Somoygi students list?

[Trevor M]

Fantastic, thanks for the explanation Jason. You are a fountain of knowledge and I - and I am sure others - really appreciate the time you spend on the forum with your insights.

[taxman]

Thank you Jason, for your detailed comment about this topic.

I have a question about the oneweek class, that ervin gives, and his books.
Is the Information in the class and books the same, or are there differences, deeper Informations in the class, wich are only given by Ervin himself ?
I know, to get in touch with a person/mentor and other students is always better for learning and thinking, but could (in your perspective) one "get it" only with the books?

I´m asking this, because i own and read the books (and can´t wait for the next). First i thought "yes, i understand", but after reading again and again, thinking and rereading, i have more questions then before. It is like open a door, only to find many other doors behind it.

[Pat Foster]

Thanks for those revelations, Jason. Ervin did some repairs for me in the early 70s and it please me to no end seeing what he's accomplished since then.

Pat

[jkostal]

Originally Posted by taxman

Thank you Jason, for your detailed comment about this topic.

I have a question about the oneweek class, that ervin gives, and his books.
Is the Information in the class and books the same, or are there differences, deeper Informations in the class, wich are only given by Ervin himself ?
I know, to get in touch with a person/mentor and other students is always better for learning and thinking, but could (in your perspective) one "get it" only with the books?

I´m asking this, because i own and read the books (and can´t wait for the next). First i thought "yes, i understand", but after reading again and again, thinking and rereading, i have more questions then before. It is like open a door, only to find many other doors behind it.

The class essentially covers the information in the books but with the additional benefit of being able to ask questions, learn from your peers in the class, and also partake in some great tutorials that help you understand things a little better. When I taught guitar building at Roberto-Venn, we believed that people learn in one of three ways...seeing it done through demonstrations, learning by reading handouts and executing the work itself while being supervised. The benefit to any good class is that you get all three of these methods of instruction. For many, one method will be enough, but occasionally you reach a point where you are confused or uncertain with one method, and then a different method gives you the answers you are looking for.

The main problem with the books, in my personal opinion, is that You get out of it a level of information correlative to your experience level. they are written in the same way that Ervin teaches (the Socratic method of answering questions with more questions to get you to do the discovery learning yourself and think through the solution). While this frustrates a lot of people who just want the answers, the truth is that this method of teaching teaches you a mindset that allows for understanding, and application in ANY setting, not just the example used in the book. In the end, doing this kind of in-depth studying of a process makes you better able to apply it however you need to within the scope of your own work.

The drawback is exactly like you identified, which is that it tends to raise a lot of questions, and with a book, there is no one to raise your hand and ask for clarification. As a result, people with a lot of experience have fewer questions, grasp the information more readily, and tend to get a lot out of the books, whereas newer and inexperienced builders may find a lot of what is covered to be difficult to grasp and understand. The problem is that there is nowhere to go to fill the gap.

In that regard, I believe the class is a much better option for thoroughly understanding the subjects and learning to apply them, and the book is a great reference to look back on after having taken the class, or if you are someone with a higher level of experience and knowledge in terms of building. When I took the class we started a yahoo forum for all of the people that attended, and were trying to add other past members as well so that we had a group that we could turn to and ask questions after the class was over. This would have been a great resource, but the truth is no one wanted to put the time into creating it and maintaining it, and eventually the idea just kind of went away.

The two biggest things that I got out of the class that I still rely on today was a day of "designing a guitar based on a client's needs" and the "listening test". The design day was pretty straightforward, with the caveat that Ervin would request some off the wall stuff... i.e. the client wants a large bodied sound in a small bodied guitar with a longer scale length for alternate tunings. He has some medical issues that make playing the guitar difficult with his left hand and shoulder and also wants to be able to play flamenco on it as well as fingerstyle while having it be a good strummer for his grandchild. We would then have to sit down and design the guitar from scratch based on what we had learned...materials, bracing pattern for the top, bracing pattern for the back, thickness of the plates, radius of the plates, etc. I do this almost every day in my current building, and it was invaluable to me to see how much we can manipulate the guitar to achieve a desired sound if we know what we are doing.

The listening test is exactly what it sounds like... we sat in a room with 15 or so guitars, some ours, some Ervin's and some other brands, and listened to two guitars being played as equally as possible, and made notes. By comparing each guitar to one another, we were able to start to train our ear to hear things like attenuation, attack, clarity, sustain, response, etc. In the end, we each had a guitar that we thought was the best, and sometimes they matched, and sometimes we all disagreed, which taught me a lot about sound and the subjectivity of it. That is why we are able to have so many incredible builders out there. Just like flavors of ice cream, we all desire something and sometimes even within the same flavor, we prefer a specific brand. Every maker that I know is doing world-class work and we are not really trying to compete against one another, but rather find those 8-15 people each year that like what we do more than others.

