, it seems to be something that they like.

Lastly, don’t cop an attitude about young, p>oor guitar players. They can be the next Mark Knopflers. That’s all I have to say. If any one of you has an incredible p»in-in-the-ass customer that you can’t deal with, then we can talk about it tomorrow.

Good night.[applause]

Roger Sadowsky is a member o f theA.S.lA. Board o f Directors. His address and phone number appear on the inside front cover.

The Association Of Stringed Instrument ArtisansAN INTERVIEW WITH JAMES D ’AQUISTO(The First o f Three Parts)Interviewed by Yuri Dmitrievsky on l2/3/89Transcribed by William Cumpiano

Jim D'Aquisto with "Elite" model in his Long Island studio.

D'AQUISTO: [Examining the hand-made strings on a classic guitar made by a Muscovite luthier which Yuri brought] ...but over here, they don’t make them right. They use plain nylon. And that doesn’t give good sustain, good quality. It gives a terrible, terrible sound. THIS is the way the string should be made. But we can’t get anyone here to do it this way. No one here can do it this way. It's really something, I’m telling you. I’ve been telling them to make it this way, and they say, "oh, Jimmy we haven’t got the equipment, the machinery”, but they have everything here they need.YURI: We just need material and we could do it.D’AQUISTO: Sure. Thai’s right. These strings are fine. This is fantastic. This is the way it should be. The workmanship, and especially since you have no help, everyone has to do everything themselves, that’s fantastic.YURI: We have very poor tools and we make due.D’AQUISTO: You make all the tools yourself. I know. You see, up until three years ago, I used to carve all the tops and backs by hand, with a hammer and chisel, and then with a plane. And just

three years ago I bought myself a carving machine, which saves a LOT of time. The other way was very, very difficult. It’s like a pantograph. I have a template, and it traces the template and carves it.YURI: John Monteleone showed me his.D’AQUISTO: That’s right. Naturally, I don’t bring it down to precise, definite measurements, I leave extra because then I can carve the top* and backs the way I want the sound to be. I can control the sound by carving certain ways: by making the backs arch more or less, by making the tops the same way. I never make the same thicknesses on any guitars. They always vary. Because you never have the same piece of wood, so you can’t do the same thing to every piece of wood. Like the violin makers, they make everything exactly the same: two millimeters, three... everything for each violin is the same, but it shouldn’t be that way. According to the grain, the density of the wood, the weight of the wood, it should be carved accordingly. This way you can control the sound.YURI: And what do you use for this, logic or intuition? D’AQUISTO: It’s more or less logic. Common sense. A piece of wood can't be the same, it’s like a human being. We all look the same but each character is different. Wood is the same way. Each piece has its own character. If you have four pieces of spruce, each piece of spruce, even if it’s cut from the same tree, is going to respond differently. So you can’t do the same thing to this piece of spruce as you’re doing to this one, as you’re doing to THIS one. Each one has to be treated completely different.

The only thing you have as a template, is the shape of the guitar, the sides of the guitar: that’s a definite. But as far as the measurements, the arch, all that is variable. Everything.

"...it’s like a human being.We all look the same

but each character is different.Wood is the same way.

Each piece has its own character."

YURI: But can you tell me, for example, how does thickness depend on say, the grain of spruce?D’AQUISTO: That also has to vary. The type of grain, THIS grain—you may find a piece of wood, even though the grain may be far apart, that piece of wood may still be dense, may be a heavy piece of wood. Do you understand? So, you would carve it thinner. Because it has the strength. Then you may have another piece of wood with the grain far apart, which is very porous, a light piece of wood. So you can’t carve it the same way. There are no specific measurements. What IS definite is the shape: thick in the center, thinning on the ends, so that it vibrates on the ends, like a bell. Understand? That stays the same. That is your template. But the individual measurements always vary. They always vary according to the weight.

If I were to give you definite measurements, that w ouldn’t be right because you’ll make all the guitars the same way, and some would sound very good, some w ouldn’t sound good at all, and you’d say, “I did the same thing to that as to this, so why don’t they sound the same?” The wood is completely different. Even though it’s the same TYPE of wood. Maple, spruce, it has to be treated completely different. Forget what you did with the last guitar, and you do something completely new with this guitar, because the weight, the wood, everything is different. The character is different.YURI: And to what degree can you predict the sound when you have wood...

The Association Of Stringed Instrument ArtisansD'AQUISTO: Well, there are two things that are important that nobody ever realizes. They talk about one thing, and that’s sound. But there’s also tone. Sound and tone are two different things: the sound could be the volume. The tone is the warmth, the color of the sound. The tone and the sound can be controlled on an archtop instrument. Even after the instrument is completed, you can still change the sound of the guitar. See this kind of guitar? [points to the classic] you can’t change it. You can only go one way. If you were to go inside of this guitar, and shave the braces, it’s tone would only get deeper in quality. See? The denser the braces, the faster the vibrations, the more treble you get out of the instrument. The slower the vibrations (which means with thinner braces), naturally you get lower tones. So this instrument, once it’s set, you can’t really change it. The highs are the hardest thing to get out of this type of instrument. The clarity. The bottom is easier to get. The highs are difficult to get.

