One of these days I'm going to open another profile under this site dealing with nothing but guitars, but for the moment, this blog will have to do.  I'm starting to develop some friendships here on moli with guitar enthusiasts, and this blog is mostly for them.  We're not going to get into anything deeply techical about guitars here, so it's not just reserved for those who know the instrument well.  When it gets right down to it, I sometimes wonder if anybody ever really masters it because so many variables apply to a mature relationship with a guitar.  I've been deeply involved with them for 40 years now, and I'm still learning.  In fact, I'm still pretty much on the outer rim of understanding the guitar - you know, like trying to find finger holes in a bowling ball that's constantly rearranging itself.  But, I've learned some things, and I'll share them.

First off, I'm an acoustic guitar guy.  I piddle with electric guitars, but that's about it.  I piddle with mandolins, violins, basses, and other stringed instruments, but I'm by no means accomplished at it.  I am, on the other hand, an acoustic guitar guy who feels competent to talk about that particular instrument.  I've never been off to lutherie school, never had a single lesson, never was an apprentice to a guitar maker, and have developed only a few close relationships with other guitar builders.  I'm a solo builder, and a by the seat of the pants one at that.  Most of what I've learned comes from reading and watching teaching videos - got a nice library of such stuff.  And I'm old and experienced enough to have gotten over my arrogance about guitars.  I'm not a devotee to any particular brand of guitar, although like all players, I have preferences.

This much I know right off - the best guitars out there are those produced in small shops by custom builders.  These guitars are usually very expensive and not a lot of people own them.  I do because I make my own . . . and most of my gutars are better than those turned out by big commercial builders.  Wow!  There it comes, the first real brag . . . and it is bragging, I guess.  It's also true because I can do things in my small shop that they will not take time to do . . . give each instrument more attention than they do . . . use better wood and other building parts than they do.  Am I down on commercial guitars?  Absolutely not.  In fact, I'm fascinated by them.  I collect some of them, even the cheap ones, which is what I want to talk about in this first blog about guitars. - the so-called cheap guitars.

When people come to my shop and look around, they're sometimes shocked at the prices of a custom made guitar.  This is why most people don't buy them, why most guitar builders can't make a living doing it.  You can make it as a repairman, not a builder . . .  unless you get lucky.  I try hard to tell people the truth about guitars, and in doing so, you'll find that most people don't want the truth.  It's like with anything else - people respond to a line of crapola better than they do the truth because they're so used to hearing it. Here's a typical story for you.

An 80 year old man came to me with an old Kay guitar his mama bought for him when he was 16 back in 1939.  He remembered the exact price and all.  A couple of years later, he went off to WWII, and while he was off fighting a war, his mama died.  The old guitar, he said, was about all he had to remind him of her.  Sad story, right?  I look at the guitar, and it's got warps, separations, cracks, the whole works.  I can see right off that it's a gonner as for as a player is concerned, that it just can't be fixed.  So, I told the guy it couldn't be fixed to play again, that it was too old and fragile, that it was a cheap guitar to start with and wasn't made of good wood . . . bla, bla, bla.  And he won't buy it.  Could I just glue up the cracks, straighten the neck, and put some strings on it?  Yeah, I can do that, I tell him, but it still won't play.  He didn't care about that, he said - just get it back in one piece so he can hang it on the wall as a keepsake.  How much would it cost, he wants to know.  I promised to do it for $150.00, and told him again, that what I did would be just for show.

So . . . I started working on the old guitar - took the neck off and straightened it.  Took the body apart, reglued it, patched all the cracks (about twenty of them), reset the neck.  The old fretboard had popped off, and I looked at it and found it to be a decent piece of wood.  That's when the wholescale refurbishing started, and I'll be damned if I didn't save that old guitar, even as a player.  By the time I got through with that big old box guitar, and it was big with a 16 inch wide body, it looked great.  And I did all that work because I'm a sucker for a sad story - and for old guitars.  I put a block inside to make sure the neck was solid, did all sorts of special work, and even refretted the thing . . . put some decent replacement tuners on it, even.  And he was delighted with it.

