Category Archives: Uncategorized
Larry Robinson
The last we heard, amateur luthier and musician Larry Roberts was driving big trucks around the Pacific Northwest to pay the bills. He assures us that his woods and tools are still there, beckoning, and he’ll be back to lutherie soon.
▪ bio current as of 1994
R.L. Robinson
Nicholas Von Robison
Read Nicholas Von Robison’s memoriam
Twenty-two year member Nicholas Von Robison is a convention workshop presenter, former staffer, frequent contributor, and special projects guy for the GAL. We generally send anything pertaining to wood that crosses our desks to him for comment and review. After a 10 year hiatus, he’s building again, slow but sure after being out of the hands-on, new world of lutherie for so long. Nick passed away in 2000, read his memoriam.
▪ bio current as of 1999
James Rickard
Jim Rickard designs strings and string making machines at D’Addario Company. Jim passed away.
▪ bio current as of 1989
Jim Roden
Professional forester Jim Roden uses his spare time to build dulcimers, garden, tend his orchard, and pick out tunes on his instruments in the quiet of his front room.
▪ bio current as of 1994
Kevin B. Rielly
Twenty-two-year Guild member Kevin Rielly built a banjo in 1964, a kit dulcimer in 1969, and a guitar in 1973. He plays guitar, banjo, octave mandolin, anglo concertina, and tin whistle. He has an MS in accounting from SUNY Albany and was the CFO at SUNY Adirondack where he has worked for thirty-two years.
▪ bio current as of 2014
David Rodgers
David Rodgers make Rodgers tuners, the precision tuning machines known to luthiers and musicians around the world. David left his position as chief design engineer for a large company in the mid-1970s in response to a growing demand for the improved machine head design he’d developed in his home workshop. Recently David has found time to restore his functional steam-driven locomotives and 200´ track that circles his back yard.
▪ bio current as of 2012
Rev R. Rienks
Jason Rodgers
17 year Guild member Jason Rodgers, a middle school band and choir teacher by day, builds electric guitars and pickups in the evenings and weekends out of his small garage shop. He enjoys using locally sourced woods, preferably reclaimed or recycled, and simple finishes. Jason readily admits that he is part of the era of internet-educated guitar makers, and owes much gratitude to his friends at the Musical Instrument Makers Forum www.mimf.com
▪ bio current as of 2016
David Riggs
Despite being a bona fide weirdo and lifelong member of the arts community, Davy Riggs has never once seen a UFO. He was recently reminded that he was formerly employed by the Government as an identifier of flying objects. Life is unfair.
▪ bio current as of 2004
Rob Rodgers
Rob Rodgers makes Rodgers tuners, the precision tuning machines known to luthiers and musicians around the world. After completing his own engineering qualifications, Rob teamed up with his dad, David Rodgers. Rob with his wife Sue, now living near Halifax, Nova Scotia continue to streamline the business using 21st-century equipment, but still find time to appreciate the beautiful Canadian landscape. During the summer months they enjoy cycling and kayaking and continue a lifelong interest in the martial arts throughout the year.
▪ bio current as of 2012
Mark Rische
David Rivinus
David Rivinus made his first violins in the early 1970s under the tutelage of Indianapolis maker Thomas Smith. Shortly thereafter he was accepted to a full apprenticeship at the Hollywood shop of restoration icon Hans Weisshaar. In 1979 he opened a shop with violin maker Thomas Metzler in Glendale CA, and moved several years later to Vermont where he devoted himself to new instrument making and acoustic research. His work on acoustics and ergonomics continues, but he has moved west once more, to the outskirts of Portland, Oregon.
▪ bio current as of 2000
George Rizsanyi
Sam Rizzetta
Thomas Rein
Klaus Reischel
Peppe Reischel
Bart Reiter
A former rocker and guitarmaker and a would-be standup comedian, Bart Reiter is currently sold out for the rest of his career.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Jose Ramirez III
Jose “Pepito” Reyes
After a successful career in the banking industry, José Pepito Reyes began building guitars and cuatros in 1986. Three years later he was infected with a passion for the Puerto Rican tiple, and since that time he has dedicated himself (with huge success) to the rescue and promotion of this lovely little instrument. He builds tiples in the mountains of central Puerto Rico.
2006
Edmond Rampen
Five-year GAL member Edmond Rampen started making instruments in the early 1970s with Foxfire 3 as a guide and the wood pile as a source. After art school he planned to be a luthier, but a wood allergy mandated a hypoallergenic alternative. He became a product designer and a professor, teaching industrial design, CAD, plastics fabrication for artists, and musical instrument design since 1985, as well as running a business focusing on medical and musical hardware. Years later he discovered that the allergy was just to pine. He resumed instrument building and is now over one hundred and counting.
▪ bio current as of 2018
Randy Reynolds
Classic Guitars by Randy Reynolds
Ten-year Guild member Randy Reynolds makes classical and flamenco guitars on the Front Range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. During the past six years he has developed and specializes in double-top classicals. His secret ambition is to be just like Harry Fleishman when Harry grows up.
▪ bio current as of 2006
Dale Randall
Twenty-year GAL member Dale Randall is a retired Michigan Conservation Officer (fish fuzz, possum police, duck dick…) who has been married to Marge for forty-eight years. He tries not to let luthing interfere with a few bluegrass festivals and three months in Florida each winter.
▪ bio current as of 2005
Gene Rhinehart
Thirteen-year member W.E. Rhinehart builds and plays resophonic guitars, as well as fabricating resophonic guitar cones. Mr. Rhinehart passed away in 1997 but his shop is still running.
▪ bio current as of 1999
John Randerson
Tom Ribbecke
Eighteen-year GAL member Tom Ribbecke was born in Brooklyn, but has been making guitars in the San Francisco Bay area since 1974. He’s an innovator, a teacher, a mentor, a lecturer, and a captain of industry.
▪ bio current as of 2019
Denny Rauen
Dave Rauscher
In the late ’70s, David Rauscher played classical and country guitar outside New York City. He wrote articles for Pickin’ magazine and was later their marketing director. Sloane’s book led him to H.L. Wild. He bought some wood and built a couple of guitars. Planning to continue, he bought a bunch of rosewood and spruce at Michael Gurian’s. But getting and spending laid waste his powers. Now he is seventy and retired. He still plays, and still has all that wood and all those clamps. So here he goes again, with a goal to make one good enough that he can sell his Ramírez (but never the Joseph F. Wallo).
▪ bio current as of 2014
Aggie Rayman
Kent Rayman
Bill Rayner
Philippe Refig
Philippe Refig began his career in the ballet in Paris in 1951 and eventually spent eighteen years with the English National Ballet. He learned classical and flamenco guitar playing in the ’50s and studied instrument making at the London College of Furniture (now London Guildhall) in the ’90s. He now makes guitars full time, both classical and flamenco.
▪ bio current as of 2005
Steve Regimbal
Amateur playwright and man of leisure Steve Regimbal lifts weights twice a week with Ted Beringer’s son, Barry. He owns five Beringer instruments, and helped Ted present some of his instruments at the McIntosh Art Gallery in Billings, Montana.
