John Whiteside

My Philosophy of Teaching Guitar Making
by
John Whiteside
©2009

Most classes and books about how to build a guitar are organized with respect to a logical sequence of building steps so that you start with the first step and proceed to the last. This is a useful and proper approach.

However, this traditional way of approaching guitar building leaves out something critical, which is the interdependence of the steps and the degree to which the various steps contribute, both individually and combined, to the ultimate qualities we want the guitar to have.

My teaching philosophy is organized on a different principle, namely, by the qualities the finished guitar is to possess.

Obviously, building proceeds by a linear process in that the builder takes one step, and then another, and so forth. But a guitar is an integrated whole comprised of many interrelated and interacting parts, features, and design and building techniques. Its ultimate success depends upon how well all of these come together. Typically a sense of how all the steps and decisions combine to form this whole does not develop in the student’s mind until after he or she has built several guitars. In my teaching, I attempt to convey that sense of organic wholeness right from the start.

This idea for approaching building came from my own experience. As a student I always did my best to get a sense of where each assignment was headed, but this was difficult for me. So in my teaching, I spend a lot of time up front explaining and demonstrating how the construction of a guitar comes together as a whole. I also start each lesson with a summary of what had been accomplished to date and why it matters, and explain in detail the ramifications of what we are about to do that day. My students appreciate this approach and I believe they have built better guitars as a result. Understanding the larger picture also reduces errors and frustration.

There are 7 qualities that every fine hand-made guitar should have.

A guitar should…

sound beautiful
look beautiful
be inviting to play
be straightforward to repair
be feasible and rewarding to build
be durable
Possess magic

1. Sound beautiful

First and foremost: your guitar should sound beautiful. That is its reason for existence. Every design decision, every choice of material should be made with this goal in mind. How is this done? This is where a lot of the guitar-maker’s art come in, but fortunately there are many sources of knowledge and inspiration to draw upon. It’s important, for example, to listen carefully to a variety of guitars with different body styles, different tone woods, different bracing patterns, and different finishes to become familiar with what a good guitar sounds like. Next it is important to become proficient at listening to “tap tones.” These are the sounds made by knocking on the raw wood components before and during the process by which they are fashioned into soundboards, backs, and so on. It is also important to gain a “tactile” knowledge of wood properties such as stiffness and strength-to-weight ratios. Knowing and following the design and building practices of outstanding guitar makers can contribute significantly to sound quality. And finally, guitar design and building are not closed, separate disciplines so there’s an opportunity to develop your intuition and experiment with new ideas that can enhance the beauty of the sound you are creating.

2. Look beautiful

Your guitar should be visually beautiful, but in a way that harmonizes with its sound. In the event that a tradeoff has to be made between sound quality and visual beauty, in my view, sound quality should always be placed first. For example, the cosmetically most perfect (and hence the most expensive) soundboards are not necessarily the best sounding.

Lovely wood, timeless and proven design, and tight fitting joints and seams contribute immensely to beauty. Excessive ornamentation, in my opinion, does not, at least in the beginning of a guitar-making career.

Get the basics right, Add ornamentation only as your skills, taste, time and talent permit. Your guitar will be beautiful, inside and out.

3. Be inviting to play

Your guitar must be easily played by the person for whom it is intended. This includes knowing the size of the person (hand, arm length, and so on) so that the physical dimensions of the guitar will be appropriate, especially the fingerboard width and contour. Also, any physical limitations should be taken into consideration. Building for a particular person also means knowing what kinds of music the person likes to play. For example, fast-picking bluegrass style with punch may call for a different soundboard wood than a style that emphasizes tender, melodious ballads.

4. Be straightforward to repair

Sooner or later all guitars need adjustments and repairs and this must be taken into account during the building process. For example, on almost all guitars, over time the action (the distance between the strings and the frets) will go up, as the guitar responds to the several hundred pounds of pressure exerted by the strings. The best solution is to reset the neck. Designing and building a neck that is easy to reset should be a priority.

5. Be feasible and rewarding to build

Aside from everything else, it has to be physically possible, fun, and rewarding for you to build the guitar. The easier a step is to perform, the greater the chance of doing a quality job on it. My teaching stresses practicing difficult operations on practice wood before trying it on the actual guitar.

Furthermore, steps taken early in the process can have an effect, good or bad, much later in the process. No step in the building process should be taken without thinking through the possible ramifications the step could have later on.

But even more important in terms of ease of building is your state of mind. There is no room whatsoever for impatience or frustration. I teach how to approach each step with what Zen tradition calls mindfulness. Possessing mindfulness means to enter a mental state where each operation is done for the sheer pleasure of doing it the very best that you can. For that moment, each single measurement with a ruler, each single chisel stroke, each single filling of a blemish in the finish (no matter that there are a hundred more) becomes the most important thing in the world to you, and worthy of your full and undivided attention.

This approach of focusing on each step for its own sake results in a better guitar than does being impatient to get the end. It’s very much like playing music. The point of playing a song is not to get to the end of it, but rather to enjoy the act of playing itself.

6. Be durable

Obviously, a guitar should last. However, it is generally true that the lighter a guitar is constructed, that better it sounds. But durability and sound quality involve careful tradeoffs. The famous commercial guitar makers err, without exception, on the side of durability by using heavier construction which is one reason that, for the most part, a hand-made guitar will sound superior to a factory-made one. How far the builder can push light construction should be constantly in mind.

7. Possess magic

Finally, when your guitar is strung up and played, something should happen that transcends all the practical steps and considerations that went into it. It comes to life and sings, one hopes, in a way that brings tears of joy to the player, or at least, a big smile. Magic is always unpredictable, but as you take care to create a guitar that possesses the other 6 qualities I’ve described, you may discover steps that you can take along the way to get a little of it on your side.