Just as people come into the
world naked, so do guitars.
A child is nurtured, taught,
and made ready for life before
starting out to make their way
in the world. Guitars know no
such preparation—or do they?
Somewhere out there, a 1952
Les Paul wears a crescent-moon-shaped
scar in its gold top. The
guitar was already 16 years old
when that two-inch dent, exactly
the size of a school-locker padlock,
was forever imprinted on
it. That mark was, and probably
still is, a reminder of an argument
I had with a band member
about a girl. It’s not only my
story—it’s the guitar’s story, too.
I had a very emotional bond
with my guitar, and sometimes I
wonder what else that gold top
has seen over the years.
Can a luthier’s creative energy somehow permeate an instrument
as he
shaves, shapes, and transforms raw wood into a guitar?
Every guitar has a personality.
Maybe you’ve never thought
of it exactly that way, but you’ve
noticed. It’s reflected in the way
an instrument behaves when
played as much as it is in the way
it looks. Some are easy partners,
while others spar with the musician—
daring you to take a careless
step in search of an imagined
note. We might feel that a guitar
is willing or stubborn—physical
manifestations of the guitar’s
design and construction expressed
in human terms. A long scale will
feel stiffer than a short one. String
spacing choices at both the nut
and bridge can radically affect
feel. But, beyond the typical neck-dimension
and shape issues, there
are other imponderables. The very
best instruments invite a closeness
between guitarist and guitar
that is hard for a non-musician
to understand—and hard for a
builder to explain. Can a guitar
have a soul? Is there a spiritual
essence or energy within a well-traveled
instrument?
Recently, I blogged about
restoring a pair of 1960s vintage
Marshall 4x12 cabinets. During
the process, we found shards
of beer-bottle glass lodged in
the vinyl covering that I attributed
to a long life in clubs and
bars. That mental picture got
me thinking about the idea of
essence. Vintage instruments are
said to possess a mojo that goes
beyond pure age and break-in
time. Could it be life experience—
a sort of wisdom?
Just as people are the sum of
their experience intermingled
with their genetics, can a guitar
absorb the totality of its practical
contact with the world?
Perhaps this can lend some credence
to the idea that a guitar
whose life is constrained to its
case cannot speak as fluently
and effortlessly as those that
are well traveled and truly road
worn. Certainly this is the marketing
angle behind new guitars
that are scratched and dented to
appear old and wizened. That’s
not to say that stage-prop relic
jobs are completely devoid of
a worldly education borne of
dues-paying exposure to the
world. It’s just that they’re a bit
like a well-dressed grad, stumbling
to find their professional
footing and establish a comfortable
identity.
On the flip side, another
bit of mythology to consider is
the concept of the luthier-built
instrument. Often I find that a
guitar that’s slowly finessed to
completion by a pair of gifted
hands will possess an unexplainable
natural response to the
player’s touch, as though it were
anticipating and guiding the
playing. Certainly this can happen
occasionally with mass-produced
items—just as a creative
genius can certainly escape from
the doldrums of a test-driven
educational system. In many
large factories there may be no
shortage of knowledge, but perhaps
it’s the kindness of an individual
luthier’s intent that births
the most sensitive of the breed.
Not just the material selection,
but the actual act and process of
building could be adding to the
essence of the guitar that is to be.
I view this as the “pre-story,” and
for me it adds a lot of value to
an instrument.
In an interesting and sympathetic
vein, just as hopeful
parents might play Mozart to
their infants in the womb, there
are encouraging studies about
subjecting tonewoods to vibration
in preparation for use in
musical instruments—usually
violins. Studies suggest that
vibration affects the equilibrium
of moisture content in
wood, decreasing weight while
retaining or even improving the
modulus of elasticity. Urged
on by this information, some
violinmakers employ a sound-barrage
chamber to pre-season
their woods.
In the same way, perhaps
the nightly exposure to long
sets and loud amplifiers could
be part of the key to a guitar’s
worldliness. I have a friend
who works as a tech for some
very high-level players who
swears that placing a guitar in
front of a speaker cabinet for a
week’s worth of gigs improves
its sound. There are also small
electrical vibrators that can be
attached to a guitar’s strings
to “open up” the sound of an
instrument. I guess this could
be viewed as a sort of “intellectual”
learning—like reading
about something as opposed to
actually doing it.
Beyond these physics-backed
scenarios, I keep returning to the
concept of the guitar’s life story
and its impact on essence. Maybe
it’s just a romantic notion that
untold years of busking, blues
bars, studios, and pawn shops
might somehow embed a guitar
with a soul that can help you
express your own feelings—but
it’s one that I like. Maybe someday
I’ll be reunited with that
goldtop and we can discuss it.
Jol Dantzig is a
noted designer, builder,
and player who co-founded
Hamer Guitars,
one of the first boutique
guitar brands, in 1973.
Today, as the director of
Dantzig Guitar Design, he continues to
help define the art of custom guitar. To
learn more, visit
guitardesigner.com.