Where I started……
So one of the guys in the office asked me the other day, when did you start learning about guitars? More precisely, when did I start fixing them and building them? I don’t much like talking about myself, but it occurred to me that maybe I should look back and recount when and where I started on this path.
Sometime during the last century, I was your average high-school kid. All my friends were musicians. Some were in the school band, some in the stage band and some were just in their own band. We hung out, we traded info and helped to teach each other music. I was young to help out, but I slugged gear, set up stages and did sound…and on the odd occasion, I got to get up and join the band. What a rush! It wasn’t too long before those special moments became more regular, and the guitar I had been using (a 1967 Harmony Rocket) just wasn’t going to cut it. I was working in the big city and driving back to my town for the weekend gigs, so it became quite easy for me to rent guitars and take them home for the weekends. Well, I don’t know if you ever rented a guitar before, but typically they aren’t great. Soooooo that is where I started. I would get home, tear the guitar apart, clean it and set it up to the best of my early ability, so that it would play and sound as great as I expected it should. Of course the store (a well known store north of Toronto) was pretty happy with me doing this, as it saved them the trouble. Well, like all hobbies and mis-guided dreams, the whole band thing came to an end….work and life got in the way and I dropped out of the music scene for several years.
Many years later I had started my own business in the wood world when an old friend dropped by the shop. Can you fix this he asked? I opened the case and found a ragged old classical in 3 pieces. Sure, I said, no problem. That guitar sat in my shop for at least 3 months. Once every 2 or 3 days I would open the case, look at the guitar and then close it…basically backing out of the repair. Well, that got me interested in buying William Cumpiano’s book Guitarmaking…basically the bible of steel string acoustic and classical guitar building. I read it…cover to cover. Between my woodworking experience and my knowledge of music, it all started to make sense. I began the repair and ultimately ended up with a great little guitar which ended up having very close ties to a pretty major celebrity musician.
As you can imagine, my library grew, my experience grew as did my network. I started a magazine with a couple guys (one close friend and one mistake as it turned out lol) but I kept repairing and finally started to build. Through this magazine (Canadian Guitar Collector) I was introduced to guitar builders across North America. The vintage market was blossoming and old guitars were hitting prices never before heard of. I became a member of ASIA (Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans). I was invited to view the largest collection of American (and Canadian) made guitars ever put together…. The Chinery Collection. The guitar building world is actually quite small, well at least it was. What I was lucky enough to witness was the birth of a new generation of guitar builders, so it was no longer the 50 or 60 people who showed up at various guitar shows, but hundreds of builders, from across the continent.
I loved my work and probably should have pursued it full time, but family demands and an exceedingly short attention span took me in different directions…I got back to playing, started consulting and also started building things like speaker and amp cabinets. My business also moved into the music industry, so twice a year I was at NAMM shows in Anaheim and Nashville, so designing products and critiquing products became a part of my every day. Ultimately this story ends up with me here, at Solo Guitars….working with both the original owner and the not-so-new owners, choosing gear, parts accessories etc to help you start your journey. Thinking back, I wish there was a company that offered guitar kits back then. What a great way to start. Hopefully, you will find the same passion I have had in the last almost half century, and the satisfaction of building our kits, assembling your own custom shop guitars or hopefully, designing and building your own guitars! Who knows where the next Orville Gibson, or Leo Fender…even a Chris Martin will come from. Could it be your basement?
Keep an eye out for new products at Solo Guitars. We have updates every month, and our in-person store is open for you to browse if you are close by….keep building and keep playing…there is nothing like the feeling of playing an instrument that you have created!!!
