I usually only make things like a 20th fret, extra strings or weird scale lengths if I am copying an existing instrument but here is a just-finished 20 fret on a standard concert guitar. I tried to make the fretboard extension as aesthetically pleasing as possible, have a look. I used circles of a specific radius to trace the contours and I think it shows. You can compare it to the solutions proposed by others.
Author Archives: johnray
Preparing the sides for the back
#yomequedoencasafestival
If you are a fan of guitar photos you will know that they are very hard to take well. Furthermore, the label of a guitar does not jump out at you in real life nor in a photo. I am always very pleased when a guitarist makes the effort to do that with my guitar.
Now, the point of this post is to celebrate generous gestures by musicians to help make this time a little more pleasant. Here is Maria José Tirado with a video.
Javier Riba has done more for my art than anyone ever could and was the first one to make sure that my name was front and centre on his cd.
His video offering in this time of confinement is with his son and makes us remember that this time can be very much taken advantage of. Piazolla with Javier’s son Ángel.
Last but surely not least is Fernando Espí whose gift is in the form of sheet music, just see his facebook post of March 16 for details.
Here is a little video he recorded before this all started.
Video with no sound
Short workshop in Finland – 2006
The Tampere Guitar Festival is coming up again in June and I like to remember my experience there in 2006. I was invited to do a weeklong workshop on guitar-making in Granada.
The experience and the people were great. In this photo you can see all of the teachers: Aliéksey Vianna, myself, Àlex Garrobé, Lorenzo Micheli and Enrico Bronzi. I guess it is obvious what they were teaching.
Midnight canoe rides were fun too with some great sunsets. My students were guitar-making students at the nearby Ikaalinen institute. For a few years the organizers hosted a luthier’s exhibition but I never participated. Actually I think they started that the year after I was there. The teachers and players invited to this event have always been top-notch and it has really become a reference festival.











