Quote:
Originally Posted by charles Tauber
While he has certainly contributed to the landscape of modern American guitar making, few would attribute him with being the "inventor" of it.
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I don't mean to imply that lutherie is solely Ervin Somogyi's creation. C'mon!
But he is indisputably one of greats, and he did do a great deal to blaze the trail and pave the way for the rest of us. When he started, you could practically count small-shop, custom guitar builders on one hand. They were as rare as unicorns. now, we're like ants at a picnic.
It took a lot of courage, vision, and commitment to do what he did. Luthiers everywhere, either directly or indirectly, benefit from Ervin Somogyi's generosity in sharing his scholarship and craft wisdom. We stand on the shoulders of giants like Ervin Somogyi.
And yes, he did invent a lot of the processes and methods that us individual hand-builders use today.