A Note on my Guitar Making Philosophy |
For the guitar is the most unpredictable and least reliable musical instrument in existence...and also the sweetest, the warmest, the most delicate, whose melancholic voice awakes in our soul exquisite reveries. Andres Segovia Yup, the Maestro said it, the guitar is all those things, and therein lies the challenge. When I made my first guitar almost a quarter century ago (that's me trying to play the darn thing...the hair was just blond then), I was bursting with new ideas: I was going to reinvent the guitar! I, uh, still own that guitar. It's falling apart at the seams, literally. It's been unplayable for years. I love that guitar. It contains all my youthful hubris, on display for the world to see. Nowadays I am thankful for all the guitar makers who came before me, people like Torres, Ramirez, Hauser, etc. etc. Hey, those folks knew something, didn't they? I see my own work as a few minor innovations to make it mine, resting on the very large back of the past masters' monumental accomplishments. I view making a guitar like writing a sonata: working within a form defined by usage and history, I get a chance to exercise a little creativity, and that can be great fun. I am motivated above all in my work as a luthier, as in everything else in my life, by my Christian faith. This is what keeps me plugging away when things get boring, or when disasters occur and I want to say "arghhhhh!" (or worse) and throw down my chisel and stomp out of that workshop forever. Just as Jesus Christ was a servant to me, giving his life so I could be reconciled to God, so I see myself in my guitar maker's role as a servant to the lovely music of this charming instrument and especially to the people who cause it to happen. On the soundhole label inside my guitar, you will see my signature, and above my signature the letters "sdg." That's Latin for "soli deo gloria" (the glory is all God's). If you like what you see and hear when you pick up one of my instruments to play it, I hope you'll give Him all the credit, too. |