▪ bio current as of 2003
Rivke Lela Reid
Three-year GAL member RIvke Lela Reid plays Eastern European Jewish music — which brought her to the tsimbl. She built and plays a solidbody sunrise starburst electric tsimbl, and introduced it at Klez Kamp 2005 with fuzz and wah-wah.
▪ bio current as of 2007
Ivo Pires
Ivo Pires makes and repairs anything musical. He is a six-year Guild member. Ivo passed away in 2009.
▪ bio current as of 2009
Guy Rabut
Guy Rabut’s first instrument, made when he was fifteen, was a fretless “guitar” whose body was a hollow section of an apple tree, with a 1/4? scrap-lumber soundboard. He’s come a long way, and is now a highly regarded violin maker with a shop in Manhattan. He’s a repeat GAL Convention lecturer and author. And he has been a Guild member for an incredible forty-two consecutive years.
▪ bio current as of 2015
Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman has been repairing things as far back as he can remember. When his teenage son took his new electric guitar apart, he followed the calling into the world of lutherie and fixed it. Now he spends his spare time repairing acoustic and electric instruments. When time allows, he makes krar kits for aspiring musicians to assemble and play in his home workshop in the Boston area.
▪ bio current as of 2010
Fabio Ragghianti
Twenty-four-year Guild member Fabio Ragghianti commutes occasionally from Tuscany to visit our convention or teach lutherie. He builds primarily classical and steel string guitars.
▪ bio current as of 2013
Tony Pizzo
Dave Raley
Five-year GAL member Dave Raley is an engineer in his day job specializing in aircraft landing systems. Check his web page (www.daveraley.com) for his thoughts on the global implications of the GPS system and a nice cornbread recipe.
▪ bio current as of 2004
Chris Plack
Amalia Ramirez
Paul Poliski
Six-year GAL member Paul Poliski began the hobby of building guitars and repairing stringed instruments for his musician daughter and son-in-law about fifteen years ago. A recently retired architect, he is now regularly repairing instruments for local shops. His future retirement in Jerome, AZ, will focus on building the “perfect” dreadnought.
▪ bio current as of 2011
Stewart Pollens
Stewart Pollens is Associate Conservator of the Department of Musical Instruments at the Metropolitan.
▪ bio current as of 1989
Bart Potter
Bart Potter was born in Honolulu in 1951 and continues to live there with his family. He apprenticed at the Guitar and Lute workshop in Honolulu from 1974 to 1975 and on its untimely closing, continued making guitars and `ukulele in his home workshop until 1980. At that time he transitioned from lutherie to his current profession of sawmill-owner and producer of tonewood and veneers from Hawaii-grown trees. He was among the founders of the Hawaii Forest Industry Association in 1989, served on its board for 19 years, contributed extensively to the “green” aspects of the prospectus of the HFIA-produced annual statewide woodworking show “Hawaii’s Woodshow” and continues to support HFIA as a member. In 1992 he served on committees defining the focus of Senator Daniel Akaka’s Tropical Forest Recovery Act, which ultimately provided the genesis for the 2007 creation by the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Unites States Forest Service of the Hawaii Tropical Experimental Forest (HETF). The establishment of the HETF guarantees a land base for ongoing research on the Hawaiian forest.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Andy Powers
Andy Powers is an instrument maker and player, now working with Taylor Guitars. He started building instruments as a boy, and has restored, repaired, and built instruments for a wide and varied cast of colorful characters.
▪ bio current as of 2018
Colin Prevost-Lemire
Colin Prévost-Lemire also did an apprenticeship with Stephen Marchione. He builds and repairs classical and steel string acoustic guitars.
▪ bio current as of 2012
Michael H. Price
Charlie Price
Two-year GAL member Charlie Price has over thirty years experience in the aerospace field. While variously employed by Boeing, Pratt&Whitney, and Lockheed, he worked on such projects as the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle, the X-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Apollo Lunar Lander, and the Reagan-era Star Wars program.
▪ bio current as of 2023
Gordon Pritchard
Gordon Pritchard is a luthier in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. While classical/flamenco guitars are his first love and the reason he became a luthier, he also builds custom guitars to order.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Charles Prouty
Peter Psarianos
David Quinn
Ralph Rabin
Fiddle maker Ralph Rabin’s story is told. One point not mentioned there is the fact that he was a member of the Mad City Maulers, the winning team in the 1988 guitar smashing contest.
▪ bio current as of 1989
Devon Pessler
Devon Pessler is a Ph.D. student in the School of Engineering Technology at Purdue, where she is working on characterizing wood for acoustic guitar tops. She plans to graduate in May 2024. She came to Purdue as a freshman and did so well, she decided to stay. Most of her work outside of classes has been on a program to provide engineering support to companies in Indiana. She is challenging the record for the largest number of support projects ever done by a student.
▪ bio current as of 2023
E.M. Peters
Jonathon Peterson
Read Jonathon Peterson’s memoriam
Jonathon Peterson has numerous credits from his twenty years as a GAL staffer, probably the most outstanding of which is his role as photographer, reporter, and facilitator of the Guild’s 2002 book Historical Lute Construction by the late Robert Lundberg.
▪ bio current as of 2012
Neil Peterson
Four-year GAL member Neil Peterson was a custom cabinetmaker for twenty-five years. He got the lutherie bug really bad while studying with George Morris, and has been dreaming of full-time instrument building for about the last ten years. Neil is currently working on guitars #30å33, and enjoys building in mesquite and reclaimed longleaf pine, both native to his home state of Texas.
▪ bio current as of 2007
Tom Peterson
Gabriel Petric
Bruce Petros
Bruce Petros has been building guitars since 1972 and has over a quarter-century of GAL membership under his belt. His son Matthew has been building alongside him full time since the year 2000, and together they build about thirty guitars per year.
▪ bio current as of 2013
Bob Petrulis
Chad Phillips
Welcome new author and fourteen-year GAL member Chad Phillips!
▪ bio current as of 2003
John E. Philpott
Norman Pickering
He’s an inventor and researcher who has worked in the aviation industry and the manufacturing of brass instruments, but Norman Pickering is probably best known to luthiers as the inventor of the Pickering phono cartridge and as a prolific investigator into the physics of violins and bows.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Craig Pierpont
Eight-year member and first-time author Craig Pierpont’s interest in lutherie began in the ’60s while in high school. At that time he realized that the only way to acquire all the instruments in which he was interested would be to build them himself. He quit his day job in the ’80s eventually becoming a full-time harp builder. Declining to use power tools, he builds his instruments completely by hand. That may be the reason that many of the other instruments on his original list remain built only in his mind.
▪ bio current as of 2000
John Pendergrast
Four-year GAL member John Pendergast is a uke maker and a new author.
