guitar building

Drink the Magic, Baby!

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Within a span of twenty minutes last night I encountered, engaged, and embraced the magic.  I was headed out to a meeting carrying my brief case and guitar when I was stopped on the sidewalk by two homeless men waiting to get into our shelter.    “Hey man, you play the guitar?”  I stopped and chatted with them for a few minutes, talking about music, life, and unfulfilled dreams.

I crossed the street and entered the lobby of the parking garage where I was intercepted by the security guard.  “I didn’t know you played guitar.  Can I see it?”  Well, I was a little late but I put my things down and obliged his request.  He had a lot of questions:  “What kind is it?  How long did it take you to learn to play?  What kind of wood is that?”  When I told him that it was actually a guitar  I made:  “What?!?  You made this?”  This led to another round of Q&A, which I enthusiastically entertained.

Just as the elevator doors were closing I heard a voice saying, “Hold the door.”  A well-dressed, 60ish woman got in.  “Ooh, a guitar!  I love guitars!  Can you play something for me?’  I was tempted to bedazzle her with my Smoke on the Water riff but I had reached my floor and was now running pretty late.  I told her maybe some other time.  As the doors closed behind me I heard her say, “I love Gordon Lightfoot!”

I was carrying two things.  Nobody asked me about the brief case.  It was all about the guitar.  It’s magic!

Drink up!

Soul, Voice, and Mojo

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Guitars are living things.  And, like humans, each one is unique with an appearance, voice and personality all its own.  One only needs to spend a little time in any guitar shop observing how people are drawn to particular instruments to begin to understand  this.  They look, touch, fondle, and play the guitars that “speak” to them. The alluring siren call that unites guitar and player is magical, romantic even.

I, particularly as a builder, understand this.  Every material, decision, choice, glue joint, or sanding stroke that goes into the process helps bring that guitar from the moment of conception, through the embryonic stage, and into birth.  There is a point in this creative venture when the guitar on my workbench begins to dialogue with me, making the final result a cooperative, collaborative endeavor.  When it’s all said and done that guitar has a unique voice.  It has soul.  And it starts down the road of its musical life developing mojo.

All of this was particularly brought home to me recently when I attended another session at the Nazareth Guitar Institute (americanarchtop.com), building an archtop guitar under the tutelage of Dale and Tyler Unger.  Five students began the eight day session with the exact same materials.  We did the same things together every day, paying attention to the same instructions and examples.  Yet, when we strung those five guitars up on the final day and began to play them, guess what?  Each one sounded different from the others.  Some sweet, some throaty, and some deep, but each one its own.  How does that happen?  It’s the creative force of the universe, and I bow before it.

Most of the guitars I build will mature, move on, and end up in other’s hands,  Their voices will meld with the voices of their players, creating music that brings enjoyment and satisfaction to many.  I may never hear it but I will always resonate with their living vibrations.

I’m No Henry Ford

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In 1908 Henry Ford introduced the Model T, a relatively affordable automobile built for “the masses.”  Not satisfied with the time and expense involved with building each one separately, he came up with the innovative idea of a moving assembly line.  Five years later, in 1913, Henry put his idea into practice.  As the vehicles moved down the line, at a rate of six feet per minute, workers installed specific parts repetitively.  Production time was cut by nearly 80%, costs were reduced significantly, and quality was improved.  American manufacturing was changed forever.

I toured the Martin Guitar Factory in Nazareth, PA, and saw this process firsthand.  As guitars move down the line parts are cut, routed, sanded, finished, etc. by sophisticated CNC equipment (computer controlled machinery that replicates each step precisely and exactly).  The human element is still evident, however, as experienced craftsmen oversee and execute many of the steps by hand, producing superb instruments.  Very impressive!

So I thought (always risky as my mind is like a bad neighborhood – dangerous to go in there alone) why not employ old Henry’s assembly line in my own little shop?  After all, as long as I have one tool out and set up wouldn’t it be just as easy to do multiples instead of just one?  I could effectively reduce the time involved for each guitar, save the hassle of having to get out and put away the necessary tools so many times and, as long as I’m making a mess, gather up large quantities of sawdust instead of just a little.  A most excellent concept BUT, as I’m finding out, not well-suited for my situation.  I’m learning that this only works well if the guitars I’m building are all meant to be the same.  They’re not.

I’m currently working on four cigar box guitars and all are very different.  The wood, measurements, string scale, components, box, and intended purpose are unique to each.  So the creative design and engineering that goes into the thought process fluctuates vastly from guitar to guitar.  And while it is, indeed, easier to have just one tool out at a time it is not conducive to speed.  I have to be very careful to make sure that I do not confuse measurements and specs as I move from piece to piece.  Upon completion each guitar will be great, I will be proud, and their new owners will be happy.  I will not, however, be building this way again in the near future.  For me it’s not about efficient production, it’s all about the creativity.

I love designing guitars in my head.  I love selecting the wood, choosing components, carefully measuring, cutting, gluing, assembling, and applying finish.  I love sitting back to admire and learn from the step I’ve just completed.  Every guitar I build develops a personality, “soul” if you will, along the way.  It comes alive and actively helps modify and choose what it will eventually become – an instrument producing beautiful, mystical music through the hands of a skilled player.  The guitars I build deserve individual attention.

I’m no Henry Ford.

 

 

Why Short Pants?

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My grandfather, Clarence Littleton, was a man of diminutive physical stature, often buying his clothes in the boys department at J.C. Penney.  He quit school following the fifth grade to help support his struggling family.  Marrying young, he and my grandmother had one child, my mother, and Grandpap took a job at Imperial Glass in Bellaire, Ohio, as a glassblower.  Difficult times dictated a move to Akron where he worked at Akron Standard Mold, producing molds for the tire industry.  They purchased a small home at 91 Dellenberger Avenue, onto which he built an addition.  Not being able to afford vacations, he fabricated and built a small travel trailer.  He was a creative, self taught man of many talents.  He loved electronics, built his own radios, and was an avid cb radio guy,  I still remember his call letters:  KLN7621.  He played keyboards, trumpet in the Salvation Army Band, and . . the guitar.

I have three brothers.  All of us play the guitar.  We learned our first chords under his tutelage on his old Harmony Stella guitar.  That guitar disappeared somewhere over the years since 1978, when he died at the age of 67.  I wish I had it.  But I don’t.

Unlike my grandfather, I am a “big burly man,” as the German newspaperman put it after interviewing me for an article a few years ago.  I have undergraduate and graduate degrees.  I’ve had opportunities he never could have imagined and, although not wealthy by any means, I’ve led a comfortable life.  But this is what we have in common.  This is the connection – the love of building things.

Over the last couple of years I’ve built fourteen guitars; cigar box, acoustic, electric, and lap steel.  I’ve sold a few, given a few away, and kept a couple for myself.  There’s not a time when I’m in my shop that I don’t at least think once of my grandfather, imagining what we could have built together.  I miss him!

The name his buddies and coworkers called him?  Short Pants