I am currently finishing the first phase of a huge project; I have been asked to design and prototype a complete line of guitars, basses, and amplifiers for Avian Guitar Co., to show at the January 2011 NAMM show. We had a successful show, great response from musicians, and I am now preparing the prototypes for travel and working towards their initial production.
I will be offering classes, including those by other instructors, after that project's next phase is launched. Please check back for more information, and click on my newsletter to receive updates and helpful hints about lutherie.
Thanks for your patience; see you soon.
Harry
class, Fabio Archtop, Fabio, Harry's 7-string
Triumphant students
Demonstrating the proper routing technique
Small classes mean lots of attention.
Shaping braces
About midway throught a class.
Trimming the binding ledge
A recent class at LSI
I have been building guitars since 1969, and teaching guitar making since 1985. Before opening Luthiers School International (formerly Luthiers School Pan-Galactic, but that seemed too grandiose), I was director of the American School of Lutherie, in its second Healdsburg, California incarnation. Before that I ran the Luthiers School of the Rockies. I have had the good fortune to work with students from such diverse places as Australia, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Dominican Republic, Spain, Japan, and Texas. You guess the hardest to communicate with! My goal in teaching lutherie is not to create the best luthiers in the world; I will be happier if I can nurture some luthiers toward the guitars they truly wish to build. Building guitars is not difficult. A well-trained monkey could probably do it; just ask my new associate. However, making really good guitars, really interesting guitars, guitars that are true to the vision of the luthiers who build them, is very difficult. When you leave LSI hopefully you will be equipped to continue the journey of discovery that I believe lutherie to be. Some students never build another guitar. One was their goal. Others have gone on to be professional luthiers. I create my own competition, if you will. It keeps me on my toes. Not all students who come to LSI have experience as woodworkers. I do not teach lutherie as an excercise in woodworking, although on some level it is one of the highest forms of woodworking. I teach guitarmaking as a series of steps to be considered, understood, executed, and reconsidered. I love it when a husband and wife take the class together, or a father and son or daughter, of brothers. I have had all of these combinations and they all have left alive and well, sharing a new understanding of guitars, if not each other! Lutherie is one of the few areas where no matter how good you become, there is always more to learn. As Robert Lundberg said, and I paraphrase: The study of lutherie is not about the perfection of the guitar; it is about the improvement of the guitarmaker. Come to LSI, have a great time, get really tired, leave with a guitar that you made from scratch.
