TAKING NOTES
My first soundhole, on a concert pineapple ukulele. The headstock looks like Lisa Simpson’s cartoon hair… I simply had to be unique.
Every time I cannot recall some minute detail of a previous build or a singular fix I found along the way I go and dig through my notes. It is a sure fire way to start the stroll down Memory Lane. Somewhere in all of those boxes and old workbooks is a treasure trove of information that only a luthier would enjoy. Details of headstock geometry, nut slot planning, and tap tuning results… all somewhat organized by some mystical system revolving around chronology, instrument size, and specific part. I have templates from every tailpiece I have made, several bridges, dozens of body shapes, and a couple hundred precisely made, ultra important napkin sketches where I attempted to capture an illusive idea before it faded. I have fret spacing charts for every size scale length that I have used, and hundreds of pages documenting over 80 builds in seventeen years. Some of it is priceless. Some.
As a multi- disciplinarian of the luthier world, I don’t choose to make the same model most of the time, like many that I admire. One month I am making an octave mandolin and the next day I start an archtop concert ukulele. Sometimes, three different sizes are on the bench at the same time. I enjoy the challenge, but the details tend to need refreshing. I was at the bench earlier today and needed to know fretboard taper from nut to 14th fret union for a 25 1/2 inch scale length guitar. I needed to know nut width, then outside string positions at the nut, and the string spread at the tailpiece. I had to either guess or decide all of these things to proceed, so I grabbed my notebook and went surfing the Internet. I visited several Forum discussions and took lots of notes. Not just of the endless opinions, but also of who those opinions belonged to and how I felt they applied to my situation.
Case in point… one site had precise information on several Ibanes guitar necks, and also some Telecaster specs to compare with. I copied the spread sheets by hand for further reference. Most of the ten had the 12th fret width as 58-59 mm, and the nut as 43. I am planning a 1 11/16 nut, which is 43 mm. A few samples were from much narrower necks, as little as 39 mm at the nut, so I chose to discard them right off. Then I went to the opinions to round out my study. Within a few parameters, it came to light that neck tapers enjoy the freedom of expression you would hope to expect in such a wide ranging user group as guitarists in general, or in this case, steel string archtop guitars. The averages soon came to light, and I made my decisions. I took all of my notes and boiled them down into a synopsis labelled “this time, on this guitar”, and made a simplified copy to tack to the wall, and filed them away in ‘the Archives’, a large Tupperware that has been threatening to explode for the last three years. Then I drew it out on 1/4 inch plywood to scale, and put it with my other neck outlines, for posterity.
Then, the next time I do this, maybe I can find the answers that much quicker; maybe even remember that I did research in early July of ‘23, and that for several reasons my neck taper “just happened to be” 43mm at the nut to right about 58mm at the 14th ( not the 12th of Ibanes electrics). I will have a starting point to reference against as I plan out the next one. It doesn’t mean that, like a factory that hopes to make a million copies, I have to use those specs each and every time. If Sasquatch himself orders the next one, I can respond accordingly. And it also doesn’t mean that the neck will turn out as planned, or that most everyone will enjoy playing on it.
That is for the post production notes. If there is one category of taking notes that I have found to be the most enlightening, it’s those precious little honest comments you get in between the oohs and ahhs when a serious player takes the instrument for a ride. It is here that you want a recorder so you can remember more clearly who said what and when, and from what reference point. It often gets left behind, the small grunts, sighs, and “would have liked it better another way’s”, but that is the best of the best. You only get the honesty moment for just a moment, if at all. You can’t simply listen for the compliments you hope to hear. You have to pay close attention to the heartfelt reaction, and write it down. Somehow. You just can’t trust your memory… all it wants to remember is “It’s so pretty.” My best critiques are seared in my memory, like the time a young hot player complained that my fret ends were going to make him bleed… and the look on his face when he said that would be an immediate deal breaker, if he had been interested… which of course, suddenly he was not. Priceless! Since then, I have concentrated on that first impression, and haven’t had any repeats of that particular shortcoming. As an aside, it is also obvious to me, that if you had 10 players and you handed each of them your latest work, you could only hope for acceptance from one or two, with the other eight honestly weighing in that they prefer those details that you had decided not to include. Like a longer neck, a wider nut, light strings instead of heavy, a slotted headstock… it is always something.
My first archtop was a hybrid. It was super cool, at least in my mind, big screws and all.
It can be an odd feeling, looking back through your notes. I have a booklet or two of them from my very first ukulele. It is embarassing how little I knew. Not even the difference between Bass and Treble, at one point! Now, that’s beginner status. It takes me back to the time of wide eyed wonder that I could even be involved in lutherie. That the secrets of incredible sound were at my fingertips and my good buddy Craig was going to magically reveal them in one dramatic flourish. Of course, it doesn’t work out that way, at least for me. Maybe because, as I find in my notes, that Craig says that the best way to proceed is slowly and methodically… make only very small changes to the next one. So you can compare apples with apples. That no one gets to go straight to the head of the pack. And if I remember right, that copying is the greatest form of flattery. Just do what Kamaka has been doing, and you will be doing very well indeed.
As it turned out, I took a sharp turn at instrument #6 or seven and went “all in” on archtops. And the notes from that time period show how much extra thinking I was exposing myself to. Suddenly I had to design tailpieces, F holes, and include neck extentions. There were new decisions like how much of a domed surface you wanted on the soundboard, or the back, or how tight to make a cutaway. I had Bennedetto’s book to lean on, but he was talking about 18 inch wide lower bouts on a big jazz guitar. I had to experiment on each build, trying this and that refinement, and rarely took Craig’s slow and careful approach. How could I? I had the bug and I had it bad. I built three to five at a time. Out of all the woods I had. I didn’t have the time or patience to make semi- exact copies of a particular body size with the same side and back sets so I could tweak the soundboard parameters just a little on the next one. I was creating daily. It was full speed ahead…But the whole time I was taking notes. Month made, woods, thicknesses, tap tuning observations, lacquer choices, tuners, and a pile of post production notes. This one has this going for it, that one loves the G chord… this one was sprayed too lightly, and I sanded through…that one feels top heavy.
Have you ever seen a more streamlined Cutaway? My notes tell me bending that Zebrawood took four hours and ten minutes. Mostly because it was pretty darn thick! Makes me wonder why I spent all that effort to get something unique but awkward, but that’s the learning curve.
Then I had to repeat the processes as I made my way through a few sizes of guitars, and then into the mandolin world. Notes, notes, and more notes found their way into my ‘archives ‘ tupperware. All of the paper templates, the tailpiece templates, the gradation studies, the graduation specs, and always the tap tuning observations. It adds up. I had to make up a large box and label it ‘Mandos’, and another for failed ideas, and yet a third for Hall of Shame. Now, as I wander through Memory Lane hoping to find some little tidbit that I cannot seem to recall, I find myself stumbling through mounds of info that call out as if to say Hey, you saved me for a good reason, Come look at me! So I slide into the past, looking for something specific, getting lost in general, as I relive my adventure through time. I don’t know what I would do without my notes. It would cost me an incredible time penalty to start over and begin anew. Without them, I would lose all of my research and half of my experience. Some of it is embarassing and juvenile, but it is learning, captured in time. I strongly recommend to my students that they take notes like I have, but it is rarely the case. Generally, as they walk out with their new uke held high, they say something along the lines of “Whew! Boy am ever glad I won’t have listen to Raven tell me to write it down for posterity ever again! I will never forget all that I have learned here in the last few months.” Yeah… for about one week. Go ahead… Take Notes.
