I think expanding the idea on a great guitar should include built to last. I won't say that I made a great guitar but when Bruce made his walnut guitar I made mine also. The notes seemed to spring off the top, everyone I had play it was impressed. But the top deformed and the bridge peeled off. I need to replace the bridge plate and see what happens.
I think building a great guitar aside from using good wood takes someone technically competent and has a good idea how the guitar functions. They need a good ear to pick out the individual qualities of the notes produced by the guitar and the experience of building a lot of good guitars and determining why the one sounds better than the others. I think this forms into a sort of intuition on how much to leave and take away, reading the materials and having an idea what you can get out of them. Among other things my brother is good at photograph. Technically he can compose a good picture. But he cam to the realization that he does not have that little thing that capture a a moment, a feel. The people at the top of their game just have that something extra, maybe see their art just a little differently than the rest of us (us meaning Bruce excluded).
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Fred
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