Opinions on Luthiers - path to being well known

[Howard Klepper]

Originally Posted by JoeCharter

Howard, I think your memory is playing tricks on you on this very topic as you keep putting words in my mouth that I did not say.

I have never said that your Wabi-Sabi guitar was "ugly" or that it would not sell. Quite frankly I thought the discussion was awful but the guitar was pretty and I'm not surprised that it was a success.

What I did take offense with were some of your harsh and judgmental comments about people who obsessed about certain visual aspects. I mentioned it to you offline and you edited your comment, presumably because you agreed with me. We're cool here, no need to revisit.

I actually like a lot of the Wabi-Sabi art and would welcome it in my home anytime. But like I've said before, some imperfections are prettier than others. If anyone here thinks that Wabi-Sabi is NOT regulated, I'd suggest that they think again.

This is not to say that there's only one standard of beauty -- but some artists are simply more talented than others, regardless of the style that they're going for.

Mau, you are denying saying what I never said that you said. I did not say you said the Wabi-Sabi guitar is "ugly." I specified that someone else (Juston) said it wouldn't sell. But you did suggest pretty strongly that I was alienating my potential customers.

I normally consider PMs to be confidential, but since you quoted one of mine in the Wabi-Sabi thread without asking my permission, and are now questioning whether I remember your comments accurately, I think your permission has been given. To avoid any suggestion about editing, I'm quoting two PMs--yours and mine--in full. Apologies to anyone who thinks I'm using too many bytes.

I said above, "You said people just want a beautiful guitar." He is what you wrote to me (quoting an entire paragraph). Perhaps I should not have changed "simply" to "just?" I didn't think that changed any meaning:
[bolding added to highlight the relevant section]

Originally Posted by JoeCharter

Thanks for getting back to me, Howard.

As a vocal "protester" against run-out, I felt a little targeted indeed.

Also, I, like many others, enjoy the aesthetics of a guitar and I appreciate clean and precise wood work. It doesn't mean I don't care about the sound. In fact I find that kind of "black or white" comment so frustrating -- and so wrong.

Of course there are ignorant jerks on the forum (especially in the General section) but there are also nice guys who simply like a beautiful guitar and who may well appreciate your work. Why take a chance and offend the latter group -- just to sound tough or cool? Your art is worth more than that.

Just my perspective.

Be well.

Mau

I replied:

Originally Posted by Howard Klepper

Mau, it seems I was too brief in explaining myself.

I never said that those who enjoy a certain aesthetic, either as builders or players, don't care about sound. I think it was Juston who tried to put those words in my mouth, and I very clearly and publicly corrected his misapprehension.

We live in an age in which people are quick to take umbrage, especially over what they perceive may be some slight to them on the internet. I think it is too bad that so many people do not know the difference between criticizing an idea someone may hold and faulting him or her as a person.

You are using the phrases "appreciate the aesthetics of a guitar," and "who simply like a beautiful guitar" as if there is only one aesthetic for guitars and one standard of beauty. I am exploring and explaining a different aesthetic and sense of beauty. That is the point of the thread, and I can see that it has drawn the attention of many people who find it interesting and are being supportive of it. I hope find out for myself what that aesthetic might do for my work, and to share it. I have not called one aesthetic wrong and the other right, but as I said, clear contrasting examples help me to explain the difference. I was also very clear that I have not abandoned one aesthetic in order to work in the other one.

I prefer not to limit myself to bland, safe expression out of fear that someone may not like what I have to say about an issue or about art. I am not afraid to take chances with my craft, or with speaking about new ideas I want to try. Your suggestion that I am just trying to act "cool" or "tough" is misplaced, although I think I can understand your reaction. I appreciate your concern that I might alienate a potential customer. But someone who can be alienated by hearing that his aesthetic is not the only one I might work in and try to understand is unlikely to be a customer of mine in the first place.

Thanks again for letting me hear your reaction. I value your perspective. As I said, I will take try to avoid making comments that may be misconstrued.

Best wishes,
Howard

I think we both understand each other on the substance, and there is not much to add. I'm posting here only in response to it being said that I misquoted you or put words in your mouth that were never said. I hope we're good. Alas, I still need to work on avoiding misconstrual, although I guess it can never be entirely prevented. And sorry if I have misconstrued you!