▪ bio current as of 2013
Norbert Pietsch
Kris D. Pennisten
Don Pilarz
Twenty-two year GAL member Don Pilarz built his first classical guitar in 1982. Born in Montréal, Canada, he earned degrees in music and math there before moving to Genoa, Italy. He builds mainly new classical guitars but enjoys the challenge and satisfaction of studying and restoring fine older classical guitars. After decades of playing classical guitar and lute, he has also taken up playing piano.
▪ bio current as of 2010
A.I. Peresada
After becoming Laureate of the Sixth World Festival of Youth and Students, Anatolii Ivanovich Peresada attended and taught at the Institutes of Culture in Moscow and Leningrad. He currently teaches at the Krasnodar Institute of Culture. In 1985 he published a book, Orchestras of Russian Folk Instruments.
▪ bio current as of 1989
Chris Pile
Alan Perlman
Six-year member Alan Perlman builds recognizable classical and steel string guitar models, but loves the challenge of a one-off design.
▪ bio current as of 2007
Steven Pine
Ken Parker
Twenty-three year GAL member Ken Parker is world famous for his electric solidbody Fly guitar. But since that project ended, he has returned to his first love, the archtop guitar.
▪ bio current as of 2023
Michael Parsons
Ed Pastor
Larry Pater
Ben Patron
Ben Patron, at the culmination of a varied career that included work as a lift truck driver, cannery worker, inventor, motorcycle customizer and restorer, artist, and vintage instrument dealer, continues to explore the extreme boundaries of lutherie in his shop in the foothills of the Sierra. In his spare time, he performs on guitar and provides motivational talks at local Rotary Clubs and other venues. Supporting him in his sometimes whacky adventures is his wife Cherie, a super woman who can sing and ride and dance on roller skates, and is disobedient too another plus.
▪ bio current as of 2010
Ralph Patt
Veteran musician Ralph Patt played with famous big bands, did studio and broadcast work, and generally jazzed it up in the ’50s, ’60s, and early ’70s. Since then he has been working on nuclear-waste issues for the U.S. Department of Energy, but he hasn’t let it get in the way of his music.
▪ bio current as of 2002
James E. Patterson
Nineteen-year Guild member James E Patterson is a well-known lutherie author and a retired printer with an interesting hobby: he likes to go on “photo and video binges, mostly of travels in Southeast Asian countries.”
▪ bio current as of 1997
D.R. Patton
Chris Pantazelos
Chris Pantazelos builds and repairs guitars and all kinds of stringed instruments from the Middle East, including replicas of ancient Greek instruments. He has had great success with all wood lattice bracing for classical guitars, and he continues to develop this construction.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Les Paul
Janos Pap
Dr. Janos Pap is a professor at the F. Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary.
▪ bio current as of 2000
Noah Peacock
Anamaria Paredes Garcia
Anamaria Paredes Garcia holds a doctorate in veterinary medicine from the National University of Colombia. She is the daughter of luthier Luis Alberto Paredes Rodriguez, and is the principal coordinator of the administrative activities of this family business.
▪ bio current as of 2007
John Pearse
Luis Alberto Paredes Rodriguez
Twenty-seven-year GAL member Alberto Paredes Rodríguez was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Along with studies in engineering, he took up instrument construction as a hobby in 1959, and in 1977 he became a GAL member. He has built more than a thousand instruments including guitars, bandolas, tiples, mandolinas, cuatros, violins, and gambas. He is the author of La Guitarra Clásica Moderna: Historia, diseño y construcción, a Spanish-language lutherie book.
▪ bio current as of 2018
Hartley Peavey
Yves Parent
First time author Yves Parent shares with us his knowledge as a chemist.
▪ bio current as of 1988
Giacomo Parimbelli
Giacomo Parimbelli began playing the guitar as a child and graduated at the prestigious Conservatorio di Verona “Felice Evaristo dell’ Abaco”. He perfected his skills under the tutelage of famous musicians such as Stefano Grondona. He penned several books, including the first biography of Benvenuto Terzi, and countless assays. He has been a soloist in Italy, Europe, India and Russia. He plays a wide repertoire of classic music on baroque guitars. He is a guitar collector and an unflagging promoter of traditional guitar culture in Italy.
▪ bio current as of 2019
John Park
Twelve-year GAL member John Park has played the Spanish guitar since the early ’60s but resisted building them until the late ’70s. He builds blancas and a few classics in the time-honored way and plays to them while the glue dries. Hobbies include classical humming and mountain biking, which he does simultaneously.
▪ bio current as of 2012
Shelley Park
Tomas Orellana
Tomas Orellana built his first instrument in his college dorm room. He played the Venezuelan cuatro as a child and later studied the different types of Venezuelan bandolas. Outside his shop, he is a CAD designer, aerospace engineer, and pilot with an MS in mechanical engineering.
▪ bio current as of 2015
Neil Ostberg
Don Overstreet
Twenty-two-year GAL member Don Overstreet is a past convention presenter and an occasional contributor to American Lutherie. His regular gig is setting up, repairing, and restoring instruments of the violin family at David Kerr’s Violin Shop. He intends to get back to those unfinished violins in the workshop at home any day now.
▪ bio current as of 2013
T.E. Owen
Ernest Nussbaum
Three-year Guild member Ernest Nussbaum wrote about his Travielo, a highly transportable cello, in American Lutherie #5.
▪ bio current as of 1987
Charles Pace
Peter Oberg
22 year GAL member Peter Oberg likes to think of himself as a polymath, however delusional it may seem. He has scaled back his luthiery endeavors to pursue his dormant yet nascent potential as a musician and composer for the guitar, all the while remembering those close to him, past and present. When all else fails he goes in the ocean, seeking to merge with the vastness of the infinite mystery.
▪ bio current as of 2018
Koen Padding
After graduating from the Newark School of Violin Making in 1979, Koen Padding worked at Machold Rare Violins on the restoration team gathered around Roger Hargrave. He returned to the Netherlands in 1988 as technical director of the family’s ink factory, and founded Magister Varnish Products in 1997. Koen passed away in 2012
▪ bio current as of 2009
Robbie O’Brien
Eighteen-year GAL member Robbie OBrien was born in Germany to American parents, and grew up in Atlanta. He became interested in the guitar as a young medical student in Brazil. Now hes been teaching lutherie for over thirty years.
▪ bio current as of 2022
Robert Painter
When asked for biographical info Robert Painter simply said, “Tell them the usual lies.” Which we don’t and won’t do. So we’ll include better information after Bob submits his next how-to article, “Saving the Universe and Other Odd Jobs.”
▪ bio current as of 2000
Tim O’Dea
Tim O’Dea is a carpenter by trade and has been making guitars for about five years. He is a surfer living near the Pacific coast of New South Wales.
▪ bio current as of 1998
Charles A. Palis
Lloyd Scott Ogelsby
Lloyd Scott Oglesby is a retired chemist whose background gives him interests and insights in areas from glues and varnishes to fireworks.
▪ bio current as of 1988
Terrence O’Hearn
Welcome first-time author and two-year member Terrance O’Hearn!