The class has produced some amazing graduates...Michael Greenfield, Kathy Wingert, Michael Bashkin, Tim McKnight, Steve Denvir, Rick Micheletti, and many others. I would personally argue that all of these people were incredible luthiers before they arrived, and that Ervin's class gave them something to think about...maybe one thing, maybe many things, but in the end, it was how they took that information and applied it that made it worthwhile. You can get that same information out of the books, but I think that you have to look harder to find it.

Jason

[Larry Pattis]

Originally Posted by jkostal

I thought that I would chime in on this discussion as I believe that I am the only one out there that has taken Ervin's class AND done the full apprenticeship. There are always so many ideas about both and what one gets from them and how they differ.

To start, in answer to the OPs original question, the list provided by Jmagill is the most comprehensive list of who has showed up for the apprentice program. The duration of the apprenticeship has changed over the years, starting with 1.5 years in the beginning all the way up to three years, and lately it has hovered right around the two-year mark due to training visa requirements for those coming from overseas (Gustav, Hiroshi, Tom). Some of the people on the list did not make it through the program, either ending it of their own accord or at Ervin's request, so there are people that came to Ervin's for a few months and then left.

The main reason for the change in length over the years is based on expectations of both the apprentice and the mentor. It takes about 1 year to fully learn and grasp all of the things that you experience in the apprenticeship. You may witness them or experience them faster, but it seems pretty natural that at the one year mark you are able to execute everything to standard but have little experience doing so. The length of the apprenticeship changed in the beginning so that Ervin could have some benefit from the things that he taught by having the apprentice work on guitars for a while after the one year mark, and the apprentice received the benefit of being able to refine their skills while under the tutelage of Ervin or the senior apprentice. The normal apprenticeship entails two apprentices, usually about a year apart in education along with a shop manager and Ervin himself working on guitars. Until 2011, the shop manager was Lewis Santer. While he never did an apprenticeship with Ervin, he has worked with him for over 20 years, and can do everything in that shop without question. Prior to working for Ervin he did apprentice with T.J. Thompson and is an incredible builder and repairman in every sense of the word. Lewis Left in 2011, and Chris Morimoto stepped into that role. Chris finished his apprenticeship as I was arriving at the end of 2008. At the time, there was no junior apprentice as Mark Tripp had left early, and Ervin was writing his books, which took up a lot of time. As a result, Ervin asked Chris to stay on as an employee and teach me. Chris accepted, and much of my instruction in those early months came from Chris. When I left, Chris maintained his status and has been there ever since. While he is technically an employee, he has been building at Ervin's shop continuously since 2006. I can say without hesitation that Chris is the finest guitar builder I have ever seen in my entire life. I hope that one day he will go off on his own, and as Josh pointed out, he has built two exceptional guitars...the OO that Josh mentions is mine, and it is one of the most prized guitars in my collection. I feel very fortunate to have studied under him, and I am the luthier that I am today as much because of him as Ervin himself.

As many of you know, I am a big guitar collector as well. My current collection has 103 guitars in it, with over 70% of those being luthier made instruments. I own guitars by many of the apprentices (Mario Bearugard, Michi Matsuda, Hiro Ebata, Ray Kraut, Chris Morimoto, and Gustav Fredell) as well as one of Ervin's guitars. I have a pretty good idea how each builder is building and what they are doing the same and what they are doing differently. I don't have a lot of experience with Leo, Hiroshi and Juliann's guitars, but the few that I have played have been incredible, and I have no reason to not believe that Tom is following in their footsteps.

So all of this leads me to the original comment about the apprenticeship vs the class. I think that both of them are worthy endeavors, and both will most likely make someone a better builder, but I, in no way, think either is necessary to be an exceptional builder. Both experiences are partly about what Ervin teaches, but a large part of one's success is based on how someone understands the information, internalizes it and executes it. Much like with college, some of the most intelligent people I have ever met have no degree past high school, and some of the most ignorant people I have ever met have some incredible degrees. Experience alone will not make you great...understood and applied experience is what makes someone good.

The main difference between the week long voicing class and the apprenticeship is what is taught and why it is taught. Despite what many believe, the two are completely different.

The voicing class is taught with the expectation that once the class is over, the student will return home and continue to build their guitars, applying what they learned in the class. The class teaches broad concepts that are definitely on an advanced level, and if applied properly, can help someone improve, and better understand, how they are building their OOs or archtops or violins, or OMs. It is not specific to one style or method of building, but rather gives you the understanding of how the instrument works, differentiating between what parts are science and what parts are art, and allowing the builder to manipulate the materials to achieve a desired outcome. I agree with Mark and Tim in that this philosophy and form of instruction differs from what a lot of people teach and there is no one else out there that I know of doing this. I took this class prior to beginning my apprenticeship, and in some ways it changed my entire outlook on how the guitar is built, and what it is capable of.

The apprenticeship touches on many of these ideas, but what we really get out of the apprenticeship is a specific way to build a guitar...Ervin's way. We are not changing things on a daily basis, or doing a lot of new developments...we are learning to build Ervin's guitars, exactly as Ervin builds them. By the end of the apprenticeship, each apprentice is building every aspect of Ervin's guitars with the exception of voicing the guitar. That is something that only Ervin does. We each learn that process by watching, observing, asking questions, and listening for the answers. As such, each of us gets a different experience and foundation when it comes to voicing. While each of us understands how Ervin voices the guitar, and could emulate it, we are encouraged to find our own voice.

