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There are no rules are there?

What I really like about this site is the generous amount of information people share and with like mines..... when I showed my latest mockups to friends it was yea okay.....

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on January 5, 2017 at 11:43pm

Yeah, I neglected the Moorish invasion of the Iberian peninsula. My bad. Truth is, it spread both ways, through Byzantiumm and Greece, and also through Spain. There are oud-like instruments on both ends of Mediterranean Europe.

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Permalink Reply by Moritz Voegeli on January 6, 2017 at 11:34pm

Ron hi,

let's start your «story for another time»: to quote the grandfather of the Russian Revolution: «Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce» [Karl Marx: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 1852].

What's revolutionary when we now with all the tools and machines which we have to our disposition reanimate a tradition of poor people they built their instruments with a knife and a handsaw?

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Permalink Reply by Moritz Voegeli on January 5, 2017 at 9:22pm

Why did we start discussing about luthiers? Wayfinder: «No rules... Artist!», my response: «it looks like there is a widespread tendency on this site to look down on craftsmen, luthiers included, selfdeclaring itself as an artist, but even art is based on craftsmanship... Wayfinder believes the best guitars - Martins included in his list for comparison - be cheap accidental items of far east mass production lines because accidentially there wasn't a craftsman applying his dummy rules to them.

In the German speaking area a luthier is called «instrument builder» - except for organs - who had formal training for four years in the shop of an elder luthier which had formal training to have the right to teach learners. In Germany there are still instrument builders which wander as journeymen across Europe for «three years and a day», with the ban to approach their homes for less than fifty kilometers, to learn from other professionals in their shops all around the continent. I met one of these journeymen last year, you recognize them from far by their clothing and their bundle they carry over their shoulder: he was hitchhiking on the way to Southern Spain.

With all the cheap instruments from far east mass production lines the luthier's work has changed a lot: they are now more involved with repair, setup, and commerce of instruments than properly instrument building, and there are hobbyists they are more productive in instrument building than are professionals because they earn their living from other work. Most violins and all violas in my town are now built by my brother who teaches at an elementary school, even if there are three luthiers specialized on violins.

I think the point is not whether you have formal training or not, but whether you are willing to study what other people had done before you, a question of respect. With a formal training you are forced to respect, without it's your free will.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on January 5, 2017 at 11:49pm

Moritz,

That's really interesting that Germany has maintained the medieval guild tradition of apprentice-journeyman-master-master of masters. I didn't realize there were still itinerant journeymen instrument builders traveling Europe such as you describe.

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Permalink Reply by Moritz Voegeli on January 6, 2017 at 12:28am

Journeymen typically are carpenters, but there are a lot of other professions too, and there are even women on the road: once I met a ??? ( a young lady who shapes stones for construction), once a farmer.

They leave their homes with practically no money and should turn back with no more they had when they started. Typically they move walking or hitchhiking from place to place, they avoid public trafic if possible. With their habit they are recognizable from far and get so a lot of contact to people. I love to meet them.

There is even a shop who sells the traditional tools a wandering carpenter ports in wrapped in a linen on his shoulder:

https://www.dictum.com/en/tools/woodworking-metalworking/hatchets-a...

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Permalink Reply by darryl kernaghan on January 6, 2017 at 2:23am

Great info Moritz, i started to peruse the catalogue, but the "dick chisel" suggested, just maybe those tools are not for me

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Permalink Reply by Taffy Evans on January 5, 2017 at 6:37pm

Thanks Kigar,
Taff.

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Permalink Reply by JL on January 6, 2017 at 4:15am

Rule #1, thou shalt be polite to others, thou shalt reflect upon thy text before clicking the reply button, or we shall forcibly remove your birthday with a rusty fret saw.

Rule #2, thou shalt call it a git only if it has strings that your pinch off (finger/slide/fret) to play different notes. If it has strings you only pluck but do not shorten is such manner, thou shalt call it a harp. if it has nay a single of strings, thou shalt call it Not-Fred.

Rule #3, upon the completion of the first object that produces a sound pleasing to one's own ears, thou shalt be awarded the title "Maker", and thou shalt bear the shame of this brand until the grave.

rule #4 - there is no rule #4

Rule #5 - thou art granted license and encouragement to experiment, be creative, and engage in rabbit-hole diving with alacrity, to seek the wisdom of others who have trod down the path ahead of you, and to trim the shrubbery as you go and so widen the path for those who follow you, picking up cigarette butts, beer cans, fast-food wrappers, gas station receipts, and depositing them in the blue trash can along side the park benches near the hedge.

Rule #6 - Ye can not change the laws of physics Captain!