▪ bio current as of 2008
Stan Olah
Stan Olah is a chief of police, a farmer and nurseryman, and a budding violin maker. He’s enthusiastic about all his jobs, but he’ll talk your ears off about fiddles (and since he’s a cop, you’ll like it). He turns to George Fortune for fiddle advice and good stories, and he’s a good storyteller himself.
▪ bio current as of 1998
Gerhard Oldiges
Alan Ollivant
Deb Olsen
Tim Olsen
Editor-in-Chief Tim Olsen is the founding editor of GAL publications. Beginning with the Guild of American Luthiers Newsletter and the GAL Quarterly and Data Sheets in the early 1970s, which evolved into our quarterly journal American Lutherie in 1985, Tim has edited, rewritten, clarified, compiled, corrected, and/or combed over every article in every journal or book published by the Guild. His commitment to the Guild’s founding principles of openness and sharing is evident in his stewardship of the Guild over the last forty years. Tim’s interest in lutherie started as a twelve year old when he started his first guitar. He was operating his own shop at seventeen, and completed his professional lutherie career in his mid-twenties, when he began dedicating his full time work to the Guild and its publications. [01-21-2022]
David Oppenheim
Geoff Needham
Fourteen-year GAL member, amateur classical guitarist, and retired family physician Geoff Needham lives near Hadrian’s Wall in Northeast England. He decided to make a guitar in 2004, believing he could not afford to buy a fine classical instrument. He now realizes that he could have bought several fine guitars with the money he has spent on lutherie. He has completed scores of classical guitars and has a special interest in building with nontropical woods.
▪ bio current as of 2022
Teri Novak
Tom Nelligan
Tom Nelligan is a Senior Applications Engineer with Olympus NDT in Waltham, MA. He has worked in the field of industrial ultrasonic testing since 1978, and specializes in ultrasonic thickness gauging and flaw detection. He is also an amateur guitarist.
▪ bio current as of 2007
Todd Novak
Professional guitarist turned luthier Todd Novak is currently working for Marc Silber Guitars and does freelance repairs in the Berkeley, CA area. He is also a ukulele enthusiast, and has begun building soprano ukes along with restored and vintage stringed instruments.
▪ bio current as of 1999
Greg Nelson
Eleven-year GAL member Greg Nelson took up building stringed instruments in the late ’90s after years of cabinet and furniture making, architectural millwork, and antique restoration. His passion is steel string guitars, but he is currently building a fiddle and working up the nerve to try a cello.
▪ bio current as of 2015
Ian Noyce
J.C. Nelson
Sebastian Nunez
Sebastián Núñez was a tinkering teenager in a Buenos Aires garage band until he followed his girlfriend to the Netherlands. There he fell in with a historic-house-restoring, Harley-riding, early-music luthier. He read every early-music magazine in the Utrecht University library while commuting to work. Now he’s an old master, making and restoring lutes, Romantic guitars, and harpsichords.
▪ bio current as of 2017
Paul Neri
Paul Neri has been repairing and restoring instruments for more than half of his sixty-two years. He is the author of The Acoustic Guitar Repair Detective, a repair diagnoses book published by Hal Leonard. He was formerly with the bluegrass trio Spacegrass, the duo The Acoustic Suburbanites, the Spanish guitar duo Las Guitarras, and later the bluegrass quintet Ragweed. He now occasionally performs solo Spanish guitar and is a member of The Kerry Boys, an Irish music group where he plays banjo.
▪ bio current as of 2018
William Nesse
Phil Neuman
The Early Music Guild of Oregon
Philip Neuman and his wife Gayle are heads of the Early Music Guild of Oregon (www.emgo.org), a nonprofit organization founded in 1978. They perform frequently, teach, and make period instruments with names like rackett, krummhorn, and schreierpfeife.
▪ bio current as of 2006
Steve Newberry
Read Steve Newberry’s memoriam
Fifteen-year member Steve Newberry was a founding member of the postwar New York Society of Classic Guitar. As a guitarist he performed on radio, TV, and Broadway. He studied both music and math at numerous institutions of higher learning. Since retiring as a software consultant and technical writer in 1988 he has done considerable experimental lutherie and is a founding member of NCAL.
▪ bio current as of 2001
Shaun Newman
Shaun Newman began playing the classical guitar in 1968 whilst living and teaching in Germany. He made his first classical guitar almost 25 years ago and has also made harps, dulcimers (hammered and fretted), mandolins, mediaeval fiddles, psalteries, and ukuleles. He has recently completed a baroque guitar with parchment rose. He retired almost a dozen years ago from his busy role as a company director working with an agency supporting unemployed young people.
▪ bio current as of 2019
David Newton
He lives with his wife Libby in the market town of Crediton, Devon, England.
Eric Nicholson
Welcome first-time author Eric Nicholson!
▪ bio current as of 2001
Jean Francois Noel
Ten-year Guild member Jean Francois Noel is a professional motorcycle mechanic who for the last ten years has made a custom guitar or two each year, as well as doing a lot of lutherie experimentation for his own satisfaction.
▪ bio current as of 2012
Paul Norman
Paul Norman studied with Alan Carruth for about seven years and has been building guitars on his own for about ten years, specializing in wood-bodied resonator guitars.
▪ bio current as of 2013
Susan Norris
Suzy Norris is a violin maker and a twenty-six-year Guild member.
▪ bio current as of 1987
Paul Norton
▪ bio current as of 2021
Ralph Novak
Forty-one-year Guild member Ralph Novak started his lutherie career almost fifty years ago in New York City. He has been a GAL author and convention speaker. He runs Novax Guitars and makes his trademarked Fanned-Fret guitars.
▪ bio current as of 2022
George Morris
Luthier and lutherie instructor George Morris has taught and inspired hundreds of students. He prefers to stay with individual construction techniques using minimal resources as opposed to making multiple instruments of the same design. George holds small classes at his live-in school in Vermont.
▪ bio current as of 2003
Jim Morris
Chuck Morrison
S.L. Mossman
R.M. Mottola
Liutaio Mottola Lutherie Information Website
Back when he had what his testy creditors so callously refer to as “a real job,” R.M. Mottola was an engineer. He now spends his time turning expensive wood into heaps of expensive sawdust, out of which emerges the occasional musical instrument.
▪ bio current as of 2002
Jim Mouradian
Jim Mouradian entered the world of lutherie backwards; his first project was to scratch-build a bass for Chris Squire of the band Yes. His background in hot rods, audio, and physics provided experiences to draw upon. He and his son Jon enjoy running a repair shop together.
▪ bio current as of 2007
Andrew Mowry
Fourteen-year GAL member Andrew Mowry gained his love of wood while roaming the forests of southern Vermont as a youth. Although his formal education is in geology and geography, he has been a full-time luthier since 2004, building mostly mandolin-family instruments.
▪ bio current as of 2017
Jeanne Munro
Barry Murphy
Stuart Murphy
Longtime GAL member Stuart Murphy is a past author and convention attendee.