"The tone and the sound can be controlled

on an archtop instrument.Even after the instrument is completed..."

With an archtop, the highs are always there first. The treble is always there from the beginning. The bass of the instrument takes time to build up. As the instrument ages and the wood becomes looser and more free, then the warmth and bottom of the instrument begin to come out. That happens with all instruments. As they age, they get warmer-sounding. They get mellow-sounding.

Now, with the archtop instrument you have a movable bridge and you have the tailpiece. This makes the string tension on the guitar a variable. By lengthening the tailpiece, or shortening the tailpiece, you can change the tension on the strings.

Say you have a long cable which is stretched across a river. Now the cable is brought up to the tightest tension possible If someone were to walk across the cable would be very taught, but flexible, very flexible: the longer the cable the more flexible it is. Now you take the same cable and you put it across a small area, and you brought it up to the same tension it was across the wide river, the cable would be very stiff. You could walk across it and it w ouldn’t move. The same thing happens to the strings.

"By lengthening the tailpiece, or shortening the tailpiece, you can change the tension

on the strings."The longer the strings the more flexible they are. The shorter

you make them, the tighter. The tightness brings the treble. The looseness brings the bottom, the low end. So with the archtop guitar, you can lengthen or shorten the string by changing the different lengths of the tailpiece. Now, its an arched instrument, so the neck sits at an angle, and the bridge is pushing on the top of the guitar. This [points to Yuri’s classic] is pulling on the top. The archtop has pushing pressure on it’s top.

The tighter you push on the top, the faster the vibrations: you’re muting the guitar. You’re forcing the top to vibrate but you’re putting pressure on it. So the highs are coming out. The top is vibrating faster. Now, if that tailpiece were to be raised, you’d be taking pressure off the top. Now the top would be breathing more freely, and the bottom would come out. You’dfj ip$jj |

get a warmer sound. So you can control the tone that’s coming out of the instrument—even after it’s been completed.

If the player says, “I want to hear more warmth, more mellowness in the instrument," Very simple: just by applying or reducing the pressure, up or down. You can change that by lengthening or shortening the strings.

All these things are variable on an archtop.That’s why the instrument is a very versatile instrument, but

Highly unusual D'Aquisto "Avante Guarde" art-deco model, the prototype o f which was commissioned by California collector Hank Pisan, featuring unique scroll cut headstock, rod plate cover, tailpiece, pickguard, and non-traditional elongated oval "f" holes...(perhaps more appropriately called "o" holes).

The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisansnobody realizes this. I think that it should be made to be played classically too, because the projection is much better in this instrument.

The sound coming out of the soundhole is like the water coming out of a round hose. The water comes out, and falls short: the same with the sound. Now, if you take that hose, and you squeeze it, now the water travels further, with more power. Now it’s projecting, now it’s travelling much further.

All these things are variable with the archtop instrument. I’m trying to make it an instrument that would be played strictly acoustically. Not just an electric guitar, that’s something different. But the archtop guitar can be played where they can play classical music on it. If it’s made properly, with a proper neck, with the proper string pressure, and the projection— it would push this instrument so that it can be played solo, and it would travel much further with nylon strings. Every time music is written on the classic guitar, the music is written around the orchestra. The guitar plays, and then the orchestra plays. If they played together, you’d never hear the guitar. But with the archtop, like the violin, the sound would be able to cut through the orchestra. It’s made for that purpose. You could write music for this instrument and the orchestra playing together, not being separate, or solo.

"The sound com ing out o f the soundhole is like the water com ing out

o f a round hose.... if you take that hose,and you squeeze it,

now the water travels further, with more power."

YURI: In all jazz orchestras, the guitarists played archlop guitars without amplifiers.D’AQUISTO: The jazz guitars? Well, that goes back fifty years, with Gibson. You see, Gibson started with the idea of the archtop instrument to be played acoustically. They didn’t think of it amplified. So the instrument was made to project: the way I’m talking with the "P holes, taken from the violin. But somewhere along the line, someone changed everything by adding the electric pickup. It was the downfall of the acoustic idea. The electric completely destroyed that whole thought of the acoustic, and the f-hole, archtop guitar.

Now what I’m trying to do is bring the archtop back, where the guitarists start playing again... you see, they’ve arrived at a point where the electric guitar is just a lot of frustrating noise. They want to hear the warmth of a guitar. They don’t want to hear the amplifier any more. They want to hear what the guitar sounds like without the amplifier: the mellowness, the clarity, the sustain, the beauty and warmth of the instrument—which is so important. And I am trying to bring that back now. Like they did fifty years ago, with the guitar before it got completely changed, you see?

