Visitors to guitar workshops often call the builders artists whereas for the most part we call ourselves artisans or craftspeople. Here are some photos of the most artistic part of the guitar so you can make up your own minds. Many of these are my copies or interpretations of historic designs so perhaps not so creative. It is not easy to show a chronological progression here but the first two pictures do show my first attempts at rosette design and in the third you can see an element of the second which inspired that one.

Nigüelas is a small town about 30 minutes from Granada where there seems to be quite a community of music-lovers.The 12-year-old FIAPMSE festival is based there but includes concerts in the surrounding areas. I attended a concert last night, the first of this year’s festival to be held in Nigüelas itself, and had the pleasure of hearing one of Spain’s better guitarists as well as hearing the brand new and beautiful Concerto Gentil composed by the guitarist himself. I have known Fernando since the days when he played on Rolf Eichinger’s guitars and performed and recorded together with Evaristo Valentí.

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The concert was very enjoyable but the guitar pieces were limited to the afore-mentioned concerto and the encore: Piazzola’s Verano Porteño. However, it is very satifying to take someone who is unfamiliar with the guitar to a concert and have them enjoy it. Some guitarists seem to play only for the other guitarists in the audience. This was not the case as I took my brother along last night and he thoroughly enjoyed the music and Fernando’s playing.

Opening night at the Granada Guitar Festival was really quite something. Four guitar concerts with staggered start times that basically ensured that seeing one excluded you from seeing the others especially because they were played to a full house in at least three of the four. I saw the dúo of Álvaro Pérez and Tomás García and they were great. Very traditional but great musicians. Here you can see Álvaro at the Cante de las Minas.

Everyone starts somewhere and although some guitar-makers seem to give the impression that they started at the top and are there to stay I would guess that most of us have some pieces we are at the least slow to pull out when people ask about how we started out.  However, that is part of our journey and who we are. The accompanying phots will show you where I started with all of this. This is the very first instrument I made; a charango built like a guitar. Jonathan Hinves gave me a bit of advice on this and bent the sides on his iron if I remember correctly. 1990.

It was made for a friend and he was happy enough with it so I was encouraged to continue. Next came an acoustic bass for one of the biggest bassists I have ever met (yes taller than me and much heavier). I used a blueprint from GAL for this one and was very glad to have that resource. My uncle Garrett had bought me the subscription to the magazine.  I bought the wood from the only maker who was making basses back then: Manuel Fernandez. He worked a lot for the players of the university bands (Tuna) and was often asked to make a bass guitar perhaps modeled on the guitarrón mejicano. In any case I managed to finish it and put a pickup in it and it did the job! I hardly made any money on that after paying for the wood and the pickup but it was very satisfying.

I do a lot of restorations on historic instruments these days and get even more requests to work on important instruments but my first restoration was on a mandolin that had been given to me by a friend in Canada before I came to Spain. I learned a few jigs and reels on it and came to love Bluegrass in part due to my half-assed plucking on it. The last instrument I will show you is a steel-string which I suppose I made due to the influence of my friend Ignacio who was not much into flamenco and even less into classical guitar. He played rockabilly in a band and we sang Carl Perkins and BIlly Bragg songs in my flat so an acoustic was definitely what he was pushing for. By this time I had made 3 or 4 classical guitars and even sold a few albeit for a relatively low price. This guitar sold too, a Swiss guitarrist if I remember correctly and he was quite happy with it. The sound and the build quality was not too bad but I used the classical pattern that I was used to and you can see that was a mistake, especially for a 14-fret neck.

The upcoming festival in Granada intends to showcase the many guitar-makers working in Granada and the quality of their work. To that end, the program for the concerts of July 26th includes a list of guitar-makers and guitar vendors. The list starts with the makers in town and at the end includes the shops where you can find factory-made instruments made elsewhere for those who are looking for a cheaper alternative.