General Observations from Woodstock (WILS)

[jt1]

Woodstock was the best guitar nerd hang, ever. Yes, in all likelihood, "was." As others have pointed out, my dear friend Baker, the heart and soul of the event, is hanging up his guitar festival planning and hosting shoes.

This year's event may have been the best ever. My opinion is most probably influenced by 1) this being the last year, 2) my pal Linda Manzer presenting an overview of her 50 years in Lutherie (she built her first guitar at age 5, apparently ), 3) I was a civilian and didn't need to prepare or present a presentation, and 4) I have incurable, metastatic cancer.

It's not simply that all my pals gather at the event, making it a family reunion for me, or that the luthiers and players are stellar. The setting is amazing. The event is (was) held on Albert Grossman's estate, the fellow who managed Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, the Band, and other cool folks. And the tiny town is awash with arts of all kinds and great restaurants. Plus, the after-hours parties are legendary. Wanna jam with John Sebastian, Cindy Cashdollar, or Larry Campbell? No problem.

And the guitar demos? I've been to all the guitar festivals. All of them. In at least 5 countries. Sure, a few players at a few festivals mention the models/woods of guitars they play. But at every festival, the demo players demo themselves. Always. Seriously, has anyone who's attended these things seen/heard a demo player carefully arpeggiate through open and closed chords on the guitars they demonstrate? Heard them play the same song/chord progression on a luthier's various guitars? Make sure that they hold every guitar at the same distance from the microphone? Or eschew a mic?

The players always demo themselves.

So, yeah, Woodstock demo players are not different from demo players at other guitar shows. But the Woodstock festival? It was ... ... different from all other guitar shows.

But there is T.I.N.Y.! Instituted by Justonwo and yours truly. Nobody can offer to sell guitar. Nobody can pay anything to attend. The food is decent and the beer is outstanding. And you must demo your own guitar.

[sinistral]

Some great summaries and my thoughts on top of the other comments. Also, I took some photos, and created a gallery here. A few notes about the photos and the gallery. First, the lighting in both exhibition halls (two different theaters) seemed to be even more challenging than last year. There were a lot of multi-colored lights that created purplish hues. The iPhone did a better job of adjusting for the lighting, but took less interesting photos. I haven't had time to do any adjusting of the photos, other than not upload to the gallery the worst ones.

Second, there were several builder's guitars that I didn't get a chance to photograph, and some others were so poorly or harshly lit that I omitted them.

Third, there are some builders whose guitars I came back to repeatedly, in particular Kathy Wingert and John Osthoff. It was a lot of fun talking to John and discovering the intricate details of his guitars. See if you can notice some of the more obscure details in the photos.

Lastly, I tried to photograph a builder's nameplate before I took pictures of their guitars, but sometimes forgot and took the nameplate in the middle of the run or not at all, so you might not always be able to tell whose guitars are whose.

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

1) The music I heard from the demonstrators was mostly light jazzy stuff or what I call "modern fingerstyle", a style which emphasizes beautiful sounds over melodies that you can hum along with. Very little music that had fast playing throughout the piece. And not so much that had driving sustained rhythms. No fiddle tunes, Appalachian, bluegrass and very little ragtime, blues, or classical, which is somewhat surprising as these are popular forms of music here.

I of course could not catch every demo performance. (What I heard among the visitors trying out guitars or from the featured performers was not the same.

Several of the guitarists performing demos seem to be on the guitar show circuit—Paul Abel, Dustin Furlow, Tony McManus, Tim Farrell, Kinloch Nelson, Mark Lemaire and Matt Thomas are ones I recognize either from last year's show or from other shows. They are all such phenomenal guitarists in their own styles. I agree that some showcase of the guitarist's virtuosity more so than the guitar, but I found that, between the sound system and the noise from people talking at the bar and in the room generally made it hard to listen very critically to the playing in any case. The demo hall at the Artisan show has been better for listening, but you're still listening through a sound system. At the end of the day, I'm probably like others who find it more entertaining than enlighening.

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

2) Of the guitars on display, I saw one left handed one, one 12 string, and if you don't count classical guitars (there were a small few) only a couple of slotheads. Except for the Beard table, there were no other resophonics that I noticed.

The one left-handed guitar was actually mine. Michel Aboudib completed it about a month or so ago, and I offered to bring it to the show to let him display it. I've spoken with several luthiers about the perils of building a spec guitar for these shows. If only one builder builds one, and builds a relative "safe" guitar (an OM with not-too-crazy woods) at a reasonable price-point (under $10k, and even better under $7-8k), that builder is likely going to sell the guitar. The problem is, if five luthiers all get the same idea, three or four of their guitars might not sell. Fred Tellier brought a lefty OM with a torrefied Lutz spruce top and rosewood back and sides to the 2022 Artisan show, and then to the Fretboard Summit. I ended up buying it at the Fretboard Summit. I haven't seen a lefty guitar at a show since (other than mine).

My only additional observation to add to yours is that I am always surprised how many archtop guitars there are at these shows (not quite as many at Woodstock as at Artisan, but the Artisan show has an emphasis on archtops). I'm curious if the market for these guitars is a great as their representation at shows would suggest?

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

3) A definite majority displayed had cutaways.

As I noted above, I didn't take photos of every guitar, but for those interested, my photos bear this out.

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

4) Only a very few had colored pickguards, more had clear ones. But far more had none.

Ditto. The award for coolest pickguard goes to Mark Hatcher for his sculpted snakewood pickguard (and matching fretboard and other appointments)!

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

5) I didn't notice a single performer anchor their pinkie. Interesting.

Isn't that more of a flatpicking thing? As you noted, most of the performers played fingerstyle.

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

6) Most performers played seated and hardly any of them sang. Yet most people who will end up buying these guitars intend to sing with them.

Hard to tell judging by the audience. I have sort of assumed the opposite (that most buyers of these instruments were not singers, per se). I have no basis for that assumption, and am perhaps projecting my own interests. What makes you think that most are looking for an instrument to sing with?

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

7) I visit the websites that feature all handmade guitars and find Brazilian dominates the offerings. Definitely not so here. I can't say any one wood was dominant in what was offered. Definitely proportionately less mahogany and rosewood than you see in stores, which is isn't so surprising when you think of it.

If there was any common thread I noticed, is the prevalence of guitars with back and side woods that were either highly figured or had interesting grain patterns. This makes sense to me since builders are trying to distinguish their guitars from production guitars (and from each other). Of course, the more exotic woods add to the price...

Some additional observations about the show:

1) Linda Manzer's presentation about her career was for me by far the highlight of the show. The presentation was humorous, inspirational, educational and touching, sometimes all at once. Such a tour de force of an individual. I know that the presentation was filmed and hopefully will be available in some form somewhere.

2) I took more workshops this year than last year, and on the whole they were excellent. Tony McManus and Matt Thomas offered insightful and very different perspectives on open tunings, and Tim Farrell's workshop on his finger style arrangement of The Weight was excellent, including tidbits like why he transposed it for solo guitar.

3) The builder's coffee chat was the best one I've seen. Dick Boak, Tom Ribbecke, Richard Hoover, Michael Gurian and Linda Manzer (forgot the name of the sixth luthier) with commentary from audience members such as John Monteleone—priceless.

4) It was moving to see how emotional Baker was throughout the show. Definitely lends credence to the line, "parting is such sweet sorrow." The rendition of The Weight with lyrics adapted to Baker ("Take a load off, Baker...") was another priceless moment. There are shows with more polish than Woodstock, but not sure any other has as much soul.

[colins]

Originally Posted by sinistral

...Some great summaries and my thoughts on top of the other comments. Also, I took some photos, and created a gallery here...

Thanks so much for posting the photos. Amazing how many different ways there are to interpret a guitar. Visually there is something for every taste and I assume that sonically there was too.

For me the elegance of Kathy Wingert’s guitars always stands out (as does their glorious tone), and those small rectangular inlays on Rebecca Urlacher’s guitars are delightful.

Wish I could have been there, but your photos and the observations by others are a good second best.

[Jamiejoon]

Originally Posted by lfarhadi

Mike -- It really was!!

I discovered this video years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFdnXyjGwoA

I was very moved by this performance. Turns out Tony produced a great set of tabs for it (in standard tuning, blessed be so I was able to chip away at it and practice it often.

But watching Tony play Friday in a small room was so special (even more so in light of last week's events).

If you would like the tab, please shoot me a DM.

I know it is not exactly on topic, but the Henderson 00 Tony McManus plays in the YouTube link is an absolutely magical little guitar. Whoever owns that is LUCKY!

[tommieboy]

Guitars sounding different from the player's side vs the audience's side is a common insight among many of the threads on this and other forums. For those who attended this recent event, have you noticed an increase in luthiers willing to incorporate sound ports in their designs for the benefit of the player?

Tommy

[sinistral]

Originally Posted by tommieboy

Guitars sounding different from the player's side vs the audience's side is a common insight among many of the threads on this and other forums. For those who attended this recent event, have you noticed an increase in luthiers willing to incorporate sound ports in their designs for the benefit of the player?

Tommy

When I think of details that I forgot to take pictures of specifically, soundports is one of them. If you sift through the gallery I posted, you will notice that a high percentage of the guitars with a cutaway had a soundport. They were less prevalent on guitars with traditional shapes (Martin OM/000, 00, Gibson L-00, etc), but they so exist. In fact, of the few dreadnoughts at the show, one actually had a soundport with a sliding cover. I forget who the builder was.

Here’s a link to a gallery of photos from the Artisan Guitar Show earlier this year. I would say that the same observation applied to that show. Soundports are a pretty common feature.

[tommieboy]

Originally Posted by sinistral

When I think of details that I forgot to take pictures of specifically, soundports is one of them. If you sift through the gallery I posted, you will notice that a high percentage of the guitars with a cutaway had a soundport. They were less prevalent on guitars with traditional shapes (Martin OM/000, 00, Gibson L-00, etc), but they so exist. In fact, of the few dreadnoughts at the show, one actually had a soundport with a sliding cover. I forget who the builder was.

Here’s a link to a gallery of photos from the Artisan Guitar Show earlier this year. I would say that the same observation applied to that show. Soundports are a pretty common feature.

Thank you for your response and the link to those photos.

Tommy

[The Bard Rocks]

I played the one with the sliding soundport cover (Gillander Guitars?) and the difference with it open or closed was dramatic.

[sinistral]

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

I played the one with the sliding soundport cover (Gillander Guitars?) and the difference with it open or closed was dramatic.

As a lefty I would never know!

[iim7V7IM7]

In luthier made custom acoustic guitars, the use of sound ports, cutaways, wedges and bevels are fairly common.

That said, there is a major proportion of players who will not consider an instrument incorporating any of these features so while common, they are not ubiquitous. To some, even a traditional guitar incorporating a slot head headstock can be a third rail.

[Guitars44me]

Originally Posted by iim7V7IM7

In luthier made custom acoustic guitars, the use of sound ports, cutaways, wedges and bevels are fairly common.

That said, there is a major proportion of players who will not consider an instrument incorporating any of these features so while common, they are not ubiquitous. To some, even a traditional guitar incorporating a slot head headstock can be a third rail.

This is so interesting to me. Some of the traditional minded folks might live without electricity and indoor plumbing if their spouses would agree to it!

Haha, just cracking wise here, folks….

Something for everyone at this show, I wager.

Cheers

Paul

[sinistral]

Very true. I would also point out that many show guitars are exactly that—show guitars. Some have already been sold, but many are built on spec for the show, with the hopes of being sold at the show. The guitars are a showcase of the luthiers abilities and style, which hopefully resonate (no pun intended) with buyers. Elegantly executed soundports, bevels, cutaways, inlays, veneers, etc, are all part of that, since peoples’ first interaction with the guitars is visual.

Here’s an example of one of Tim McKnight’s soundports from the 2022 Artisan show:



While her guitars weren’t on display in the exhibition halls, the award for virtuosity had to go to Linda Manzer, here shown with one of her guitars built for Pat Metheny (which was also the inspiration for the Manzer wedge):

[canuck7]

Originally Posted by sinistral

Very true. I would also point out that many show guitars are exactly that—show guitars. Some have already been sold, but many are built on spec for the show, with the hopes of being sold at the show. The guitars are a showcase of the luthiers abilities and style, which hopefully resonate (no pun intended) with buyers. Elegantly executed soundports, bevels, cutaways, inlays, veneers, etc, are all part of that, since peoples’ first interaction with the guitars is visual.

Here’s an example of one of Tim McKnight’s soundports from the 2022 Artisan show:



While her guitars weren’t on display in the exhibition halls, the award for virtuosity had to go to Linda Manzer, here shown with one of her guitars built for Pat Metheny (which was also the inspiration for the Manzer wedge):

Going to see Pat Metheny play tonight! Would love to see him play that instrument!!!

[sinistral]

Originally Posted by canuck7

Going to see Pat Metheny play tonight! Would love to see him play that instrument!!!

This guitar was the result of Pat Metheny asking Linda Manzer, “How many strings can you put on a guitar?” She said that she was originally thinking vertically, but the idea of multiple necks was Metheny’s. Iirc, there are 42 strings on this guitar, and she later made guitars with more. I forget how much tension she said was on the top, but it’s a miracle that the guitar has survived this long without exploding. The guitar is so tall that Linda Manzer angled the back so that Metheny could see what he was doing, which gave birth to the Manzer wedge.

I’ve seen videos of him playing it and it is wild. I hope he plays one in the concert you go to! I have a short video of Tony McManus playing a two-neck guitar or hers. The upper neck is fretless, which allows for a variety of alternate tones. I’ll see if I can post the video.

[canuck7]

Originally Posted by sinistral

This guitar was the result of Pat Metheny asking Linda Manzer, “How many strings can you put on a guitar?” She said that she was originally thinking vertically, but the idea of multiple necks was Metheny’s. Iirc, there are 42 strings on this guitar, and she later made guitars with more. I forget how much tension she said was on the top, but it’s a miracle that the guitar has survived this long without exploding. The guitar is so tall that Linda Manzer angled the back so that Metheny could see what he was doing, which gave birth to the Manzer wedge.

I’ve seen videos of him playing it and it is wild. I hope he plays one in the concert you go to! I have a short video of Tony McManus playing a two-neck guitar or hers. The upper neck is fretless, which allows for a variety of alternate tones. I’ll see if I can post the video.

Well, Pat Metheny did play Linda Manzer’s 42 string creation at the concert last night…!