▪ bio current as of 2013
Phillip Murray
Three-year Guild member Phillip Murray began in lutherie eighteen years ago and has been a full time builder and repairman for eleven years. He and his wife Gina have a son, Hugh, age 1. Phillip plays in a church folk group every Sunday to about two thousand people. He is also edits the newsletter of the Dublin Chapter of the Irish Woodturners Guild.
▪ bio current as of 1997
Don Musser
Long-time member Don Musser is a logger, a luthier, a wood dealer, and an author.
▪ bio current as of 1999
Bill Moran
Eric Myer
Mark Moreland
Mark Moreland has been a violin maker and restorer since 1975. He began his apprenticeship after a violin performance career, and eventually ran shops in Portland, Oregon, and Washington, D.C. In 2010, he opened a full-service shop with his wife Sharon specializing in workshop-model instruments which are carried in shops around the country. Mark’s personal instruments have earned the endorsements of top artists. Mark was also shop foreman and quality control for Eastman Strings Co. at which time the Mark Moreland Atelier line of student instruments was created. Mark is a full member of the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers. In addition to running his shop and building instruments, Mark enjoys gardening and sailing.
▪ bio current as of 2021
Todd Mylet
Twenty two year GAL member Todd Mylet studied lutherie in Minnesota at Redwing Tech in 1995 and has been building and repairing various and sundry fretted instruments since. He plies his trade at Portland Fret Works with three other luthiers. When not luthing, he enjoys baking bread, surfing, and making his wife and two teenage daughters yawn by waxing on about the idiosyncrasies of the neck he is resetting.
▪ bio current as of 2015
John Morgan
Javad Naini
First-time GAL author Javad Naini has a background in engineering and is a player of traditional Persian music. Javad passed away in 2009
▪ bio current as of 2007
Tom Morgan
Mike Nealon
Mike Nealon makes steel string and resonator guitars.
▪ bio current as of 2011
Mike Moger
Mike Moger has been retooling his shop and building guitars for six years following his class on classical guitar construction with Harry Fleishman and Fabio Ragghianti. He built mostly furniture before guitars, and continues to build as a hobby, using hand tools rather than machinery. He has sold real estate for twenty-three years.
▪ bio current as of 2008
J.G. Molnar
Jeremy Montagu
Mary Monteiro
John Monteleone
Like lutherie itself, John Monteleone has been greatly influenced by Italian men, working with Jimmy D’Aquisto in the ’70s and Mario Maccaferri in the ’80s. He was recently featured in an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And he’s been a GAL member for a total of thirty-six years.
▪ bio current as of 2014
Ray Mooers
Ray Mooers is the founder and co-owner of Dusty Strings Company which makes harps and hammered dulcimers. He has been a Guild member for twenty-eight years.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Sue Mooers
Chuck Moore
Seven-year Guild member Chuck Moore builds Moore Bettah Ukuleles in the Hawaiian jungle using only solar power, and has to drive into town to receive mail or make a phone call. He has also been a potter and a scrimshander. His ukes often feature eye-popping koa and exquisite inlay work with Hawaiian and South Seas motifs.
▪ bio current as of 2014
David Minnieweather
Read David Minnieweather’s memoriam
Besides being a luthier, five-year Guild member David Minnieweather is a musician. In fact, this pastor’s son, his three sisters, two brothers, and his parents could form a fine gospel group without any outside help. David passed away in 2009
▪ bio current as of 2009
Ed Moore
Ed Moore has been a Guild member sixteen of the last twenty-one years.
▪ bio current as of 1994
David Miracle
David Miracle is a student of Lamar Scomp.
▪ bio current as of 2011
John C. Moore
Six-year member John C. Moore, a chemical engineer by day, has made one guitar from a kit and is currently making no. 2 from scratch. He pursues guitar making for its unique combination of music, science, woodworking, tool collecting, and mistake correcting. While the glue is drying, he can most likely be found practicing crosspicking or on his Harley.
▪ bio current as of 2005
Nathan D. Missel
Justin Moore
Harry Misuriello
Juan Carlos Morales
Walter Mitchell Jr.
Walter Mitchell, Jr., is a retired publisher whose hobbies include boating and bicycling as well as making doll houses and model airplanes. He has been luthing for about two years, and his son David is also a beginning luthier and GAL member.
▪ bio current as of 1997
Tatsuo Miyachi
Six-year GAL member Tatsuo Miyachi is an engineer who has been playing guitar for forty years. He has been pipe-dreaming several strange guitar-building ideas but he has not yet made any of them real.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Margaret Mlamba
▪ bio current as of 2023
Martin Moen
▪ bio current as of 2023
David Miller
David Miller works with his father-in-law Kevin Waldron, and his brothers-in-law Erick and Jon Waldron in the family lutherie business.
▪ bio current as of 2010
Gayle Miller
Gregory Miller
First-time AL author and twelve-year GAL member, Gregory Miller, pursued his love of woodworking instilled by a high school shop teacher all the way to a degree in Interior Architecture and Design at Kansas State University. In 1998, after ten years of professional practice with a Portland, Oregon, interior design firm, he made the leap to designing and building high-end custom furniture full-time. Then, while visiting the 2003 Northwest Handmade Musical Instrument Exhibit, he was bitten by the lutherie bug and has been obsessed ever since.
▪ bio current as of 2015
Robert Miller
Robert Miller received his BA in music education from Kean University in 1982. He studied violin with Norma Auth of Maplewood, New Jersey, Newton Mansfield of Manhattan, and the late Odin Guenther of Heidelberg, Germany. He enjoys his free time reading, playing (electric) guitar, piano, or violin. He has worked for many years as an instructor of Special Education.
▪ bio current as of 2015
Benoit Meulle-Stef
Electrical engineering didn’t make it for Benoit Meulle-Stef, so he turned to lutherie, and eventually set up shop in Belgium. There, at BMS Guitars, he does repair and retail, and builds electrics, resophonics, contra guitars, and unique multistring acoustics. It’s the only job he’s ever had. Ben has been a GAL member for two years.
▪ bio current as of 2006
Robert Z. Miller
Eric Meyer
Eric Meyer (aka Rico) turns fine fittings mostly for violin family instruments. He apprenticed with Jeffrey Elliott way back in the ’70s and was founder/owner of the Twelfth Fret Guitar Shop in the late ’80s. Presently, he finds time to golf, fish, and hang out with Irish musicians.
▪ bio current as of 2011
Cammie Mills
Brian Michael
Repeat convention presenter Brian Michael started repairing instruments at Gryphon Stringed Instruments in 2002 and still loves it today. He makes custom electric guitars under the name Michael Guitars, and plays guitar in a San Jose band called Careless Hearts.
▪ bio current as of 2015
Larry Mills
Twelve-year GAL member Larry Mills is also a member of the MLG, i.e., the Midwest Luthiers Guild. I guess that makes him a MLG/GAL. Isn’t that the slag term for a nonwizard? He’ll just have to use a chisle like the rest of us.
