Philosophy

I make classical guitars. My guitars are individually built instruments and are developed in close partnership with musicians.

The classical guitar is a tool for a musician to communicate his/her interpretation of a musical composition to an audience. The guitars I make possess sufficient power, volume, and projection for the large hall; a broad range of dynamic responses, with a wide variety of colors, tones, and textures; crystalline clarity with good sustain; and evenness and balance throughout with good, clear separation string to string.

The materials I use are of high quality, carefully selected, responsibly sourced and manufactured using sustainable forestry practices. Guitar top tone woods that I use are: European spruce; Engelmann spruce; Western red cedar and Port Orford cedar. There are many different domestic and exotic woods that can be used to make the back and sides of a guitar, the primary woods I use are: European or American maple; East Indian rosewood; Ceylon satinwood; American Black walnut, or American Black cherry. Neck woods are Spanish cedar or Honduran mahogany, fret boards are Ebony or Royal Ebony.

I chose to use traditional hand tools to make and assemble a guitar, hand tools allow me to pay attention to detail, there is no noise to distract me from the work and they reduce the amount of saw dust in the air, a benefit for my safety and health. Traditional hide glue, a natural product, is used to glue the guitar parts together. Hide glue is as strong as modern polyvinyl glues, it dries much harder than modern glues, this helps with the transference of sound throughout the entire guitar.

All of my guitars are finished with shellac, a natural resin, which is applied by hand with a technique known as French polishing. French polishing produces a surface with a high gloss shine that enhances the beauty of the tone woods and has a toughness and mar resistance to protect the woods. Shellac not only enhances the beauty of the wood, it enhances the sound of the guitar.

As with any great work of art, a guitar is more than the sum of its parts, it possesses a creative, or spiritual, quality that gives life to the wood and strings, and helps a musician to use the poetry of music to touch a listener’s heart.

Comments

Popular Posts