The amplifier is good for particular things. They have to play with a saxophone or trumpet quartet, and as a solo instrument, they need the amplification.YURI: I think that Jim Hall recorded without a pickup. D’AQUISTO: Yes, that’s right. I’m making Jim a new guitar. I have a new design now for the guitar. I’ll show you a picture. I also make this with f-holes. I have no pictures of that. You can have those pictures.YURI: Thank you. Once I read an interview with you in Guitar Player, and in it you said that you have a lot of ideas about how to develop archtops, and you are one of those luthiers who

makes a different instrument every time. And never repeat. D’AQUISTO: Right. It’s very frustrating the other way. You yourself know this that after a while the people who buy the guitars begin to hold you back because they want the same guitar over and over and over again. So there’s no time to develop something new. Sometimes, I just get frustrated, and 1 say, look, I have to do something new because I’m getting terribly bored with doing the same thing again and again. There’s always room for improvement. Constantly. And I have to do it to keep myself interested in what I’m doing.

"...to hear what the guitar sounds like without the amplifier: the mellowness, the clarity, the sustain, the beauty and warmth

o f the instrument..."

YURI: Breaking away. I think that it can only work for extremely creative people.D’AQUISTO: Right!YURI: Artists can very rarely reject the ease of delivering what their customers want.D’AQUISTO: That's right. The customers can hold you back. If the masses controlled everything there w ouldn’t be any Prokofiev, or Tchaikowsky. They’d be playing the same nonsense over and over again [chuckles]. There has to be something constantly new... or someone constantly leading us into it, or we keep repeating the same thing over and over again.YURI: And at the same time, I believe that the most difficult of all possible instruments to make is the archtop guitar.D’AQUISTO: It is very difficult. It’s so variable. You can’t predict anything. I’ve got it down to a science where the instrument IS

T

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Above, instruments in progress... ribboned guitar rims sit in beautifully fabricated maple molds. Necks, fingerboards, and bent sides on workbench. Below, Jim leveling frets. Note how orderly the files, chisels and back saws are organized in Jim's tool rack .

predictable, because there are certain things that are definite. I always tell the people who buy the guitar that the guitar will take time to develop, it w on’t happen right away. The guitar can take six months to a year before it begins to open up and sound well. And I say someday you’ll be playing the guitar and all of a sudden you’ll simply hear the guitar, just like a door was opened, where the sound, the volume will grow, instantly. And many people have called and said, “Jimmy, I was playing the guitar and all o f a sudden it felt like someone opened a door and I heard everything.” And I say, “the more you play it, the faster that will happen.” The minute you don’t play it, and neglect it, it’ll begin to tighten up again. It goes back and stays tight again. Then it’s subject to all the climate conditions: the hot, the cold, everything happens. But if you play it constantly, move it, vibrate it, then those changes w on’t be so drastic. They’ll just be very slight.

"...you’ll be playing the guitar and all o f a sudden

you’ll simply hear the guitar, just like a door was opened..."

It’s the same with the violin: if you don’t constantly play it, it’ll tighten up. It could crack. It could do so many things. It has to be played constantly.

The archtop is the closest thing to a violin or a cello. The guitar is a plectrum instrument, and the others have to be bowed, and have a soundpost. The soundpost vibrates the top and back at the same time. But with the archtop guitar, the back is a resonator. Even that [points at Yuri’s guitar). You hit the string, the top vibrates, then the air inside of the guitar moves and hits the back. The back is the resonator. It forces the sound out of the guitar. You put the back against you, tight, and you play, you choke the guitar. The sound won’t come out. It needs that back to resonate, to push the sound, or air, out of the guitar.

So how sensitive you make that back is just as important as the top. That’s why I can look at a piece of wood and see a beautiful grain, but I know the piece of wood is too tight and if the person that wants the guitar wants something mellow, I can’t give him that beautiful piece of wood because it’s so tight, the

grains are very tight, the wood is going to vibrate very fast, at a very fast pace and only project the highs of the sound. So I would prefer a piece of wood not that good, flame-wise or anything, wide grain, very loose, very light, and that’d be what I’d use for that person. So he’s more interested in the sound than the beauty of the guitar. All these things are very important. So that back is just as important as the top, exactly the same. YURI: Do you tune the back and top to a particular pitch?D’AQUISTO: No. 1 don’t go by a note. I don’t tune the instrument. When you tune the instrument, you’re causing a problem for yourself. When you tune the instrument to an A, or any note, it becomes a sympathetic note. So when you hit that note on the instrument, it'll overtone. The whole instrument vibrates and kills that note, it becomes a dead spot. It w on’t vibrate. It’s like with a glass: if you hit a certain vibration and the glass

m

The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisansfinally reaches the vibration that it resonates to, it'll explode. The same thing with an instrument. You shouldn’t tune it. You shouldn’t tune them the same. I only feel the sensitivity, I balance the back on my fingers and I hit it, and feel the sensitivity: how loose it's vibrating. I’ll hit it and I’ll feel it with my finger: how far it's vibrating. Very lightly, I’ll hit it and then I take my finger and I’ll run it across and see how far the vibration are carrying. If it travels to a certain point and then stops, I carve it more to loosen it up more, and I feel it again. So you could call it “toning” or "tuning” it, but I don’t tune it to a particular note. I never do that. No. That’s very bad.