▪ bio current as of 2003
Leonardo Michelin-Salomon
Leonardo Michelin-Salomon – Luthier
Eighteen-year member Leonardo Michelin-Salomon studied lutherie at the School of Arts and Crafts in his native Uruguay, before moving to Norway in late 2002. He’s been building classical guitars for twenty years, and more recently also designing and building electric guitars and basses, and studying guitars from the early 1800s. Lutherie is his perfect excuse for keeping always busy learning new stuff.
▪ bio current as of
Gregg Miner
Collector, historian, and multi-instrumentalist Gregg Miner has been unofficially crowned the Harp Guitar Pope. Creator of the Knutsen Archives, and subsequently, Harpguitars.net and Harp Guitar Music, his passion for the instrument borders on the pathological. And he is a fifteen-year GAL member.
▪ bio current as of 2019
Anne Middleton
Environmental Investigation Agency
Anne Middleton is Outreach Coordinator for the Forest Campaign at the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) in Washington, DC, where she focuses EIA’s efforts to represent legal wood trade on Capitol Hill. She has published documents and articles on the U.S. Lacey Act, and has worked in the field in Eastern Europe, Tanzania, and the USA on a variety of wildlife conservation issues.
▪ bio current as of 2010
Tim Miklaucic
Tim Miklaucic is the owner of Guitar Salon International in Santa Monica and founder and Chairman of GUITARadio.com, a multimedia publishing company dedicated to all forms of the guitar and guitar music. He also travels more than he’d like, but spends as much time as possible with his wife and their beautiful young daughter.
▪ bio current as of 2000
Luca Milani
Luca Milani started his career as guitar maker as soon as he got his degree in clinical psychology. He lives in Greece now and shares job and bills with his wife Marzia. During his thirty-three years he has collected more than thirty recipes to make espresso.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Bob Milburn
Orville Milburn
John Miles
Seven-year member John Miles spent 35 years as an engineer developing infrared detectors. In 1961 he read Carleen Hutchins’ Scientific American araticle and decided to make fiolins after retiring. He has, and he does.
▪ bio current as of 1994
Bernard Millant
Bernard Millant’s family has been in the violin business in France since the 18th century. He learned his trade in workshops in Mirecourt, New York, and at his father’s side in Paris. Today his expertise, especially on bows, is sought after by musicians, makers, and dealers around the world.
▪ bio current as of 2006
Bob Miller
Danny McLean
Jim Merrill
Jim McLean
Dublin, Ireland native and five-year Guild member Jim McLean moved to Canada when he was sixteen, in 1971. Today he is married, teaches grade school, and builds acoustic guitars and Irish bouzoukis.
▪ bio current as of 2001
Veronica Merryfield
From the UK and now on the Canada’s wet coast, Veronica Merryfield made her first headless fretless bass at age seventeen and just kept going. These days she builds to commission, preferring unusual designs that solve playability issues for players with physical limitations or making basses. Veronica has a day job in electronics and software to subsidize her lutherie habit.
▪ bio current as of 2012
Steve McMinn
Woodcutter Steve McMinn is has been a Guild member seventeen of the last twenty years and a past convention panelist.
▪ bio current as of 1993
Luis Mesquita
Eight-year GAL member Luis Alberto Feu de Mesquita’s ancestry goes back to Andalusia. He started building and repairing guitars as a teenager, and trained with Sergei de Jonge in his fifties.
▪ bio current as of 2009
Ellis McMullin
Nine-year member Ellis McMullin decided to do something “constructive” when his wife gave him a classical guitar made by Del Langejans for his sixtieth birthday. He mentioned to Del that he thought he could make one. Del’s replied, “When you finish it, let me take a look.” Ellis did just that, and now makes guitars! Thank you, Del, for your suggestions and time.
▪ bio current as of 2006
Ed Mettee
Paul McNulty
Paul McNulty dates his lutherie beginnings to purchasing a Renaissance lute in 1981 from the brilliant David Brown of Baltimore, and peering at it for several years in slack-jawed wonder, when not playing Dowland slowly upon it. Never comprehending lute technology, but being prompted by it nonetheless, he has made 150 fortepianos of different types since 1986. McNulty’s shop ethic, learned by slyly remembering Brown’s occasional remarks, eschews sandpaper, using scrapers instead as much as possible, but stops short at gathering reeds from primeval swamps for their gentle abrasive properties.
▪ bio current as of 2012
Robert Mead
Welcome first-time author and four-year member Robert Mead!
▪ bio current as of 1996
Ted Megas
Seventeen-year GAL member Ted Megas combined his backgrounds as a guitar player and a furniture maker by becoming a guitar maker. He chose to specialize in archtop because it was the guitar that he enjoyed most and that offered the greatest challenge.
▪ bio current as of 2010
Pat Megowan
Eric Meier
Eric Meier got his start in lutherie back in 2007. He continuously explored new and unusual woods to use for his psalteries, and this interest gradually grew into an online project that’s known today as The Wood Database. In addition to authoring a book on psaltery-making (A Psimple Psaltery), he has recently published the content of his wood website as a reference book entitled “WOOD! Identifying and Using Hundreds of Woods Worldwide.”
▪ bio current as of 2016
John Mello
Since studying with Richard Schneider and Jeffrey Elliott in the ’70s, eighteen-year member John Mello has built, restored, repaired, and sold guitars in the San Francisco area for thirty-eight years, during fifteen of which he eschewed guitar construction in favor of a mortgage and raising two, now-grown children.
▪ bio current as of 2014
David Melly
Seven-year GAL member David Melly found his way to the Bay Area after graduating from the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery. Although recently sited behind a table at the Healdsburg Guitar Festival with a Samvadhi, he normally makes steel-string acoustic guitars.
▪ bio current as of 1999
Josep Melo
Twelve-year GAL member Josep Melo fell in love with guitars before his teen years. He trained formally as an artist and industrial designer, and opened his own design studio in 1975 at age of twenty-three. He was able to make friends with and order guitars from some of his guitar-making heroes, including James D’Aquisto, Steve Klein, and José Romanillos, and now builds his own guitars that honor their work while exhibiting his own distinctive, modern Catalan aesthetic.
▪ bio current as of 2022
Bob Meltz
Hardy B. Menagh
John Meng
Rich Mermer
Fifteen-year GAL member Rich Mermer has been building custom instruments since 1983. He builds by the grace of God and his lovely wife Sue. Remember, behind every struggling luthier is a successful spouse or partner! Waiting to join in the fun are his sons Rylan Koa (age 6) and Nathan Sitka (age 4).
▪ bio current as of 1999
John McCarthy
Five-year GAL member John McCarthy is a certified aircraft mechanic as well as a classically-trained violinist and guitarist and a former professor of painting and fabric doping.
▪ bio current as of 2004
William McCaw
Guitar maker and perennial convention attendee Bill McCaw is an eighteen-year member.
▪ bio current as of 1989
Theron McClure
Rick McCollum
And now, luthiers and gentlemen, the last debutante author on our alphabetical list, presenting new member Rick McCollum!