It's interesting because in the Japanese market, there have been some people that are critical of the apprentices as not being able to build a guitar "exactly" like the master, which in that culture, I am lead to believe that being able to accurately replicate the master's work is the ultimate form of mastery. But in reality, Ervin does not want a bunch of "little Ervin's" running around... he wants us to take what we have learned, internalize it, and make it our own. Part of the reason we, as former apprentices, aren't really in competition with one another is because we all do things differently. Each of us, at the time of our departure from Ervin's, is building a guitar most like what Ervin is doing at that moment. The minute we leave though, that path diverges as Ervin continues on his path, and each of us sets out to find our own path.

So the apprenticeship is really about learning how Ervin builds his guitars, understanding the approach and the philosophy, owning it and practicing it for a few years, and then he lets us go out into the world and see what we can do with it. The voicing class, on the other hand is about learning the concepts behind how a guitar works and how it can be manipulated and then using that and applying it to the work that a builder was doing before they arrived. Both are incredibly valuable as part of a journey that we, as luthiers take, but neither is required in any way, shape or form to be a good, or great builder. While there is some overlap between the two, my experience after having done both, is that they are completely different.

Didn't mean to write a thesis on here, but I get asked about this a lot and thought that I would share my thoughts!

Jason

In the parlance of the day:

Mic drop.

[JamesO]

Originally Posted by Larry Pattis

In the parlance of the day:

Mic drop.

That's how I feel whenever I have the chance to talk to Jason.

[steveh]

That first post by Jason is one of the best I've ever read on this Forum. It really is "horse's mouth" stuff and in very lucid and accessible language.

I think it's interesting the way this thread has morphed: The OP was quite clearly talking about Ervin's apprentices and after a few posts we're talking about the classes and the line between the two is getting blurred until Jason's erudite exposition.

They are quite clearly very different things: One is a seminar and the other is a PhD. Similarly, the entry requirements are quite different.

Despite this, I've heard some who have taken the classes frame it to potential customers in such a way that they implied much more; that they had effectively "apprenticed" with Ervin.

I said it's possible to detect a common DNA in the apprentice guitars, which is not surprising since - as Jason said - they all build the same guitar (Ervin's) day-in-day-out for a couple of years.

I cannot detect anywhere near the same degree of commonality between those builders I've played who have taken the class alone. And that would have to be expected given their much more limited direct exposure to Somogyi's work and indeed making it.

Having said all that, some of the very best guitars I've played have come from luthiers who've been nowhere near Oakland. They just don't sound like Somogyis, that's all.

Cheers,
Steve

[nobo]

Just wanted to say thank you to Jason for taking the time to write those two lengthy and fascinating posts. A much appreciated insight!

Dan

[taxman]

Originally Posted by nobo

Just wanted to say thank you to Jason for taking the time to write those two lengthy and fascinating posts. A much appreciated insight!

Dan

Same here, thank you for your comments Jason !

[Julian Gaffney]

Originally Posted by jkostal

...

Well said.

Originally Posted by taxman

I´m asking this, because i own and read the books (and can´t wait for the next). First i thought "yes, i understand", but after reading again and again, thinking and rereading, i have more questions then before. It is like open a door, only to find many other doors behind it.

Ervin has been disinclined to offer the class again since his last in 2015. For you or anyone on the fence, now might be the right time to enquire. Maybe you'll sway him back. It is a wonderful class.

[Eire]

What marvelous, lucid, and detailed explanations. Thank you, Jason, for taking the time to write so extensively. As a university professor, I'd especially like to point out the wisdom I see in these particular remarks:

Originally Posted by jkostal

Much like with college, some of the most intelligent people I have ever met have no degree past high school, and some of the most ignorant people I have ever met have some incredible degrees. Experience alone will not make you great...understood and applied experience is what makes someone good....

But in reality, Ervin does not want a bunch of "little Ervin's" running around... he wants us to take what we have learned, internalize it, and make it our own.

I can imagine no better definition of the perfect teaching environment. Bravo to Ervin, and to all those who have gained from his insight and found their own path through understanding, internalization, and application.

[bond_fan]

Originally Posted by rogthefrog

From Ervin himself:

http://www.esomogyi.com/education.html

The link isn't working now.

[Kerbie]

Originally Posted by bond_fan

The link isn't working now.

This thread is nearly four years old.

[Dogma]

Really glad someone resurrected it! I, for one, wouldn't have seen it otherwise. A good read.

[Guitars44me]

Originally Posted by Dogma

Really glad someone resurrected it! I, for one, wouldn't have seen it otherwise. A good read.

Another big thanks to Jason Kostal for his most erudite explanations!!!

Cool thread bubbles back to the surface...

Merry, happy, ho ho ho

Paul