There are certain things that the violin school teaches you, that are aren’t right. Not at all. I always say that if Stradivari, Guarneri or Amati were alive today they would be the innovators. They would be doing something completely different. The people who follow what they THINK they did are holding every one back. It shouldn’t be that way. It should not be that way, with definite measurements and tuning. All that is not right.YURI: Your point is that you judge everything according to the sound. What is your criteria, aside from what the customer wants? D’AQUISTO: Oh, I guess, to get the fullest response possible from the instrument. The customer tells me what he wants, but then I forget that. Then I think of just what is best for that instrument. How can I get THIS instrument to vibrate and to play at its fullest. That’s all I think about. THAT instrument. I may have five or six instruments waiting to be worked on. But when I pick up one instrument, I work only on that instrument. I don’t do the same thing to any of those instruments. Everything is different. They may look alike, but that’s as far as it goes. They’re all variable, but the one point that I try to reach is this most sensitive point in any one of those guitars, to get the fullest and best sounds.

"How can I get THIS instrument to vibrate and to play at its fullest.

That’s all I think about."Then, after the guitar is completed and lacquered, I have to

string it up. I have to make a bridge. Each bridge is made custom for each guitar. I may make one bridge to be long, another to be short. I may make a bridge wide, another narrow. It all depends how sensitive that guitar is. The bridge transfers the sounds of the strings to the top, so that makes it a very important point. If I want more warmth or more treble to come out of the guitar, I make the bridge longer or shorter or wider or narrower. The longer the bridge the more lows I get out of it. The smaller the bridge the more top end. Everyone thinks the opposite. If I make a big fat bridge, like this, I get all the bottom out of the guitar, all the depth. If I make a little thin bridge, I get all the treble. 1 make some bridges triangle shaped. The bass is triangled. I make the wide end at the bass side and the narrow point at the treble side. This way I get balance between them.

And now I've made something new called the “tone bar.” I put it between... see, the bridges are adjustable. They have pinwheels to raise and lower. Now what I’ve done is place a piece of wood in between... I’ll show you. H ere’s the bridge.Here are the wheels. Here are the pinscrews, inside, (draws) This is like a cutaway drawing. These are the pinwheels. H ere’s the base. Okay? It’s curved. I lore are the pinscrews. I place a piece of wood here in between the bridge and the top, so that this saddle rests on the base of the bridge. So the strings now contact... there’s no space here any more. It's a solid bridge now, so this carries the sound directly from the strings right to the guitar. With no space in between. Now if you want to raise or lower the

action, I just make different sizes, variable thicknesses, by changing the piece of wood. 1 make it out of ebony. All my bridges are made of ebony. So I give them varying thicknesses, four or five pieces, so it fits underneath and the saddle extends, this way.YURI: You were the first to make the tailpiece of ebony... D'AQUISTO: Yes, I copied it from the violin. With the metal tailpiece, you get an unwanted overtone. The tailpiece can vibrate to a G, or an A, which is wrong. With the ebony it just holds the strings, and doesn’t vibrate the same way that the piece of metal does.YURI: But it transfers the sound anyway. What is the difference? D’AQUISTO: It’s tremendous. It’s lighter so it takes weight off the guitar. You see, every time they put decorations on the guitar, it takes sound from it. All the pearl, all the unnecessary things that are put on the instrument. When you have to cut and take wood

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The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisansout to replace it with a decoration, you’re taking away the sound. So the least amount of decoration you can put on the guitar... that should be sufficient. No more than that.

The D’Angelico guitars... I worked with John D’Angelico for thirteen years. After he died, I continued and so I had a good basis, a good idea of what had to be done. But then after a certain period of time, you know it becomes a burden. It holds you back. It keeps you from doing your own ideas, because you keep following the same thoughts, the same ideas... everything the same. People would say, “I want you to make me a D’Angelico guitar,” and after a while it became very frustrating. I finally had to stop. With every guitar I made people would say, "oh, that’s a D’Angelico. And I would have to say, “no, it’s a D'Aquisto." I had my name on the top, but they automatically assumed that it was a D’Angelico. So I changed it completely: gave it a new headpiece... though it's still similar in many ways. Now at least they know what my guitars look like and they know a D’Angelico. I have people now copying what I’ve done: my soundholes, my headpiece a little bit... ebony tailpieces, everything.YURI: Ten years ago, I tried to make a drawing from a photo of Jim Hall with your guitar...D'AQUISTO: Oh... yes...

"With every guitar I made people would say, “oh, that’s a D’Angelico.

And I would have to say,“no, it’s a D’Aquisto.”