▪ bio current as of 1992
Dan Neil McCrimmon
Ric McCurdy
Graham McDonald
Graham McDonald Stringed Instruments
Graham McDonald is a mandolin, Irish bouzouki, and ukulele builder who has published three books on instrument making and one on mandolin history. He has been a member of the GAL for thirty-two years. Despite living on the other side of the globe, he has attended four (maybe five) GAL Conventions and been a presenter at two of them.
▪ bio current as of 2023
Carl McFarland
Paul McGill
Paul McGill was a way-rad downhill skier until he became entraped in lutherie work. Sure, he’s making beautiful instruments for big-name players, but now instead of the wind whistling through his hair he hears the wind whistling through the dust collector ducts. But it doesn’t whistle very loud, because he did such a good job building the system.
▪ bio current as of 1999
Mike McGovern
Mike McGovern has been in retail music sales for sixteen years, ten of those at Stew-Mac. He likes working on instruments in his spare time, but easily gets distracted and ends up playing them instead. He lives in Athens, Ohio with his wife and three young children.
▪ bio current as of 2011
Carol McGrath
Roger McGuinn
Phillip Mayes
Bruce McGuire
First-time Guild author Bruce McGuire was an apprentice of the late Art Overholtzer, and is a luthier and a lutherie teacher.
▪ bio current as of 1993
Bill McCall
Ken McKay
Ken McKay’s formal education in working wood was to study classical woodcarving where he learned to recognize a sweet line. He now specializes in replicating electric guitars and is hoping to make his next double bass someday soon. He has other lofty goals, too.
▪ bio current as of 2013
Derrick McCandless
Scott McKee
Michael McCarten
Michael McCarten has been an artist/craftsman since childhood, being inspired by his artist grandmother and his carpenter grandfather. He has been working on stringed instruments since 1979, and at an increasingly higher level since happily joining the GAL in 1997. He is a proud person who is humbled and exhilarated by the diverse group of high caliber people willing to share their knowledge of lutherie.
▪ bio current as of 2010
Max Mclaughlin
Max Mclaughlin is a freelance music journalist and drummer with a wide range of craft-based interests, including lutherie and vintage drum restoration. Although he is a first time GAL author, he has over 15 years of previous experience in the publishing world and is currently developing his own magazine devoted to the history and future of music and the people who make it.
▪ bio current as of 2022
Lloyd Marsden
Four-year GAL member Lloyd Marsden got his initial education in practical woodworking growing up on a wheat and cattle ranch. A degree in mechanical engineering lead to work in mining equipment design. He built his first guitar using books by Young and Sloane. More recently he has studied with Harry Fleishman. “My wife patiently supports my hobby,” he reports.
▪ bio current as of 2005
Douglas Martin
Douglas Martin began making violin family instruments in 1957 at age thirteen. He has been experimenting with violins since the late 1960s while making a living in small-boat design and building.
▪ bio current as of 2007
C.F. Martin III
Twenty-nine year GAL member C.F. Martin IV is the scion of America’s foremost guitar-making family, with over one million instruments to its credit and artist endorsements from here to the moon and back. Twice.
▪ bio current as of 2007
C.F. Martin IV
Twenty-nine-year GAL member C.F. Martin IV is the scion of America’s foremost guitar-making family, with over one million instruments to its credit and artist endorsements from here to the moon and back. Twice.
▪ bio current as of 2007
Manuel Bernal Martinez
Manuel Bernal Martinez is a professor of music at the Javeriana University and Fine Arts Faculty in Bogot, Colombia, specializing in regional and popular Colombian music and instruments. He began working with GAL member Luis Alberto Paredes in 1990 to develop a superior model of the Colombian Andean bandola, and in 2003 they began to develop a bandola family of instruments. Manuel performed at the 2008 GAL Convention as a member of the bandola quartet Perendengue.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Brian Mascarin
Antonio Masiello
Tom Mathis
Scott Marckx
Michihiro Matsuda
Michihiro Matsuda Acoustic Guitars
Originally from Nagoya, Japan, Michihiro Matsuda lives and builds guitars in Oakland, California. In his “spare time” he does repairs for Gryphon guitars. He is skeptical about sushi made in the USA and prefers to substitute this part of his diet with a lively caffeine habit.
▪ bio current as of 2002
Gabriel Marcotte
Gabriel Marcotte also works for Marc Lupien of XXL guitars. He builds his own line of electric guitars under the name Markött Guitars.
▪ bio current as of 2012
Kathy Matsushita
Seven-year Guild member Kathy Matsushita has been busy in the free time away from her high school English classes making mostly guitars, but also a harp, a dulcimer, a mandolin, a fiddle, and what-have-you. Sharing her knowledge through her websites that chronicle her successes and challenges as an amateur luthier has brought a wealth of information and inspiration to others. And she’s well trained in can opening by Maggie and Emily.
▪ bio current as of 2003
Ed Margerum
Edward Margerum is an unemployed chemist and scholar who is now vicariously living a lutherie career through his daughter Alice, a Guild member currently studying early fretted instrument construction at City of London Polytechnic, formerly London College of Furniture.
▪ bio current as of 1992
Bob Mattingly
Carl Margolis
Greg Maxwell
Greg Maxwell is the owner of Dogwood Guitars, a full-service guitar repair and setup shop. He also builds fine steel string guitars.
▪ bio current as of 2019
Antonio Marin
Antonio Marín Montero was born in Granada in 1933. His family had no history with the guitar, and Antonio began his working life in marquetry workshops. He follows the technique and template of French luthier Robert Bouchet. Today his fame has reached five continents and he makes twenty guitars per year.
▪ bio current as of 2014
Gunter Mark
Glenn Markel
Mike Markure
Stephen Mangold
▪ bio current as of 2018
Hugh Manhart
Michael Mann
George passed away 2002.
George Manno
Violinmaker George Manno is a frequent past author.
▪ bio current as of 1990
Christopher Lynch
Jeff Lee Manthos
Mario Maccaferri
Peter Manuel
David Macias
David Macias is a thirty-one-year Guild member, a Flamenco guitarist, and a maker of Flamenco and classic guitars.
▪ bio current as of 1987
Linda Manzer
Linda Manzer began her lutherie career as an apprentice to Jean Larrivée in the early ’70s, and has been a GAL member for a total of thirty years. She is a very highly regarded builder, which is particularly odd when you consider that she still hasn’t figured out how many necks a guitar has.
▪ bio current as of 2015
J.D. Mackenzie
Stephen Marchione
Twenty-four-year GAL member Stephen Marchione spent his earliest years in Texas, then Italy, then Texas again. He went to New York City to make it as a guitarist, but ended up becoming a luthier. Now he’s back in Texas and at the top of his game.
▪ bio current as of 2014
Don MacRostie
Head tool guru at Stew-Mac, thirty-eight-year member Don MacRostie is responsible for many of the fine tools and products that luthiers use. He is also the builder of Red Diamond Mandolins.
