The Random Musings of an Acoustic Guitar Fanatic

TAMCO

An opinion piece - feel feel to dispute.

 

What to write about first?

 

Well that’s a tough one as I always have a lot on my mind. Just ask my partner! She is continually frustrated that I 'hear' but don't 'listen' to what she says. But she doesn’t appreciate how much thought it takes to be a guitar player: What shall I buy next? What shall I let go? How do I hide all traces of how much this one cost? Family holiday or a new OM?.... It’s a full-time preoccupation.

 

I think I’ll kick off with personality….luthier personality that is, not mine and I’ll start with a basic statement: handmade guitars have more personality than production-line guitars!

 

Contentious? Well....I agree that someone will have designed the production-line guitar, decided on types of wood, bracing, string gauges, tuners and so on. What personality there is at that stage, however, then gets watered down by accountants/business managers and the profit needs of the business: What’s the cheapest we can get the mahogany? Let’s go with exactly the same bracing on every guitar. What's the maximum build time per guitar that we can afford? How many can we make in a day? Our buyers don’t mind that we consider them as a demographic not as individuals. Let’s pick a uniform selling price. And more….

 

Compare that to a typical North American/Canadian luthier. He or she will probably already have tucked away, great sets of wood that are decades old and that they have kept aside for the right build. If they don’t have the right wood for your build, they’ll go and get it. These sets are almost certainly more special and unique (and yes more expensive) than you’ll find in a global brand that churns out 500+ guitars each day.

 

Then there’s the chance for a buyer to commission a build and to have direct communication with the luthier, allowing the buyer to state their preferences and to tell the luthier about themselves and their playing style.

 

For me, however, the single most important part of the building process and which decides its personality and demonstrates that of the luthier is…..

 

Bracing! 

 

If you’re lucky, you’ll own a guitar that has a top that spent considerable time being held up to the luthier’s ear and tapped (the top not the ear!)….a minute slice of wood is then removed from a brace….the top tapped again….another razor sharp chisel deftly guided to shave another tiny sliver of timber….and so it goes until the luthier is convinced that the top's potential has been realised. Note that the luthier decides this not the buyer. I don't think that the buyer will be allowed in the workshop at this point.

 

For me, this is where the personality is. I’ve heard maple guitars that sound big and fat. I’ve heard mahogany guitars that sound bright and thin. I’ve heard parlours that ring for days and that could be your one-does-it-all solution (and no I would never tell my partner that nor should you). I’ve heard guitars that are so quiet that you could play them in bed without waking your bedfellow. This is the bracing effect; how much or how little does the bracing allow the top to do it's important vibrating thing.

 

Apprentices will confirm that tap tuning is taught and learned, but I believe that the truly gifted luthiers, the ones whose brilliance and consistency I admire, have an innate ability that raises them above the ‘very good’ luthiers.

 

I won’t name names but I am thrilled to own two guitars by two of the ‘special ones’. I can’t afford the guitars of another two that I admire. One of those made a Koa guitar that I played a few weeks ago that made me intensely emotional and it has set an unattainable benchmark against which whatever I play in the future will be compared…a bit sad that! I have also spent considerable time with guitars by luthiers whose place in luthiery legend is already cemented and yet I really don’t like their work at all.

 

This is both the beauty and the dilemma of having a handmade guitar. You can choose a luthier with an incredible reputation, you can be excited by the choice of timbers and specifications, you might even be reassured by the 2nd mortgage you’ve taken on to pay for it BUT you won’t know if it floats your happiness boat until it arrives….your boat might spring a leak.

 

For this reason I have only ever commissioned one guitar. It was lovely and I kept it for 30 years and learned my craft on it….thank you Kinkade in Bristol.

 

These days though, I prefer to purchase those handmade guitars that weren’t loved enough by previous owners. I on the other hand, love these guitars, I love the luthiers' personalities; my happiness boat doesn’t leak. 

 

 

Afterthoughts 

• I have played and owned very good factory produced acoustic guitars and I appreciate that many people do not have the finances to even start to consider handmade. I still own a mass-production parlour and I like it very much, it just wouldn’t be the guitar I’d rescue in a fire.

• To imagine that a few thousand tops will each reach their potential with an identical set of braces.....that's takes great imagination.

• I do not aim to discourage players from commissioning their own builds. It's just that am not a risk-taker, preferring certainty, though that of course means there is less excitement in the building of my collection (I don't do rollercoasters either).

• Buyers will happily spend £2,500 to £3,500 on a factory made hand finished acoustic, when that money puts them into 'used' handmade territory.