A month later, he's back in the shop, saying the guitar won't stay in tune.  I tuned it, played it a little, and it was fine.  Me doing that so quickly surprised him, since one of his buddies told him the guitar was all out of whack.  He'd been loaning it out to some group that went round playing old age homes, and you know we're not talking about accomplished musicians here, right?  Guitar dumbasses, mostly . . . something most people are guilty of.  It's not a character flaw, they just don't know guitars.  So, I told him again - THIS IS NOT A PLAYER.  IT IS OLD AND FRAGILE.  IT IS MOSTLY JUST FOR SHOW.  He thanked me, but I knew he went away disappointed.  The sad story he laid on me to start with might've been true, but he wanted something to share with his friends.  He wanted something they'd brag on . . . and all of them were playing four or five hundred buck Asian made guitars that looked and sounded good.

Some people would argue that all those oriental guitars are junk, but I'm not one of them.  I have an Alvarez that's a sure enough good instrument, and it's Japanese made.  I've played some very good Asian instruments, and they have sure changed the guitar market in the world.  At least half the instruments sold are from one company alone, and that's the way it is.  I'm not a prude about that, and I even recommend to people that they buy them . . . if they can't afford to shuck out two grande on a decent Martin or Taylor or Gibson or whatever.  My little old man friend couldn't understand the worth of having a vintage instrument, not in the face of how it stood up against his buddies' cheap but socially acceptable guitars.

You live and learn, right?  Another old man came to me with a sure enough antique, said it belonged to a friend who wanted it refurshished.  It was a mail order guitar, a small 0 or parlor size, from the 20's, and I refused to fix it.  But how much would it cost?  At least five hundred, I said, and that would ruin the antique value of it.  Well, he might want to spend that much.  Nope, I said - still won't do it.  I'm retired from patch up work, I told him.  Tell your friend to take it to a big town, find a luthier there.  They'll likely do it, but I will not.  End of story there.  

So, what is it that makes a guitar cheap?  Is it craftsmanship, the wood, or what?  Well, it's lots of thing, but mostly it's volume marketing that makes them cheap enough to sell.  I paid $150 for a classical guitar for my granddaughter to learn on, and it's electric, and even has a little amp, and that's good enough for her.  I'm smart enough to know she'll probably not form an interest in guitars, so why waste big bucks?  And, it's a decent little guitar - cheap, but decent.  I'm amazed that they can make something like that for the money, and it has be be about volume sales.  And, of course, the wood is laminated instead of solid, and not at all exotic like you'll find on expensive guitars.  And it was made somewhere the labor costs are low.  

I collect cheap guitars - old Kay, Harmony, and Silvertone guitrs.  I don't often play them because I'm not a glutton for punishment.  When it comes to playing, I'm a snob . . . a big time snob.  I play a D-28 made from a Martin Dream Shop kit twenty years ago, and an Alvarez DY-77, and four or five old style big box acoustic I made myself.  I've got a couple of high dollar vintage electrics I pull out from time to time.  I've got some classic mandolins I like to pick around on, and even a couple of Hopf fiddles to saw on.  I've played a lot of guitars, but nothing moves me to play like having a Martin D-28 in my hands.  I've played D-45's, D-42's, D-35's, and almost every kind of Martin made . . . but I love that D-28 best of all.  Well, maybe not quite the best.  I have a D-28S style guitar, with center wound headstock and 12 fret neck . . . and I sure love it.  I've played Taylor guitars (love 'em), and Collings, made just down the road in Austin.  Love them too . . . but if you've paid any attention to what I've been saying, you'll see that it's hard to make me hate any guitar.

Got anything in mind special?  Know a guitar that's great to play?  Hit the comment button and tell me about it.  That's what this blog is for.

D. Paz, 9/20/07