Long into the night

    Some may say it is an obsession, others may admire it and some never seek to attain it for me it is just a labor of love. I have found that working into the night hours after the sun has faded from the windows, has its own appeal. For one my old lamp gives me a certain view of the wood that I may not get in the more glorious brightness of the day. I can play with the angle of the light to see small imperfections that cast a shadow and leave some kind of registration seen in variances. Is all of this necessary to make a great instrument? probably not, but my sense of time slips away when I am "In the zone".
    For me lutherie is not a job, not a career or even a hobby, it is my essence and the total sum of all that I enjoy. Art, music, woodworking, hand tools, perfection.. for me this is not about the amount of hours I may spend in any given process. I can do nothing else, making instruments is my calling and I embrace it with everything I have.
    When an artist paints upon the canvas, is it time that matters? Is it not the art itself that matters most of all? My goal first and always is to create the very best musical instrument that my hands heart and mind can offer, but intricately woven into that tapestry is the beauty of every single part of the whole. In my mind and heart they are inseparable. Can a great sounding instrument be constructed with imperfect parts? Of course it can, instruments are organic things and everything combines to produce the sound we hear coming from them. To me and my process the two always go hand in hand. I make better sounding instruments when I have painstakingly done everything I can on every single aspect of the instrument.
    Though there is something to be said for intuition and natural talent. The very first guitar I made though it was not perfect in every aspect, sounded beautiful. I don't know why but achieving a certain sound is something every luthier does instinctively at least at some point in their journey. It is much like the cup of coffee theory, some people can make the most amazing pot of coffee using the same pot and ingredients as someone else who makes a terrible pot of coffee. I have often pondered this thought and why it may be, there are people who have made coffee in my personal coffee pot using my beans and grinder using the exact measurements that I use and the taste is just astounding.
    So why is it that some things are just better when done by certain people? is it something in the chemistry of the person? some strange exchange of protons and neutrons? we may never know. One thing is certain though, when we find the one thing that we do exceedingly well, it gives our life meaning and purpose and the fulfillment of all those combined genes and handed down talents and skills coalesce into the achievement of a lifetime. That is why there was only one Pavarotti, one Stradivari, one Michael Angelo and only one of you. Each person has a wealth of beauty within themselves if they can only find that one true voice and follow it with all their heart. For me building guitars is that one and only calling.
   
    The process of creation is for me the equivalent of a moral cause and I embrace it completely. It does not matter if it takes days and nights and weekends and holidays and everything in between, or how many times I may have to redo something, I will do it until it is as perfect as I can make it.

    Long ago I threw all the accepted thicknesses and dimensions of every aspect of guitars out the window, and it has freed my mind to listen to the wood and feel my way through the process. There is nothing wrong with following accepted guidelines in top thickness and bracing size shape and mass, using traditional measurements will get you there and what you make will sound like a guitar (hopefully), but unless you are lucky it will not be the very best guitar it could be. Every single piece of wood, even two pieces of wood cut from the same tree right next to each other will sound and act differently. Wood is organic and sound is organic, it cannot be trapped into a prescribed and accepted ideal of what is the perfect thickness for a soundboard or other such nonsense. For instance to bring out the most from one piece of wood, you may have to thin it to the point that it structurally is weakened and more mass is shifted to the braces for structural integrity, and another piece of wood may revel in being thick and chunky and so lighter braces can be used. But it goes even deeper than that, along the structure of the wood fibers certain dead zones exist where sound travels through the fibers and hits a wall of resistance. The only way to detect those spots is by running your ear along the entire surface of the soundboard as it is tapped. Trust me if you have a good ear you will hear the "dead zones" quite clearly.
    So how does one deal with these zones of impeded sound? it is different in every single piece of wood and in each dead spot on that same piece of wood. I have found in some cases a simple small razor line scratch either across or along the grain of the wood can often change the dynamics of that dead zone and bring it back to life, where in other cases thinning the area in question brings out its stifled voice. In other instances a slight thinning around the dead zone will push it into a sonically pleasing place.
    The point is not that a person has to do all of this to make a great sounding guitar, and to most ears all of the effort may go somewhat unnoticed. However as subjective as sound and tone may be, there is a certain richness and vitality to a truly tuned and responsive soundboard.

    As I said some may call it an obsession, I just call it life. In the end I can do only one thing and that is to live the life that I was born to live, as a luthier.