[JoeCharter]

Howard, I think our conversation is a little too "refined" for a discussion forum -- at least from my perspective as I don't have the attention span to review my texts carefully. I don't think I'm able to say what I want to say as I'm still (partially) unable to get through to you.

Originally Posted by Howard Klepper

Mau, you are denying saying what I never said that you said. I did not say you said the Wabi-Sabi guitar is "ugly." I specified that someone else (Juston) said it wouldn't sell. But you did suggest pretty strongly that I was alienating my potential customers.

I did NOT suggest that you would alienate some potential customers by building a Wabi-Sabi guitar. I did suggest you could alienate some potential customers by making judgmental comments about people who may prefer a non Wabi-Sabi approach.

Originally Posted by Howard Klepper

I normally consider PMs to be confidential, but since you quoted one of mine in the Wabi-Sabi thread without asking my permission, and are now questioning whether I remember your comments accurately, I think your permission has been given.

I don't recall quoting a PM of yours publicly nor can I find a trace of it in your thread. But no offense taken.

Originally Posted by Howard Klepper

I'm posting here only in response to it being said that I misquoted you or put words in your mouth that were never said. I hope we're good. Alas, I still need to work on avoiding misconstrual, although I guess it can never be entirely prevented. And sorry if I have misconstrued you!

Again no offense taken whatsoever -- but I disagree that I've said the emboldened parts in the following quote:

Originally Posted by Howard Klepper

As I've said to you before, Mau, you assume that beauty and ugliness are objective qualities and that people agree about which guitars have them. I see ample evidence that this is not the case.

For one thing, many of us consider some of the guitars that sell well to be ugly. But let's put that aside, because those guitars mostly have well-regulated fit and finish (I like David Pye's use of the term 'regulation' to mean uniformity since it is so much more objective than 'good' or 'bad'). What people may dislike about these guitars is an aesthetic concept rather than its execution.

Instead I'll remind you of my "Wabi-Sabi" guitar, with which I set out to pursue an aesthetic that rejects highly regulated visual aspects. You and Juston criticized me for suggesting an alternative to the standard of high regulation, and when you said that people just want a beautiful guitar, my reply was that there is more than one standard of beauty. Juston said that I would never be able to sell the guitar.

It sold within a week of being completed, the first day I brought it to a small guitar show. It's owner does not just like the way it sounds; he thinks it is beautiful.

You and I could have a discussion about beauty for hours without getting to the bottom of it. Let's save that for our next in person meeting.

As a guitar fan who enjoys both vintage instruments and shiny new ones, and as someone who has very diverse taste in beauty, I think we do understand each other for the most part.

[Truckjohn]

Honesly - there is a lot of salesmanship and marketing involved, as well as reputation management... And there is a lot of luck in being in the right place at the right time...

Notice that nearly every maker noted as "big time" here in the thread was established before the recent hand making boom kicked over and worked through it... Somogyi, Greenfield, Manzer, De Jong, Ryan, Olson, Taylor, and Collings were already "reputed names" when the boom happened.... 10 years before and you have guys like Larivee Sr., Eugene Clark, and Ted Davis - highly skilled, but they never hit the big time during their lives simply because they arrived a little too early.. 10 years later and the playing field is was so crowded that I will contend that the same fellows would not have received the same notoriety... If Strad would have been building in the 1900's - nobody would know his name outside of a few player/collector circles...

Its pretty amazing what brand recognition and reputation will sell. There was a significant period of time where a Gibson Les Paul was an inferior instrument to many $300 Asian knockoffs.. But yet the instruments were better in every category, those knockoff makers could not succeed at selling those instruments at even 1/3 the price of the Gibson... And Gibson sold every one they made - warts and all - at full price...

[gitarro]

Originally Posted by Truckjohn

Honesly - there is a lot of salesmanship and marketing involved, as well as reputation management... And there is a lot of luck in being in the right place at the right time...

Notice that nearly every maker noted as "big time" here in the thread was established before the recent hand making boom kicked over and worked through it... Somogyi, Greenfield, Manzer, De Jong, Ryan, Olson, Taylor, and Collings were already "reputed names" when the boom happened.... 10 years before and you have guys like Larivee Sr., Eugene Clark, and Ted Davis - highly skilled, but they never hit the big time during their lives simply because they arrived a little too early.. 10 years later and the playing field is was so crowded that I will contend that the same fellows would not have received the same notoriety... If Strad would have been building in the 1900's - nobody would know his name outside of a few player/collector circles...

