We Made It: Guitar Maker Brian Cohen (Julian Bream content)

[Carey]

"..Among the instruments hanging in his workshop upstairs awaiting attention is Julian Bream's first-ever concert guitar, a Martin instrument which the 13-year-old Bream played at Cheltenham Town Hall in 1947. Cohen, who once restored the guitar for auction at Sotheby's, later bought it from Bream himself. Cohen got to know Bream, one of the greatest champions the classical guitar has ever had, after the guitarist approached him in 1991 to ask if he could make him a copy of a 1940 guitar by the renowned German maker Hermann Hauser, which Bream then had on loan. Over the next six years, Cohen made eight guitars for Bream, "all refinements of this same one," and found himself involved in an exacting process of learning and discovery.

"I learned a lot from Bream in the sense that he had vast experience of playing all sorts of guitars," he explains, pulling up a chair and sipping tea. Clients phone at regular intervals, but he lets the answering machine take the calls. "Most guitarists are completely unaware. They just play the guitar, and if the frets don't buzz that's alright. But Bream is way beyond that. He's the only person I've known who could play a guitar and he wouldn't look at it, but he'd say, 'You've got two bars on the right of the bridge haven't you, Brian?' [referring to the instrument's internal construction]. He could feel it through his fingers, which I've never known anybody else do.".."

https://theartsdesk.com/we-made-it/w...er-brian-cohen

[David Eastwood]

Fascinating article - thanks for sharing it.

[Carey]

You are welcome- I thought it was a neat view into Cohen's shop, along with
the Bream stuff.