YURI: I copied everything, your f-holes...D’AQUISTO: [laughing] They all do that. I remember when John Monteleone first started to make guitars, he brought his first guitar to me and asked me many questions: how do you do this, how do you do that... he copied many things. I told John,“people will look at the guitar and they’ll say,'it’s a D’Aquisto’,” and I said, “you don’t want to hear that, you want to hear 'it’s a Monteleone’. So start designing things for yourself, do your own ideas and concepts."YURI: He’s still very close to your designs.D’AQUISTO: Well, I appreciate that very much. I feel very appreciative that he respects me for that. I have nothing against it, its okay.YURI: They all say that you’re great. All o f them.D’AQUISTO: Well, I appreciate it. But, that’s why I did this new model. Because I feel I have to start doing things again to get me away from the tradition. I don’t like to keep doing the traditional over and over again. I have MORE ideas in my head for different things. So, little by little, I have someone who says “yeah, Jimmy, I’m interested in your ideas: I’ll buy that guitar.” So I make the guitar with all the new concepts, like this, and they buy them. It gives me the chance, like a composer, or an artist. If he’s got good ideas and som eone’s interested in buying that piece they say, “all right, I’ll pay for it, do it.” And so they can do their new ideas and concepts. That’s what I did with this.YURI: And Jim Hall will have one like this.D'AQUISTO: I’m making one now for Jim like this. He's going to use it strictly for acoustic playing.YURI: Does anyone else have one of these?D’AQUISTO: I made just one. Just this guitar. This guitar’s in San Francisco now. I have already many people writing from all over the world that are interested in this now. They saw the picture in Guitar Player magazine and they said, "I’m very interested in getting this guitar, could you please send me a picture," so now I’m sending them pictures of what it looks like. So far two people

have ordered a guitar like this. So I’m happy, very happy about it. YURI: About D’Angelico, do you think he gave you something besides the craftsmanship... something human as a teacher... as a guru w e’d say?D’AQUISTO: Yes. Because John had very good ideas himself. When he first started making guitars in 1932 he was a violin maker. He was studying and making violins with a very fine Italian violin maker who was bom in this country. His family was in instrument making. Not violins. His uncle was making guitars, the old style Italian classical mandolins with the belly, He was making flat top steel-string guitars in this country. The basics were there. He had the talent and ability. His father was a tailor. My grandfather was a tailor. My father was a machinist, a tool- and-die maker. Very fine work. So John and I had the same kind of background; people that were using their hands, and people who had the mentality to do this kind of fine work, people with good ideas.

"So John and I had the same kind of background; people that were using their

hands, and people who had the mentality to do this kind o f fine work..."

When John started in 1932 he copied the Gibson L-5,1932 model. He had only made a few violins, but he liked the guitar. He liked the idea of making arch top guitars. So he took the L-5 and copied everything: the soundholes, the headpiece, tailpiece, exactly. Everything. He made the guitar for, I don’t know, five years, maybe more, and then he started to get ideas about his own headpiece, changing the f-holes, and the tailpiece. As he worked on the guitar he became frustrated because it looked so much like the L-5, and he wanted people to see HIS ideas. So he started making his own designs. About 1935-36, he started to make the new styles. Then little by little, from that style, he had the Excel model, the New Yorker, then he had Style A, Style B, he had all different styles, each for a price. Some had a lot of decorations, some had little decoration. And he charged accordingly: the New Yorker was the most expensive, the Excel was next-to-the-most expensive, then the Style B was less expensive and Style A was the least expensive guitar, with the least trimmings. He made those for almost twenty years. Finally he eliminated the A and the B and he made only the Excel and the New Yorker. I started to work for John D'Angelico in 1953.1 was seventeen years old.

"I started to work for John D'Angelico in 1953.1 was seventeen years old."

YURI: Why did you come to him? How did you meet him? D’AQUISTO: I wasn’t a very good student in school. Not that I was making trouble or delinquent, none of that. But school was so boring for me. I didn’t understand everything, I was into classical music, I liked to go to the museum... and the school seemed so unnecessary to me: adding, subtracting. History was the most interesting thing for me... and geography, to see around the world. But all the other things to me were... unnecessary. I would gaze out the window and daydream constantly. Finally, in high school, my teacher told my father and mother, “take him out of school because he’s not a good student, he doesn’t want to bother with the work.” I was about fifteen, sixteen, and they took me out of school and I got a job, I got a regular job on Wall Street in the stock exchange. I was a runner, an errand-boy. But my father, who as I said was a tool and die maker made models as a

The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisanshobby: bridges, motor boats and things like that. I was the same way: aeroplanes... so I use to do model building.YURI: Me also! 1 started model building airplanes also. D’AQUISTO: The craft. It continues from when you’re young, all the way: it’s all a matter of having the patience to do all these fine things. That's what I tell people: all this is to me is model building. It’s all the same, even as far as making garments. We would make fine tailors, too. It's just a mentality: it’s just the way it works. Fine hands and the patience to do these fine things. What ever it could be.

I was playing the guitar. I was going for guitar lessons. I had a friend, and we would play together every couple of days. I didn’t know him that well, but we were starting to get to be good friends. I had a very cheap guitar. It only cost about twenty dollars, and he had a Gibson guitar. I was amazed. Oh, what a beautiful instrument! So he says, “some day, when you have the time, I’ll take you to a place in New York where they make the best guitar in the world,” he says. “To see the finest guitarmaker in the world.” It was D’Angelico. I didn’t know who he was. So one day we got on the train and we went to New York and I met D’Angelico. He was just finishing a brand new New Yorker: beautiful neck, natural finish, a gorgeous guitar, a big guitar... it was on a Saturday. So he says, “would you like to play the guitar?” I said yes. So I sat down and he puts the guitar in my hands. 1 played it. It was amazing. Unbelievable. The sound!... and so nice to play. So I just fell in love with the place and with him. He was a very fine man. With his friends he was very close. With strange people or people who didn’t have the mentality to understand him, he had very little patience. He would throw them out immediately. If he liked you, then you were welcome.

