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my work with bowed instruments
my work with plectrum and other instruments
how I learned, and other things
          resembling a professional background
my musical life
bowed instrument care
repair index
Here's my list of local (Santa Cruz and SF Bay Area) live music events

China with the Blue Mountain Ramblers:
 
 

Lots of load time because of lots of pictures. Worth it. 

The SCGC Model H

This link (click on the photo) leads to a lot of pages about one of my favorite guitars
 
 
 
 
 

Selmer guitars

My main man in Paris is François Charle. He and his wife Rosyne have a marvelous operation going there called (you guessed it) R&F Charle, comprising a shop offering lutherie and restoration, a lot of very cool instruments, and an astonishing amount of information.

A link to Djangobooks.com, which I think is the best single place to get information about the burgeoning gypsy jazz scene, with forums, ads, reviews, you name it. 

A vanished site about possibly the most influential luthier of the 20th century, Luigi Mozzani.

Some semi-connected remnants of the expired Dupont site: discussion of details  | details about rosettes  | about woods | about tops | discussion part one  | part two | part three  |  au revoir |  mario_en.html  |  mario_fr.html  |  strings.html  | discussion1.html  |  discussion2.html   | discussion3.html

Somewhere there's a cool photo of Argentine guitar wizard Oscar Alemán

Fun Stuff

Would Steve Martin miss the chance to take great advantage of
      a two page spread in People Magazine? I sure don't think so. 

A one-man band photo I found

Insane Brazilian rosewood in an old guitar.

All about picks (picky2 |  picky3)

Fender made a whole Strat covered in clownbarf. It's so beautiful.

Found on eBay, of course: a weird Asian banjo. Pay close attention to the frets!

Music

Party of Seven is an uncommon and a very episodic band. I am proudly one-seventh of it. Read about it here, please, and here too: seven #2.

Tony Flores, my friend and playing partner for many years, passed away on the 12th of September 2004, less than a month shy of his 90th birthday party.

Tarika Sammy is a wonderful band from Madagascar. I produced an album
      for them in Madagascar. I produced some others too, read about this here,
      someday. tarikasam.intro.html | tarikasam.html |  Tarika Sammy/gloss.htm |
        Tarika Sammy/discog.htm |  Tarika Sammy/links.htm

Here again is a link to that list of local (Santa Cruz and SF Bay Area)
     live music events I keep for folks. If you want periodic notices
     about updates, just send me an email.

More about instruments

Repair techniques and tips

I recommend that you visit www.frets.com, a marvelous and enormous site put together by my old friend Frank Ford, over in Palo Alto. Much of what I have here on my site is ancillary to what he has on his site.  Except some of it.

Here are a few of many pages I have assembled on instrument topics. 

Violin and bowed instrument care

An historical review of important violinmakers

A piece about saddle angle, intonation and compensation in steelstring guitars

A piece I did for the AG Forum on neck straightening with heat
     (which is a method I don't endorse except in rare instances)

A page about Gotoh mandolin gears

A page about problematic Gotoh guitar gears

A page about the main available fretwires in the US

Here's more than you cared to know about the provenance of spruce, particularly
     the celebrated and somewhat mythical German spruce. 

Herewith, a couple of approaches to repairing broken scrolls and necks
      on bowed instruments, mainly basses and cellos. 

Here's a piece on how the 14-fret guitar evolved from the 12-fret ancestors

From George Gruhn's site, a piece on a rosewood Gibson Nick Lucas
      with a Brazilian rosewood top (honest).

Remember those Gibsons with the dreadful adjustable saddles?
      Here's a piece on replacing the bridge with a better one.

Wondering about plywood in guitars?  Here's a bit about that about that.

About some resophonic mandolins I made some years back. 

What is grain runout, you ask?

violin bridge wood grain orientation

About scales, bridge placement, and so on and so forth.

This is Michael Simmons's excellent piece on the twelve-string guitar

How I fixed a Favilla uke that didn't play in tune one bit

This is banjo-specific, but it explains the concept of afterlength-scale, generally

How-to stuff

How to make your own flatpicks and the wonders of garish plastic picks

Questions?

I often receive inquiries from folks wondering where they can learn guitarmaking, violinmaking and so on. When I began, there was virtually nothing available, so it ws often a case of the blind leading the blind. Now we have an embarrassment of riches, in terms of books, videos, journals, luthier's guilds, schools, seminars and so forth. Probably the most significant advance in information is the internet.

Organizations you should know about

There are three luthier's organizations I belong to and heartily endorse. One is approximately west coast, a non-profit, tax-exempt educational organization, another is approximately east coast and touts itself as a "Professional Luthier Organization," though many people - professional and otherwise - belong to both. The third one focuses entirely on bowed instruments, and now encloses the Catgut Acoustical Society. Each has summer conventions, and produces journals. 
 

Guild of American Luthiers  GAL 8222 South Park Avenue Tacoma, WA 98408 Publication: American Lutherie http://www.luth.org	Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans ASIA 619 Fulton St. Palo Alto, CA 94301 asialist@aol.com Publication: Guitarmaker http://www.guitarmaker.org
	The Violin Society of America VSA 48 Academy Street Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 Publication: Journal of the Violin Society Email: membership@vsa.to http://www.vsa.to/

These are a few of my favorite luthiers, including some shops
 

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