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ORIGINAL: JasonMcGuire

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Monica Esparza, San Clemente, CA

She publicly insulted Glenn Canin's guitars of all people right after I spoke highly of her right in this very Foro. She does build a good guitar but the WAY she chose to speak of her fellow and in my opinion FAR superior luthier..... kind of left a bad taste in my mouth after trying to spread the word about her guitars.

I was at the Oakland Airport and they had one of her instruments in a display case of local luthiers....In my opinion, the instrument was over decorated and looked like a mariachi guitar.

J

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The other thing that wrankles builders here are the ones who sell too cheaply. We all studied this stuff for years and we put our hearts, intelligence and lives into making guitars. When someone comes along and makes subpar handmade instruments for unrealistically low prices it makes it hard for those who strive for excellence to continue. It's like a guitarist going around poaching gigs by telling restaurant owners they will undercut another groups price by half. We deserve the prices we ask for because we payed our dues and make the best stuff.

It's not fair, but neither is life. All I can say is you get what you pay for when buying a cheap guitar. And if you seek cheap repair work, free advice is worth what you pay for it.

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What's the big deal about public insults anyways? Maybe she was just speaking her mind?

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especially the jig to make rosettes so tiny that got Warren White interested in using his design.

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ORIGINAL: estebanana

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What's the big deal about public insults anyways? Maybe she was just speaking her mind?

The only reason guitar makers put one another down is because they are either really bad makers and put out substandard work which shows a lack of taste or understanding about guitarmaking. Or they are jealous because the maker they are dissing is a bad ass builder.

Glenn fits into the latter category.

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ORIGINAL: estebanana

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especially the jig to make rosettes so tiny that got Warren White interested in using his design.

I can't understand what's so great about rosette tiles you have to use a microscope to see. But I suppose to some people l small is better. Only thing is a rosette tile is not a computer processer. :)

That's another subject.

I'm sure you had a lengthy conversation with Gene. Once you reach him on the phone he likes to talk for about 5 hours! it reminds me that I have to go see him ASAP.

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ORIGINAL: kozz

I was just reading this thread and I agree that there are very pasionate luthiers here on the forum who make, for as far I can see, fantastic guitars.

Sometimes I would like to be able to affort such a guitar but it is always a big investment, and I agree the craftmanship is something to be paid for.

But can't the price also be just a level to high to give it more attention to the not so fortunate to pay those prices.
I don't mean the prices should compare in the beginners range, but little above.
From personal experience its nice to see what you get what you pay for. And when one gets more into it and wants a better one he/she will search for something in the same brand.

I've seen so many beautifull guitars from the luthiers here, but they are out of budget for me, unless I have played for 10 years or a good job and driving a ferrari, and money doesn't make a difference.

Most people have to make a decission on price/quality.
Is it really that hard to make some sort of inbetween guitar? And I mean this positively. If you have to make consessions, does it really degradate your name/sound of the guitar?

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I would like to be able to accommodate you but the best I could do for all the players, that were interested, was to donate the 2003 Reyes plan to the Guild of American Luthiers and let the builders of the world charge what they need, to produce a very nice model for the players.

I've seriously thought about building a guitar similar to Nino Rcardo's old 1955 Sobrinos de Esteso, with a 655 mm scale, for $4,500 US plus shipping but if this catches on, I would be at a great disadvantage, as I could not build guitars fast enough to keep up with the potential orders.

This idea could be very risky for an old guy like me. But I'm going to build a guitar like this, and if it turns out good, then I'll seriously consider donating a plan of it to the Guild.

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ORIGINAL: kozz

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I would like to be able to accommodate you but the best I could do for all the players, that were interested, was to donate the 2003 Reyes plan to the Guild of American Luthiers and let the builders of the world charge what they need, to produce a very nice model for the players.

I've seriously thought about building a guitar similar to Nino Rcardo's old 1955 Sobrinos de Esteso, with a 655 mm scale, for $4,500 US plus shipping but if this catches on, I would be at a great disadvantage, as I could not build guitars fast enough to keep up with the potential orders.

This idea could be very risky for an old guy like me. But I'm going to build a guitar like this, and if it turns out good, then I'll seriously consider donating a plan of it to the Guild.

I see your point, which I as a consumer easely forgets, that the guitar actually needs to be made, and that it takes time.