"Most o f the time, I stayed with my hand on my elbow

and I watched D'Angelico work."

So I went home, and I told my mother and father about the place, told my father about this fantastic place, so interesting and everything. So I used to go back every once and a while to go visit him.YURI: You lived in New York?D’AQUISTO: I lived in Brooklyn. 1 used to come on the train, over the bridge into Manhattan. I was bom in Brooklyn. But when I went home that day, I saw my cheap guitar, and I saw all the things he had on his guitar. I had to put them on my guitar. I took it apart, and I made things for it. I started making a new pickguard, and new electric controls... my father made me a special box with his machinery so 1 could put the controls on the D’Armond inside the box. I made a bridge of my own. I took these things to John, and he saw how good I was with my hands, that I could work with the instruments very well. Then he asked me if I wanted to work for him. So I said, “Oooh sure! I’d love that.”

So I started to work for him. I had been working in the stock exchange, so this was fantastic, I could now work for him. The money was nothing, but I didn’t care about the money: I was living with my parents and everything was fine. And 1 started with him, watching. Most of the time 1 stayed with my hand on my elbow and I watched D'Angelico work. Constantly.He had another pierson working for him. His name was Jimmy

DiSerio. He was a very fine craftsman also. Very fine craftsman. He did all the rough and heavy work for John: cutting the necks out and doing the binding on the headpieces and things like that. But he also started with John when HE was very young. But he was much older than me. Jimmy was, back in those days, he was

thirty or thirty five years old, I was seventeen. So he worked for John until the Second World War broke out. He came back 1945, and he had already been working for John for about ten or twelve years. But there were certain things on the guitar he didn’t do. He didn’t do all the fine things that John did: the carving of the tops and backs, the braces, setting the braces in the guitar, putting the neck on the guitar. All these things, he didn’t do. He was making the fingerboards, cutting the necks out, putting the bindings on the headpiece, making pickguards. And that was all.

So I started to do the work he did. He showed me many things, how to do HIS work. How to make the fingerboards, how to do the binding. And then some things John would show me, that Jimmy didn’t do, 1 started to learn all these other things: I watched him set the braces in the arch top, carve the back and top. And I used to ask him many questions and he would tell me. Jimmy wasn’t interested in doing those things, just doing the heavy work, that was all.

"John was very depressed, very down. And I got mad at him: I said,

“we can DO it!"And finally, about 1958-59, there was a terrible accident.

Something happened to the building we were in and we had to move out. So Jimmy and John had very bad words. And John threw Jimmy out. He got rid of Jimmy, and John had no place to work. And I couldn’t work with John; the place was closed up. We w eren’t making any guitars, so I had to go out and make a living. I started to play the guitar in the night clubs. John did nothing. He was sitting at home doing nothing at all. Finally, I got very frustrated, because I didn’t like playing the clubs. 1 didn’t like that kind of life. It was terrible. I was playing all kinds of music. I just didn’t like the music. It was terrible.YURI: For how long?D’AQUISTO: For about six months or so. John wasn’t doing anything, and I got very frustrated, I wanted to make guitars again. So I called Jimmy DiSerio. He was already working for Favilla Guitars. They made flat-top guitars like Martin, and I asked Jimmy if he could give me a job working there, so I could earn some money. He surprised me. I used to drive him home after work, and Jimmy used to drink a lot, and I used to drive him home. He was often intoxicated. We had been good friends. But he refused me. He said, “no, were not hiring anybody, we don’t need anyone.” He made me feel terrible. After working for him such a long time. He said, “why don’t you go and bother John?" I felt terrible. So I went to see John.

"...he died in his sleep. Which is good. Because he was a very good man."

John was very depressed, very down. And I got mad at him:I said, “we can DO it! We can find a place and you make the guitars again and I’ll help you.” He was very depressed. So finally we found a little empty store and we worked it out: we took all the machinery from the old building and brought it to the new place and set it all up, and John started to work again. I got him working again. So now, it was just him and me alone, and I worked with him for six years until he died. 1964. Working with him alone, I learned many more things, because now I started to do things that I didn’t do before. Now I was doing John’s work. It was VERY interesting, because I was working with John.

John was getting sick, and he couldn’t work very well, so I was doing a lot o f his work. A lot o f his work. Finally, he died in 1964. He had a heart attack, a terrible severe heart attack, he died

24

The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisansin his sleep. Which is good. Because he was a very good man. YURI: And after that...?D'AQUISTO: |a long pause! ...well, anyway...[another long pause} [with an unsteady voice)...after he... like I said, we helped each other... he was that kind of person.[Composing himself] So, anyway, after a few months he died. I

was terribly afraid: I didn’t know what to do. So...[long pause!So after maybe three or four months, the family said he wanted

me to have the place. He said that it was mine. But he didn’t leave it in a will. So I said okay. I’ll take the place, so the family gave it to me for practically nothing, like three thousand American dollars, which was nothing. All the machinery, even the string business. He was selling D’Angelico guitar strings. In those days, the siring business was doing very well... maybe thirty-five thousand dollars a year. I had no way of knowing this.So I was already married. I got married 1956.1 was already

working for John for almost five years. I had two children when he died. The third was just born, and he died. So I wasn’t making very much money, perhaps sixty-five or seventy dollars a week in those days. Everyone else was making a hundred fifty dollars a week, so I was below standard making a living. I had to continue playing the guitar in the night clubs and working in D’A ngelico’s at the same time. I had two jobs: I used to work all night, sleep a couple of hours and then go to work in the morning at John’s. So it was very hard for me. Very hard.