TimmyO

How much would that full page ad have cost in a mag? ;-) 

TAMCO

It would have been expensive.

BigLicks67

I don't think you are being contentious to suggest that a hand built sole luthier guitar would be better than a factory made one. I'd assume 90% of the time that is correct. A look at the classical world will confirm that top players need top line instruments.
However, a lot of guitars on sale these days with a high end reputation are built in large workshops with several builders at play. Bourgeois, Collings, Atkin & Lowden etc. 

I think it depends on your skill level as much as your wallet, it's pointless buying a Linda Manzer, unless you've got some serious chops, otherwise you'll never meet the full potential of the instrument.

Anecdotally, I had a Stefan Sobell on loan for a few weeks and it barely made it out of the case, yet Martin Simpson does great things with his.

Winny_Pooh

So what was the Koa guitar you mentioned?

TAMCO

@Winny_Pooh it was a Jeff Traugott

AliGorie

TAMCO said:

 

But she doesn’t appreciate how much thought it takes to be a guitar player: What shall I buy next? What shall I let go? How do I hide all traces of how much this one cost? Family holiday or a new OM?.... It’s a full-time preoccupation.

 

that may be u but we've had this discussion and it's not me, your "What shall I buy next? What shall I let go?" could be interpreted as - I'm not happy with the music I'm making on THIS GUITAR - maybe if I change it for an other, that'll be the answer.
As a teenager I spent a few days with John Martyn - he was carrying & playing a Yamaha FG180 - all plywood, no bag or case. To say the guy blow me away would be an understatement as he did for anyone that weekend. I showed him round the 'folk' venues / pubs in my town and in the afternoons he showed my his tunings and playing, every night he silenced the generally noisy audiences within a few bars of music using just a vocal mic (no pickup).
I got an FG a while after, replacing my little Spanish nylon strung and 'became a player' on it, it was a great guitar.

brojangles

I don't dispute either that handmade guitars made by expert luthiers are quite likely to be more characterful than ones thrown together in factories. But I sometimes wonder if being really into that stuff isn't more about thing-ownership and connoisseurship and general blokey nerding-out about small differences between luxury items than anything else.

See also Bert Jansch and his laminate Yamaha. 

TimmyO

I own (and utterly love) a Baranik - exactly the kind of thing that the OP is talking about.

It is mesmerisingly beautiful both to look at and to play.

But I'm still going to err on the side of the OP being pseudo-intellectual claptrap aimed at wooing customers over to more expensive gear. 

I also have a 20yo lamiate back-and-sides Aria dread - it's brash, boomy, and horrid for anything other than strong-armed strumming. It sounds great and solid when flatpicked for bluegrass. Much better for that than the Baranik. It has huge character. 

Words get thrown around too easily. And it's far too easy to buy your own marketing fluff. 

Character is about FAR more than things that are put there deliberately and expensively by a luthier. There's a reason the word characteristics exists - it's a property, not an outcome. 

Lewy

I’d be very interested to know what people are thinking of when they discuss one guitar having ‘more’ personality or character than another....divorced from however esoteric or artisanal (I don’t know if that’s a word but it’s got anal in it which is amusing enough to run with it) it’s process of creation was. 

So...blind test...someone hands you a guitar and playing it makes you think “ooh this has got more personality than that other guitar” what are you experiencing?

jellyroll

TimmyO said:

I own (and utterly love) a Baranik - exactly the kind of thing that the OP is talking about.

It is mesmerisingly beautiful both to look at and to play.

But I'm still going to err on the side of the OP being pseudo-intellectual claptrap aimed at wooing customers over to more expensive gear. 

I also have a 20yo lamiate back-and-sides Aria dread - it's brash, boomy, and horrid for anything other than strong-armed strumming. It sounds great and solid when flatpicked for bluegrass. Much better for that than the Baranik. It has huge character. 

Words get thrown around too easily. And it's far too easy to buy your own marketing fluff. 

Character is about FAR more than things that are put there deliberately and expensively by a luthier. There's a reason the word characteristics exists - it's a property, not an outcome. 

