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From: Ross
Remote Name: 76.101.10.136
Date: 20 Feb 2007
Time: 07:30:39 -0500
Luthier’ Weblog 2/20/07 Just unclamped two neck resets. A good way to start the day. Neck resets are pretty routine, but they are always interesting because they’re challenging and require your total attention, while other repairs, such as nut making, are easy but boring. There is a tension that exists between too easy (boring) and too difficult (fear making). It’s easy to put off either of these types of repair in favor of neck sets, refrets, and bridge reglues, all of which are right in my comfort zone. The boring stuff speaks for itself, but the fearful stuff, well, this covers a lot of territory. Finish touch-up of any sort comes to mind; especially metallic or sunbursts. Any kind of work on an instrument by an unknown maker can lead to a variety of surprises, all of which are inclined toward the unpleasant. Active electronics without schematics. One shudders to think. When I find myself in a position in which I can no longer put off these repairs, I’ll try to put myself in Right Mind before beginning. This means cleaning my bench, my office desk, vacuuming, and in general putting my workspace in order. In fact, this technique works well for a fearful or disordered mind regardless of cause. I think I need to expand it to include my attic, but thankfully my mental distress has not progressed to the point of requiring that much calming. When last I left my imaginary luthier designing his imaginary finger style guitar, he was working on ergonomics. His priority in instrument design is as follows: 1. Ergonomics; 2. Action (which is also ergonomics, but deserving of it’s own category); 3. Tone production; and 4. Cosmetics. Why does he do it in this particular order? Because I made him up and that’s the way I do it. This subject deserves treatment because I suspect that this order of priority is not necessarily the norm. In fact, if a builder simply assumes to build an existing design, consideration of priority one is largely jettisoned, with the builder’s faith on the rightness of that designer’s judgment implicit. This removes some of the painful thinking involved with the design process, but it does little to improve the species (of either instruments OR luthiers). Our robot luthier questions everything. He wisely realizes that splendorous cosmetics without good sound is meaningless. That good sound without ease of playability cannot be accessed. That a guitar that is easy on your left hand is somewhat limited if blood circulation to your right is cut off. Therefore, his order of priority is established. This exposition of the design process is taking a whole lot longer than I thought it would, which is OK. Good instrument design shouldn’t necessarily be easy. If it were, there’d be a heck of a lot more good instruments out there. Nothing of value should be easy, or we wouldn’t value it. I hope that I can keep this in mind when I stumble upon the rare example of good design. It was arrived at with painstaking deliberateness and hard work. Excellence isn’t a just a pleasant accident. Ross Teigen 8:56 A.M.