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THE LIGHTER SIDEAUGUSTE CLODPOLLE: A F ren ch M asterby Louis (Ludomir) Grakelcik

It is the sad truth that, though we have come to call our chosen pursuit by its French name, "la lutherie,” yet we have all but ignored the contributions of that great nation to the art and science of instrument construction. Indeed, apart from the unassailable reputation of the Parisian violin- and bow-makers, there is but a single luthier, the estimable Bouchet, whose name springs readily to the lips of the American maker. So it is with pleasure that I see now a resurgence of interest, thanks largely to his recently published autobiography,® in the work of the late banjo theorist Auguste Clodpolle.

The emergence at this point of scholarly work on Clodpolle is certain to create a stir in lutherie, and not only because of the revolutionary nature of his theories. Never a timid nor a temperate man, Clodpolle was a product of a profoundly nationalistic era in French history. His dignity and studied demeanor (some would say, “pomposity” and “pedantry”) earned him as many detractors as followers (his many rivals profited unfairly by this very fact). Thus it is that, though I applaud Mr. Kaynor’s excellent translation, I feel that I must temper Clodpolle’s views, somewhat, with fact: present, if you will, an apology, lest the entire work be dismissed as so much rubbish.

Clodpolle began his musical career as, of all things, a prodigy on the cello. So he affirms ® and so much is readily verifiable.® It was in Baltimore, while on a concert tour of the Eastern United States

The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisansin 1887 that he first heard the instrument that was to become his lifelong obsession: the banjo.© This event marks the turning point in his career, he purchased a banjo the very next day, and by the time he returned to Paris, was proficient enough to begin concertizing. Within eight months he was the leading virtuoso on the continent, and had played before the cream of society in every major European capital.® It must have been at this time that Clodpolle fell prey to the “tinkerer’s bug," that odd ailment which is at once the bane and the abiding love of the banjoist.

Auguste Clodpolle fell to “tinkering” with abandon. There was no aspect of the banjo’s construction or setup that escaped his attention; and whatsoever came under his attention was subject to experimentation. Before long, he had opened an atelier on the Rue d’Hyvily, where he built many experimental banjos and banjo-like instruments. He also began to publish his findings, and sometimes mere speculation in the guise of findings, in any journal that would publish them. The public listened; the public adored; the public flocked to Clodpolle's flagstaff as lemmings to the sea. And as public acclaim grew, so grew Clodpolle’s vision. His writings soon took on the character of diatribes.

He came to view the banjo as an extension of French nationalism. And how could so noble an instrument be anything BUT French? Clodpolle claimed, in 1894, that he had traced the ban jo’s origin to the Ysdre Valley.® The basis of this assertion, apparently, was an ambiguous pre- Roman figurine, or rather fragment which he saw at the Mairie des Rosiers (where he had gone to lake the cure after a period of rather high living), and which, as Clodpolle wrote,“could be nothing but a personage playing the banjo.” This theory, absurd as it seems, became Clodpolle's pet. He elaborated upon it until he could reconcile it to indisputable historical fact. The banjo, said Clodpolle, native to Alpine France, had been carried to North Africa by deserters from Hannibal’s army, and had travelled thence to West Africa and eventually the New World.®

That Clodpolle could propound so unlikely a theory has cast some suspicion upon his motives: did he believe it or did he not? In the former case, he would seem a fool; in the latter, a charlatan. Not to defame the man, I feel that it is a case of the will to believe being stronger than the power to reason. At any rate, such was the intellectual climate in France that th is theory found ready adherents, and considerable controversy developed over fine details. It was at this point that the solid community of banjo enthusiasts behind Clodpolle began to splinter away. Numerous schisms developed as former disciples took issue with one or another of the m aster’s teachings. Now, whenever Clodpolle published an article, abusive refutations would immediately appear. Clodpolle must have been profoundly hurt by the attacks of these ingrates, yet he continued to experiment and to write. To be sure, he showed no forbearance towards his detractors: his was a contentious nature.Clodpolle’s attempts to “frank ify” the banjo did not stop at a liberal

revision of history. He always sought tocreate a tangible Frenchness in the instrument. In his search for a “more truly French french polish," he developed a formula using fine cognac as the solvent.-The finish achieved by this means was, by all reports, magnificent. It is truly unfortunate that, although we have many of Clodpolle’s instruments, no example of this finish now exists. Clodpolle was also known to use cognac in his alcohol lamps and glue pots. Detractors have unkindly suggested that this was an attempt to

make his well-known drinking habit tax-deductible. I should state in his defense that such uncompromising standards caused his shop overhead to be very high indeed, and in any event, he could not possibly have saved any money in this way.