Its pretty amazing what brand recognition and reputation will sell. There was a significant period of time where a Gibson Les Paul was an inferior instrument to many $300 Asian knockoffs.. But yet the instruments were better in every category, those knockoff makers could not succeed at selling those instruments at even 1/3 the price of the Gibson... And Gibson sold every one they made - warts and all - at full price...

I agree with what you said there with only a few caveats...

Actually greenfield only started building his.own guitsrs much more recently - only after 1998.

http://www.acousticmagazine.com/inte...el-greenfield/

So he actually belongs to the group of much more recent luthiers of less than 20 year vintage rather than the senior luthiers who started building in the 1970s like millard, somogyi, laskin, manzer, Olson, and de jonge who are coming up to the 40 year mark or greater. Like many other luthiers, it has been said that it was after greenfield took a voicing seminar from.somogyi in the late 2000s that his guitars took a leap to the next level.

Kevin Ryan is this year just completing his 30 year anniversary as a luthier so he is also belonging in the next older batch of luthiers who made their start after the 40 year veterans.

As for bob Taylor, he started out making guitars not as a solo luthier but in rhe context of a factory operation. While bill collings started out as a solo luthier building guitars, he phased into a factory operation and only built mostly archtops after that on his own from what I hv read.

[justonwo]

Well looky there, I'm being dragged into this thread. Glad I checked back in after a few weeks. Let it go for once, Howard. Good grief.

[justonwo]

And for the record, since I don't have the fortitude to go back and read where all this came from, I will simply quote myself from the wabi sabi thread.

This is in response to your OP, which I thought was worded tactlessly. You did go back and change the OP.

"It is apparent, Howard, that you find the persuit of aesthetic perfection distasteful, as you've made clear here and in other threads. I certainly appreciate the quality and tonality of your guitars. I don't, however, believe that the pursuit of aesthetic perfection is either 1) a bad thing or 2) at odds with the pursuit of great tone. I'm not sure if that was your implication. Perhaps not. But there are many great builders who pursue and achieve both. I appreciate that aesthetic. I also appreciate yours. Very much. As I've spent countless hours enjoying my Klepper. I look forward to this thread, but the tone associated with the OP doesn't sit right with me. I hope you achieve the aesthetic you are going for."

My next response. Look, there's even a COMPLIMENT in there . . . something I've spent A LOT of time doing on this forum about Klepper guitars.

"I believe I have seen guitars that are perfect in the colloquial sense of the word. They are executed without flaws - at least none that I can see. A flaw being something that happens to the guitar that's counter to the builder's intention.

Regardless, a great guitar is a great guitar, and you build some of the best. But I don't see the need to disparage those who value "highly regulated" guitars as vain or smug. I judge each guitar I play and own on its own merits. I keep my Klepper in like new condition, even though I play it often. I don't consider that pursuit vain (in more ways than one). I am also pretty anal about construction details. Maybe I'm exactly the person you describe. Ha ha. I probably am. I agree with you that guitars don't have to have a high degree of regulated perfection to be considered great guitars. But a guitar with a low degree of aesthetic regulation has a higher barrier to overcome with me. So is a builder supposed to try hard but not TOO hard to execute their guitar with a high degree of regulation?"

Next response.

"Howard, I understand what you mean about having a disagreement without taking things personally. However, I think when you start using words like "smug" and "vain" (as in vanity), you begin to venture out of the arena of pure intellectual criticism and into the arena of value judgement, so it is no surprise to me that you are getting emails through the back-channel. On the one hand, you have stated that you aren't abandoning the pursuit of high regulation on your guitars, and yet on the other hand you are criticizing your customers for valuing (or perhaps over-valuing) those things. Perhaps you are frustrated by the market's demand that you maintain a high degree of precision and perfection (colloquial usage) on your guitars?"

My next response. Gosh, what is that? Another compliment???

"Fair enough. Regardless of the aesthetic goals, I'm sure it will be a stellar guitar, as all Kleppers I have played have been. I think red spruce and pernambuco is an excellent choice, and I like both sets you have chosen. Keep up the photos."