Calling out the OP on “marketing fluff” and then littering your response with anthropomorphasising BS about “character” = #potkettleblack

AliGorie

I've NEVER seen or hears one of these LUTHIERS creations LIVE - barring an NK Forster in a band situation the guy was playing plugged in with a MIDI type pickup - it could have been any acoustic whith those electrics.
Most Luthier guitars seem to find exposure on the Web being played by beginner / intermediated players playing tutorial type material from DVD's / Tabs etc which is sold as 'Teaching' material by people who play exclusive custom guitars at gigs - someone mentioned, on here there was a bunch of 'students' with Sobell's attending a 'workshop' held by a guy who plays a Sobell.
Tommy E fills concert halls playing what ?.
And a Someone said Ol' Bert could have played on just about anything - na didn't really matter that much.

stickyfiddle

I have to say, I do appreciate the craftsmanship of a really really good instrument but that’s tempered with the knowledge that what I like is songs, and almost every great historic songwriter I look up to who writes on an acoustic for the job done on a Martin, or a Gibson, or a Guild, or whatever. 

I just don’t think you you need more than that unless you’re into the technique-heavy stuff like Tommy Emmanuel et al, which just leaves me completely cold

BigLicks67

AG - Tommy plays a Maton.

Here it is for the benefit of @stickyfiddle ; >

stickyfiddle

BigLicks67 said:

AG - Tommy plays a Maton.

Here it is for the benefit of @stickyfiddle ; >

I knew that, but you get my point :P 

jellyroll

I wonder whether it’s worse than not needing high end guitars; do high end end guitars actually inhibit players through encouraging fetishisation and physical overprotectiveness? I’m including myself in this - a lousy player with fancy guitars. 

AliGorie

I've only ever been to one guitar geek's meet - very weird experience on a few levels but I think u'r right JR the attendees seemed to have accepted they couldn't be the guitarists they wanted to be and turned their energies to the object. Buying ans selling being a big part of that and therefore maintaining their resale value of their investments - being VERY careful  handling them etc. Prob tens of thousands worth of 'dead trees' but little music - all very odd too someone who was used to the trad sessions / jams in Glasgow @ the time.

Lewy

AliGorie said:

I've NEVER seen or hears one of these LUTHIERS creations LIVE - barring an NK Forster in a band situation the guy was playing plugged in with a MIDI type pickup - it could have been any acoustic whith those electrics.
Most Luthier guitars seem to find exposure on the Web being played by beginner / intermediated players playing tutorial type material from DVD's / Tabs etc which is sold as 'Teaching' material by people who play exclusive custom guitars at gigs - someone mentioned, on here there was a bunch of 'students' with Sobell's attending a 'workshop' held by a guy who plays a Sobell.
Tommy E fills concert halls playing what ?.
And a Someone said Ol' Bert could have played on just about anything - na didn't really matter that much.

All my favourite players seem to gravitate toward the low-production factory made guitars e.g. Bourgeois. SCGC, Collings, H&D... or vintage. A couple of the American ones play Wayne Hendersons but I think they mostly won them at Winfield rather than commissioned or bought them....oh and one plays a Mario Proulx, but that's it. And these are elite players. I have absolutely zero problem with anyone spending what they want on a guitar - anyone seen the price of a good fiddle bow?! - but these very expensive single luthier builds aren't being bought as tools very often I suspect.

AliGorie

yeah Mario Proulx I used to enjoy his input on makers forums.

TimmyO

jellyroll said:

TimmyO said:

I own (and utterly love) a Baranik - exactly the kind of thing that the OP is talking about.

It is mesmerisingly beautiful both to look at and to play.

But I'm still going to err on the side of the OP being pseudo-intellectual claptrap aimed at wooing customers over to more expensive gear. 

I also have a 20yo lamiate back-and-sides Aria dread - it's brash, boomy, and horrid for anything other than strong-armed strumming. It sounds great and solid when flatpicked for bluegrass. Much better for that than the Baranik. It has huge character. 

Words get thrown around too easily. And it's far too easy to buy your own marketing fluff. 

Character is about FAR more than things that are put there deliberately and expensively by a luthier. There's a reason the word characteristics exists - it's a property, not an outcome. 

Calling out the OP on “marketing fluff” and then littering your response with anthropomorphasising BS about “character” = #potkettleblack

Don't be a dick. Read it again. I'm re-using his work to make the point. 

TAMCO

Well firstly let me apologise for giving the impression that I was promoting a store. That really wasn't my intention and I have edited out the name for future readers of this post. I am actually a customer of said store.

Next let me say that I totally agree that the instrument is less important than the songs written on it. I think that most of the great guitar songs have been written by those who arguably don't have the technique of a modern fingerstyle genius. I'd take a Paul Simon or Neil Young song over any modern instrumental even though I admire these young guns and their dexterity.

My post has provoked some discussion and that was what I intended. I appreciate everyones' views and never claimed that I was right!