Clodpolle was a connoisseur of fine wines, renowned for his capacity. He viewed mere water as “an inferior substance, lacking in esprit, unsuitable for drinking. It is not a beverage at all!"* This view led him to begin soaking his banjo heads in wine, a process which he said improved the tone, Indeed, by choice of vintage, he claimed to exercise great control over tonal characteristics:

"Almost any white wine o f quality will sufficefor the banjo, although one must always consider the desired effect. The dry and light vintage, such as a good Chablis, produces a bright ringing tone which is perfectly delicious.The fuller-bodied and sweeter wine, such as a fin e Chateau d ’Yquem, by virtue o f its weight, will give a tone which is soft and intimate, saved from cloying by the crystalline deposits o f sugars left on the surface, which lend a brilliance. “...Clodpolle recommended Champagne “for a sparkling tone,”

and cautioned that red wines must be scrupulously avoided."I myself prefer a good dry Bordeaux, though rather

than use an inferior year, afine white Bourgogne is much to be preferred. “ "Ironically, considering the m aster’s refined tastes, his most

popular and successful innovation in this regard involved soaking the head not in fine wine, but in beer; a process he recommended for “la musique proletaire.”12 This is no doubt due to the preponderance at the time of popular songs for banjo, and the waning of the delicate classical parlor music which had theretofore been all the rage. As much frustration as Clodpolle must have fell at the success o f his "Tu-borg-phone," how much greater was his consternation to see this development snatched up by imitators, most notably a large American company, all o f whom far exceeded Clodpolle himself in financial gain. His suit in 1919 against the offending company wasunsuccessful, because Clodpolle was unable to establish any similarity between his instruments and theirs.15 The suit nearly ruined him, and it marks the beginning of the final chapter in his life. His faith in the public broken, Clodpolle gradually withdrew from public life. G one were the articles and pronouncements; Clodpolle now jealously guarded his discoveries. He continued to work, and took on several apprentices, who recall him as a broken man, declining in health, bitter and resentful of the world.

By the time he died, penniless and forgotten, in 1932, the banjo’s vogue on the continent had also passed away. Perhaps it is not too late to rekindle the flame he so zealously tended.

FOOTNOTES TO: “AUGUSTE CLODPOLLE: A FRENCH MASTER"1. Auguste Clodpolle: Autobiography, by Auguste Clodpolle, translated and with

notes by D. A. Kaynor. Squamugget; University Press, 1989- 978 pp. Originally published as: "Considerations Sur la Vie D*un; Maitre de Peau de Veau (Calfskin)," Editoriale Ventchaud (Hot Air), Paris, 1928

2. Ibid, p.323. New York Herald, 27 October, 1887, p.21. "Mr. Claude-Paul

isic.1 o f Paris to Offer Recital This Evening," by Amalthea Soone.4. Clodpolle/Kaynor, op.cit., p.405. A. Clodpolle. M6thodc Scicntifique et Concise pour le Bandeau.

Editoriale Palmes et Lauriers (Palms & Laurels), Paris 1890, intro., p.ix6. A. Clodpolle, "Indications I ire fu tables de L’Origine Francaise du Banjeau,"

Enqueteuse Nationale (National Enquirer), 24 June, 1894, p.177. A. Clodpolle, "Le Pfclerinaae Trans-Mediterran£e du Banjeau

Primordial: Un Voyage Ouolie," Le Minuit. 6 April, 1897, p.308. A. Clodpolle, ‘Formule Propre pour le Vemis a Gomme Lac"

U Drvadc: Hcbdomadajrc dc LTbtnistc Francais.' 18, Jan.,1895, p.129. A. Clodpolle, 'Nouvclle M ethbdepour la Mouillaae des Pcaux de Banieau.'

pamphlet, self-published, 1901, 28 pp., ref. p.210. Ibid, p.911. Ibid, p.1512. Ibid, p.2413. Superior Court of Boston, Docket #2397, anno 1921.Louis (Ludimer) Grakelcik is living in exile in Amherst, MA under the assumed name o f Owen Davidson.

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The Desrosiers Fragment (Approx, half scale.)

26

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COMING UP IN THE NEXT GUITARMAKER #10

Bart R eiter’s Folk BanjosJames D’Aquisto; Part Two

Yuri’s Interview With Roger Sadowsky

Steve McMinn's Symposium '89 Talk About Logging Spruce

For Guitar Topsand much more...

• • •

“If we are go in g to cut a tree down, we shou ld be prepared to build [items]... that w ill last for 100 o r even 200 years.”

Kieji Ninomiya, spokesman fo r the Warabashi (disposable chopsticks) Action Network, on Japan's habit o f throwing away wooden (often Sitka Spruce!) eating utensils that have only been used fo r about 20 minutes.

• • •

At le ft• Martin & Coupa Guitar (circa 1845),photographed during restoration. Photograph by David LaPlante. Guitar courtesy o f Steven Brown. David LaPlante's article: The Spanish Connection, beginning on page 10, establishes some unusual connections between the Spanish and the East European instrument making traditions.

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