▪ bio current as of 2015
Massimo Maddaloni
Massimo Maddaloni is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Florida. He likes to apply his background in microbiology to the production of homemade fermented foods (beer, wine, sourdough breads, salami and the like). He loves practicing martial arts (aikido, capoeira angola, kali) which lead him to a keen interest in energy practices and, in turn, to sacred geometry. He also loves outdoor activities: skiing, hunting, fly-fishing, gardening. In his youth he took classic guitar lessons to increase his chances to pick up gals.
▪ bio current as of 2019
Gary Magliari
Gary Magliari is a senior designer at Consolidated Edison with a work portfolio ranging from avionics to Manhattan’s underground gas and electric facilities. He first picked up a guitar in 1964 and has played in many bands. More recently he has applied his engineering skills to the age-old problem of intonation.
▪ bio current as of 2013
Michael Mahar
Thirteen-year GAL member Mike Mahar is a software engineer who took up lutherie as a hobby around the year 2000. He builds a guitar or mandolin every year or so in his spare time. A major interest is the scientific analysis of instruments to try to determine how physical properties affect the sound. He’s currently working on a computer program that incorporates instrument design tools as well as tone generators and spectrum analyzers.
▪ bio current as of 2014
Beverly Maher
Beverly Maher is the owner of The Guitar Salon, a unique one-woman operation located in an historic brownstone in Greenwich Village. She has been playing, buying, selling, and loving instruments all her life. Beverly has been called many names, from “Guitar Lady” to “Soul of the Guitar in NYC.
▪ bio current as of 2014
Dave Maize
Nineteen-year Guild member Dave Maize began making guitars in 1975. For the last six years he has built acoustic bass guitars. He sells instrument wood and enjoys playing music and backpacking.
▪ bio current as of 1998
George Majkowski
Read George Majkowski’s memoriam
“Uncle” George Majkowski is a retired electronics and computer engineer, a flamenco guitarist, and a student of and collaborator with deceased Kasha guitar builder extrordinaire, Richard Schneider. George passed away 2002.
▪ bio current as of 1999
Spiros Mamais
First-time author and sixteen-year member Spiros Mamais makes santouri, Gypsy jazz guitars, and Greek folk instruments.
▪ bio current as of 2024
Ron Lira
Robert Lundberg
Read Robert Lundberg’s memoriam
Lute maker and scholar Robert Lundberg is a frequent Guild author and convention lecturer. Bob passed away in 2001, read his memoriam.
▪ bio current as of 1996
Gordon Litster
Lora Lundberg Schultz
John Littel
Lawrence Lundy
Sam Littlepage
In the middle of teaching Astronomy and Physics at a local university, four-year member Sam Littlepage builds classical and steel string guitars. (He has been caught building a few banjos, a dulcimer, and even a 12-string tenor). He is experimenting with new ways of doing guitar necks, bridges, soundboards, and so on.
▪ bio current as of 1998
Frederick C. Lyman Jr.
Retired bass maker Fred Lyman has had articles published by the Guild in the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and now the ’00s. He’s a thirty-three-year GAL member and a Convention presenter. And he’s the champion of all Guild Benefit Auction donors, having donated hundreds of items beginning with our first auction in 1984. Fred passed away in 2012
▪ bio current as of 2009
Jeff Liverman
Jeff Liverman, Executive Director for the Danville Science Center, has worked in the science museum environment for over twenty years. Having a masters degree in Physics and a background in music, Jeff is interested in the intersection between music and science. Before moving to Danville VA, in 2003, he spent ten years repairing and building steel string instruments. Jeff also spent much of his semiprofessional life writing, playing, and recording music with the band Dirtball.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Jose Llorens
Jason Lollar
Long-time GAL member Jason Lollar literally wrote the book on making electric guitar pickups. His business outgrew his island homestead, so he moved it to the big city Tacoma. He is slated to present at the upcoming GAL Convention.
▪ bio current as of 2017
Mike Longworth
Abel Garcia Lopez
Abel Garcia López is descended from a long line of luthiers in Paracho, a town which has been the center of Mexican guitar making since the 16th century.
▪ bio current as of 2014
Augustino LoPrinzi
Augustino Lo Prinzi Ukuleles & Guitars
Augie LoPrinzi is famous as the founder of both the LoPrinzi and the Augustino guitar brands, but did you know he was also a barber?
▪ bio current as of 1997
Leo Lospennato
Leo Lospennato Electric Guitars
Leo Lospennato is a luthier, editor in chief of Sustain magazine, and the author of Electric Guitar & Bass Design. Somehow, he still finds time in between to build some crazy electric guitars. He lives in Berlin, Germany, with his wife Andrea and their miniature schnauzer, Tango.
▪ bio current as of 2014
Wade Lowe
Wade Lowe was one of the early members of the Guild and has been involved on and off over the decades. He got serious about building musical instruments in 1963. In 1969 he was the primary repair person for the renowned Sutherland’s House of Guitars. Then in 1974 he opened Diapason Guitar Shop which was a wonderful shop that was influential to many Atlanta-area guitar builders. Today he continues to build beautiful instruments, is a purveyor, creator, and supporter of fine art, and resides in the center of the universe, which happens to be located in Decatur, Georgia.
▪ bio current as of 2014
Adrian Lucas
Adrian Lucas has been making guitars for about nine years. He first learned lutherie at an evening class run by Roy Courtnall and went on to illustrate Roy’s books Making Master Guitars and The Art of Violin Making. He currently builds classic guitars of his own nontraditional design and teaches electric guitar making at Newark and Sherwood College.
▪ bio current as of 2000
Christopher Luck
Anne Ludwig
While studying for a music degree, Anne Ludwig took up the classical guitar and has been hooked ever since. She is a professional guitarist, an enthusiastic member of the Guild of South African Luthiers, and the founder of Guitar Talk magazine.
▪ bio current as of 2003
Ben Lundberg
Lennis Laviolette
Thirty-year GAL member Lennis Laviolette is a retired land surveyor. He has designed and built liturgical furnishings for several Catholic church renovations, and makes classical, nylon-string jazz, and baritone guitars. He is working on guitar #92 and reports that everyone who has bought one of his instruments has become a friend.
▪ bio current as of 2014
Darelle Anne Le Maitre
Nine-year Guild member Amina Anne Le Maitre lives and luths in the Channel Islands. That’s not a part of the United Kingdom, nor of the European Union. It all has to do with William the Conqueror.
▪ bio current as of 1997
Phillip Lea
Past author Phil Lea is a two-year Guild member and an assistant bank manager in real life.
▪ bio current as of 1991
Harvey Leach
Harvey Leach Custom Inlays and Guitars
Harvey Leach has been a luthier for more than thirty years. He is known for his intricate and detailed inlay work on his own guitars and those of many other high-end luthiers. Recently Harvey has seen his longtime efforts to develop a true full-size travel guitar reach fruition in the Voyage Air guitar project.
▪ bio current as of 2009