John Whiteside

North Road Guitars

John Whiteside, retired from various high-stress corporate careers, has found his personal keys to happiness and serenity in building guitars and teaching others to build them.

He most likes making steel string guitars optimized for finger picking, such as the 12 fret 000 body style. These guitars are sweet, clear, responsive, and with a fast attack. They are also surprisingly loud, though not boomy. Here is a typical reaction written by an experienced player:

“It was delicate, responsive, and you could feel it breathe next to your body. It projected sound wonderfully without being harsh or brash and had very even tone throughout all six strings. The action was sweet, smooth but with clear articulation. It compares very favorably with a Martin guitar, which is the closest thing on the market that it resembles. Visually, it is very pleasing. The decoration is unique and clearly the result of thoughtful and painstaking design. The overall impression is that of playing a vintage instrument, one that has a full, broken-in sound, and has been lovingly handled and played for decades.” - Tom Guttmacher

Making a guitar is a lesson in living wisely, the idea being to do each step in a focused, yet unhurried manner, what the Zen masters call mindfulness. With practice something remarkable happens. The mind focuses on the here and now, forgets past worries or future fears. And the surprising result is a much higher level of craftsmanship than is possible if the maker has one eye on the clock or works to a deadline.

John makes one or two guitars a year and teaches one or two students at a time. All instruction is individual; the class size is one.

A member of the Guild of New Hampshire Woodworkers, John organizes their stringed instrument makers' group and has published in the Guild's Old Saw magazine about guitar making techniques and philosophy. You can read the full article by visiting and then scrolling to page 20.

North Road Guitars is in south-eastern New Hampshire, the flat part of the state know as the NH coastal plain. John lives in an 1846 former one room schoolhouse with a spacious, well-equipped and well-lit shop in its own building at the bottom of the garden. Friendly Goldern Retrievers romp about the yard.

John likes to make his guitars for a specific person and wants them involved in the building process, to visit the shop to pick out wood, to have the neck sized and shaped to fit their hand, help design the decorative scheme, and generally to come away with a memorable experience in addition to a guitar built specifically for them.

For guitar students, John teaches three things: