The Tradition and Fine Craftsmanship of Lutherie Resonates in New Hampshire

photos courtesy Tim Gaudreau, http://guitar.timgaudreau.com/

New Hampshire is well known for its history of fine craftsmanship and highly skilled artisans. You can hear a variety of live music in the state's cities at least a few nights a week. Depending on the circles you frequent, some of these craft and music traditions are more prominently visable, while and others exert quieter reverberations. As in any music, quiet reverberations can be powerful.

John Whiteside and Tim Gaudreau were awarded a Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Grant in Lutherie, and recently finished their Apprenticeship together. John and Tim belong to a larger statewide group that is interested in this tradition, the Granite State Luthiers Guild. This art and musical form dates thousands of years back to lute making in both Greece and versions of the instrument in India and China.

Tim Gaudreau has been documenting his experience learning Lutherie with John through a blog where he discusses tool building, wood selection, design, inlay, listening, learning, and experimenting. Tim admits that the blog isn't finished, "It's sorely out of date as I have been so busy working on the guitar that I haven't had the time to write about it. I do plan to update this though."

Here is a quote from Tim's blog, but we encourage you to check out his full blog here:
http://guitar.timgaudreau.com/

"John likes to build guitars with a particular sound in mind and he keeps that focus when selecting woods and constructing the instrument. It’s a tricky thing to describe, but with some of the sounds of the songs in our heads, we did some tap tone testing on sample tonewoods to see if we could pick out something that had the same feeling in its sound quality."