I did NOT say the guitar would never sell, thank you very much. I merely expressed concern that the market acceptance would be limited.

"Yeah, the problem I see with this whole project, regardless of the artistic goal, is that Howard will ultimately be stuck with trying to get this guitar into the marketplace. By leaving these kinds of marks on the guitar, he will automatically whittle his target audience down to a very small fraction of the usual target audience - which is already small to begin with. It's fine if you don't care if the guitar ever sells, but in my opinion leaving marks in the wood from the side bender is just asking for trouble from a marketability standpoint. Admittedly, I don't understand even the basic tenets of wabi sabi, but I don't know at what point leaving mistakes on the guitar transforms from mistakes-on-a-guitar to wabi sabi art."

Howard, I love your guitars. You do have a penchant for arguing things to the umpteenth degree until the other folks in the thread lose their will to live. I haven't said anything about wabi sabi in this thread. You can have disagreements with Mau. I don't want to be involved, and I certainly don't want to be misrepresented. I think if your average forumite were to google "justonwo" and "Klepper" they would see that I have 99.999999% very positive things to say about your guitar. I own one for god's sake. You are totally misrepresenting what I said about that guitar, and I don't appreciate it.

[Howard Klepper]

Originally Posted by justonwo

And for the record, since I don't have the fortitude to go back and read where all this came from, I will simply quote myself from the wabi sabi thread.

This is in response to your OP, which I thought was worded tactlessly. You did go back and change the OP.

"It is apparent, Howard, that you find the persuit of aesthetic perfection distasteful, as you've made clear here and in other threads. I certainly appreciate the quality and tonality of your guitars. I don't, however, believe that the pursuit of aesthetic perfection is either 1) a bad thing or 2) at odds with the pursuit of great tone. I'm not sure if that was your implication. Perhaps not. But there are many great builders who pursue and achieve both. I appreciate that aesthetic. I also appreciate yours. Very much. As I've spent countless hours enjoying my Klepper. I look forward to this thread, but the tone associated with the OP doesn't sit right with me. I hope you achieve the aesthetic you are going for."

My next response. Look, there's even a COMPLIMENT in there . . . something I've spent A LOT of time doing on this forum about Klepper guitars.

"I believe I have seen guitars that are perfect in the colloquial sense of the word. They are executed without flaws - at least none that I can see. A flaw being something that happens to the guitar that's counter to the builder's intention.

Regardless, a great guitar is a great guitar, and you build some of the best. But I don't see the need to disparage those who value "highly regulated" guitars as vain or smug. I judge each guitar I play and own on its own merits. I keep my Klepper in like new condition, even though I play it often. I don't consider that pursuit vain (in more ways than one). I am also pretty anal about construction details. Maybe I'm exactly the person you describe. Ha ha. I probably am. I agree with you that guitars don't have to have a high degree of regulated perfection to be considered great guitars. But a guitar with a low degree of aesthetic regulation has a higher barrier to overcome with me. So is a builder supposed to try hard but not TOO hard to execute their guitar with a high degree of regulation?"

Next response.

"Howard, I understand what you mean about having a disagreement without taking things personally. However, I think when you start using words like "smug" and "vain" (as in vanity), you begin to venture out of the arena of pure intellectual criticism and into the arena of value judgement, so it is no surprise to me that you are getting emails through the back-channel. On the one hand, you have stated that you aren't abandoning the pursuit of high regulation on your guitars, and yet on the other hand you are criticizing your customers for valuing (or perhaps over-valuing) those things. Perhaps you are frustrated by the market's demand that you maintain a high degree of precision and perfection (colloquial usage) on your guitars?"

My next response. Gosh, what is that? Another compliment???

"Fair enough. Regardless of the aesthetic goals, I'm sure it will be a stellar guitar, as all Kleppers I have played have been. I think red spruce and pernambuco is an excellent choice, and I like both sets you have chosen. Keep up the photos."

I did NOT say the guitar would never sell, thank you very much. I merely expressed concern that the market acceptance would be limited.