Nonetheless I have great respect for what you builders are doin' and it even makes me more interested in the art then in the name or label a guitar carries. It's a passion what needs to be rewarded.

Is it hard to make concessions? I mean, I am a perfecionist, which is good, but not always, it also can give a lot of frustration, and I can understand that as an artist you do not want to make concessions.

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One thing that is easy for me is to build a guitar but the voicing is not so easy, in fact, it is down right frustrating on occasion. I have a flamenco negra just being finished up and I have been working on the sound and articulation for the better part of a year now. This is not very productive when I have to spend this much time on an instrument. But this guitar is beautiful and I'm asking $12,000 for it. Anyone interested :-)

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ORIGINAL: kozz

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One thing that is easy for me is to build a guitar but the voicing is not so easy, in fact, it is down right frustrating on occasion. I have a flamenco negra just being finished up and I have been working on the sound and articulation for the better part of a year now. This is not very productive when I have to spend this much time on an instrument. But this guitar is beautiful and I'm asking $12,000 for it. Anyone interested :-)

I thinks thats exactly the point....untill recently I could not justify those prices....everybody can buy a piece of wood and make a box of it.
But the more you get sucked into this wonderfull world the more you'll start to appreciate it.
Although I can understand you'll be asking that price for it, it is not for the majority, but for the few lucky ones. And maybe that isn't that bad either, you'll sell a piece of art which has a certain value for the buyer also.
It all has to be seen in perspective.....and I like to be on the other side of the line one day.
In the meantime I like to see what al you luthiers come up with....especially what it took to become this guitar as it is....
Like many famous painters overpainting their scetches because it can be better...its in the details....

I like to hear those details because it also gives more understanding what it is what you luthiers are doin....a year ago I thought a box is a box, so what,...nowadays I think different, and thats what you luthiers should make advantage of.

You got a sound example of the negra? I am looking for a negra, but definatly cannot affort this one.

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Well, if it will make you feel better, I couldn't afford a decent guitar so I got the idea that I would build one. My first flamenco guitar in 1958 was promising but not the guitar I had in mind, so I built another one, and so on, until about 25 years later I managed to build a guitar I would have wanted to play during my earlier years in the art :-)

Let's hear it from some other builders..........

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The other thing that wrankles builders here are the ones who sell too cheaply.

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ORIGINAL: zumaquero

I'm happy to hear that some people still know about Warren White. He was one of the most talented and gifted Guitar Constructor's of his time. I have one of his classical guitar's it's a beautiful instrument the sound is fantastic and the rosette on the guitar is absolutely beautiful. I have watched Warren make those rosette's and and his skill in woodworking with just hand tools (absolutely no power equipment) was unbelievable he was a true master at his art.

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I'm happy to hear that some people still know about Warren White. He was one of the most talented and gifted Guitar Constructor's of his time. I have one of his classical guitar's it's a beautiful instrument the sound is fantastic and the rosette on the guitar is absolutely beautiful. I have watched Warren make those rosette's and and his skill in woodworking with just hand tools (absolutely no power equipment) was unbelievable he was a true master at his art.

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ORIGINAL: TANúñez

I just found this online. Is this accurate? would have loved to see his work.

July 27, 1994
Warren White, 58, who died homeless yet only 20 years ago was making guitars that continue to sell for $2,000 each. White was credited with providing many of the tools for the 1960s folk music revolution, crafting classical and flamenco guitars in his shop in San Francisco's bustling North Beach. But as the years went by, friends said, alcoholism got the better of White. White, who was known for his long blond hair and beard, offbeat clothes and eccentric behavior, would work for days on a guitar. But in later years, friends said, he'd then smash it in a drunken rage. He spent his final years shuffling between the streets of Santa Cruz and San Jose, but stayed in contact with old friends. In Los Gatos, Calif., on Wednesday when his sleeping bag caught fire.

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I never met Warren White but I did have a chance to examine one of his flamenco guitars back in the early 70's. It was a good guitar, nicely crafted with some interesting interior bracing. The finish was ugly but it was pretty beat up and dirty so who knows what it looked like when it was new.

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've seriously thought about building a guitar similar to Nino Ricardo's old 1955
Sobrinos de Esteso, with a 655 mm scale, for $4,500 US plus shipping, but if this
catches on, I would be at a great disadvantage, as I could not build guitars fast enough
to keep up with the potential orders.