"Yeah, the problem I see with this whole project, regardless of the artistic goal, is that Howard will ultimately be stuck with trying to get this guitar into the marketplace. By leaving these kinds of marks on the guitar, he will automatically whittle his target audience down to a very small fraction of the usual target audience - which is already small to begin with. It's fine if you don't care if the guitar ever sells, but in my opinion leaving marks in the wood from the side bender is just asking for trouble from a marketability standpoint. Admittedly, I don't understand even the basic tenets of wabi sabi, but I don't know at what point leaving mistakes on the guitar transforms from mistakes-on-a-guitar to wabi sabi art."

Howard, I love your guitars. You do have a penchant for arguing things to the umpteenth degree until the other folks in the thread lose their will to live. I haven't said anything about wabi sabi in this thread. You can have disagreements with Mau. I don't want to be involved, and I certainly don't want to be misrepresented. I think if your average forumite were to google "justonwo" and "Klepper" they would see that I have 99.999999% very positive things to say about your guitar. I own one for god's sake. You are totally misrepresenting what I said about that guitar, and I don't appreciate it.

Jeez, Juston. I had no intent to offend you. I regret that I did.

[JoeCharter]

Beauty standards do evolve and there will never be 100% agreement about them -- but they exist for a reason.

And it's not because one guitar with pseudo mistakes was sold that it proves any point.

If masses start praising guitars with aesthetic flaws, then we can talk.

[ChuckS]

To me it seems time for some members to consider using PMs or other forms of private communications.

[JoeCharter]

Back to the OP, I think the answer becomes obvious when you look at the industry heavy weights -- Martin, Gibson, Fender.

The instruments have to be decently built and there has to be a decent marketing strategy. And of course a bit of luck is necessary as well.

Martin, Gibson and Fender have been around forever and the majority of the popular music that we love has been played on one of their instruments.

In that sense, guitars are no different from running shoes and mascara.

[tadol]

As the extremely pleased and incredibly happy owner of the Wabi-sabi mentioned, I can only say that the one part of the argument that everyone needs to agree on is that for any design, detail, aesthetic, or material that a craftsman and artist chooses to use, they only need 1 customer to appreciate and love it for what it is - in fact, the need to have things that appeal to everyone, that everyone can agree on or are desirable to everyone, is particularly unappealing to me -

Otherwise, we'd all play guitar like Bieber, or some other pop icon thats sold hundreds of millions of records, but I don't think I'd ever buy, eh?

[Alan Carruth]

Just as we might not agree on what 'beautiful' is, we probably should determine what we mean by a 'great' guitar maker. To me, individuals like Torres and C. F. Martin I can be considered 'great', as would be, perhaps, folks like Les Paul and Leo Fender. I'm not as comfortable talking about a company as being 'great' in the same way simply because they have become good at manufacturing a good design. Certainly Martin, Gibson, Fender and Taylor do make some 'great' individual instruments, but that's a matter of chance: one rises above the average of the distribution every once in a while for reasons that may never be known exactly. To me a 'great' maker makes things that are consistently superior in some important respect to the average. Again, it's a point that can be argued: if you take the 'average' guitar to include all the Guitar Like Objects (henceforth 'GLOs') that you see at WalMart, then Martin's 'average' is relatively 'great'.

One point that occurred to me as this has gone forward is that the 'great' makers are seldom innovators in any fundamental sense. Neither Torres nor Martin actually invented anything radically new; they simply were better than most at optimizing designs built around existing features. This is, of course, far from trivial. In the case of Gibson, Orville didn't actually complete the process of optimization; that was left to Lloyd Loar, and may be the singular case of a company that did foster a great design. You might say the same about the Martin Dreadnought, but that could be looked at as the next step beyond the 000.

The problem with fundamental innovation is that there are vested interests that will reject it. In the case of the guitar there is already a body of music that has been constructed and refined around the instruments that are out there. Anything new has to be at least as good as the standard instruments at the existing repertoire, and extend that functionality. Leo Fender made his solid body guitars for Country music, and the fact that they excelled at Rock was a bonus. The more entrenched and refined the musical tradition the harder it is to make fundamental innovations that will fly: there have been a number of efforts to radically alter the Classical guitar, but they have not replaced the basic design that Torres finalized over 150 years ago.

So, if you can accept this, then 'great' makers are the ones who can see, and consistently realize, the potential of already existing designs, in some cases by making minor adjustments that then become part of the 'standard'. In this sense Irvin Somogyi is 'great' because of the 'modified Dread', which has become a model for the modern 'fingerstyle' guitar.