This idea could be very risky for an old guy like me. But I'm going to build a guitar like
this, and if it turns out good, then I'll seriously consider donating a plan of it to the
Guild.

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Just wondering if anyone knows what I am on about and if this is a
deliberate part of the build or an accident when tuning the top? I know it is not the
wood on the back that is doing it cuz I have noticed this thing in blancas, negras, even
maple.

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I'm friends with Warren White's daughters, they all live in Oakland and this area. It's amazing to me they will talk about him to me, that is because I'm a guitar maker and I assumed it would be a painful memory to talk about ones father to someone who does the same work.

It is a tragedy he died in the state he was in. He did die in a homeless encampment, a small group of homeless guys who slept in the open air around a campfire. He was a heavy drinker at times and a life long alcoholic. He had a dark side and according to those I've talked to about him who knew him, he was an erratic person. He could be unkind to others, but I'll leave it at that. Eugene Clark told me Warren White was probably one of the smartest men he had ever known and that he was a fast learner who easily became restless with the status quo in the guitar making scene. Warren White also made plenty of his own rosettes and he also was a realistic repairman who worked on electric guitars, steel string guitars and other kinds of string instruments.

From the guitars of his I have seen, he was capable of brilliantly executed work and also fast slip shod work. No doubt some result of his alcoholism impairing his ability to focus. It created a disparity between his best tight workmanship and what he was wiling to let out of his shop. I've always suspected the Italian violin maker Guarneri del Gesu was an alcoholic because his work shows the same bell curve of decline and recovery as Whites. ( I'm not the only one who has thought about this) Although my familiarity with Del Gesu's sloppy work came many years before my contact with Whites guitars, both artists' body of work shows an archetypal pattern of corner cutting and desperate fast solutions to three dimensional problems in woodworking. It's a classic template that can be seen across a spectrum of visual artists work who were substance abusers from the French painter Maurice Utrillo to Francis Bacon and Jackson Pollock. Curious thing is that the effects of alcohol get better integrated into the styles of a painter than an instrument maker. Alcoholism expressed in a painters style can come off as bravura daring. They might not paint drunk all the time, but being intoxicated can open up the painter to take risks and discovery away from the work session. The instrument maker suffers a historical record that does not remember them fondly because the pentimenti of unforgivable mistakes stand in high relief to the standards of the craft as practiced by tea totalers or those who do not drink and luth.

If you choose to be an alcoholic, best to choose painting if are to be an artist. You'll have more chances of succeeding. History tells that the brush dances drunken better than the chisel.

There are warrior artists and rear guard artists. There are those who follow and those who lead. Those who build the guitars of instrument makers who came before them and those who push past the current paradigm and modes of thinking. Front lines artists, the warrior class artists, are who they are because they strive for nothing less than a personal transformation through the creation of their work. They cultivate absolute mastery over every aspect of what they are making and the processes of how they create. Warrior artists can't ever be happy with creating a pastiche of a guitar which is made up of a patch work of pre bought parts or other guitar makers styles. They have to make everything themselves and reinvent themselves while they do it. Warrior artists who are painters fearlessly paint over any passage in a picture in order to make the picture go farther. They see the whole thing and are brave enough to sacrifice any part to the greater process. Pastiche makers are opportunists and merchants. They make fair product, but seldom greatness. Rear gate keepers and often more successful than front line artists because they do not pose the type of difficulties to patronage that a warrior artist can present. Merchants coddle patronage, warriors challenge patronage. Patrons of warrior artists are usually some form of warrior themselves.

The warrior artist is a masterful perfectionist who will not compromise on principle. They are the greatest of all artists in terms creating beauty, challenging history and leading the way for others. The task and path of that kind of a person is treacherous because any great difficulty, whether self imposed or imposed by any societal authority can deeply injure those non compromising artists. It is because they can't bend to creating something that is less than what they know they can create. If alcohol is factor in that persons life effecting their artistic performance they can become full of self loathing at both their inability to create properly under the influence and for not being able to break out of an addictive behavior.

Rear line artists and warrior artists alike are simply human, either can succumb to alcoholism and it's ravages. After thinking carefully for a long time I have come to believe that Warren White was a warrior artist who could not defeat his own demons. He shut down creatively and died a long slow death of denial of his creativity. I choose to see his warrior part rather than the self destructive part. White and Del Gesu shine in the same sky at night. Guarneri is an alizarin Cremonese ruby and Warren a clear flash of Western starlight.