..
When I was young, I always repaired and maintained my own instruments out of necessity. Come to think of it, my first banjo was purchased in pieces from a band mate for $100. So naturally, I assembled it and learned a few things along the way about basic banjo construction. As time went on, things like changing strings, adjusting the neck tightening the head refitting a bridge…these were all things that I just did as needed. I guess it never occurred to me that I should have someone else do what had to be done on my instruments. I figured, if some one has to fix this, it might as well be me. If I didn’t know quite how to do something, I would just read about it, ask someone, or best of all, just learn as I went. Eventually, the types of things I “fixed” became more and more involved.
Here’s an example. I purchased my first mandolin at Acoustic Music in Salt Lake City for $300. It needed some work but of cours I though “I can fix that”. One day, after fixing all the obvious problems and playing it for a while, I decided that I didn’t really like the color and I wanted a radiused fret board and I would love it if it had binding on the back and on the peg head and so on and so on. Basically, I wanted a $3000 mandolin. But I didn’t have $3000. So I cleared off the ping-pong table downstairs at my parents house, gathered some basic tools and supplies and dismantled the mandolin down to the bare wood! Over the next few weeks, I added every feature on my wishlist to the best of my ability…Learning as I went, of course. The best part of it was that it actually turned out pretty good. That was the beginning of me as a Luthier. Since that project, I have build (or rebuilt) 6 different instruments including a bouzouki, a banjo, another bouzouki, another mandolin, a dreadnought Guitar, and another Banjo. Maybe I’ll tell you about each of them some time. "...if some one has to fix this, it might as well be me..."
When I was young, I always repaired and maintained my own instruments out of necessity. Come to think of it, my first banjo was purchased in pieces from a band mate for $100. So naturally, I assembled it and learned a few things along the way about basic banjo construction. As time went on, things like changing strings, adjusting the neck tightening the head refitting a bridge…these were all things that I just did as needed. I guess it never occurred to me that I should have someone else do what had to be done on my instruments. I figured, if some one has to fix this, it might as well be me. If I didn’t know quite how to do something, I would just read about it, ask someone, or best of all, just learn as I went. Eventually, the types of things I “fixed” became more and more involved.
Here’s an example. I purchased my first mandolin at Acoustic Music in Salt Lake City for $300. It needed some work but of cours I though “I can fix that”. One day, after fixing all the obvious problems and playing it for a while, I decided that I didn’t really like the color and I wanted a radiused fret board and I would love it if it had binding on the back and on the peg head and so on and so on. Basically, I wanted a $3000 mandolin. But I didn’t have $3000. So I cleared off the ping-pong table downstairs at my parents house, gathered some basic tools and supplies and dismantled the mandolin down to the bare wood! Over the next few weeks, I added every feature on my wishlist to the best of my ability…Learning as I went, of course. The best part of it was that it actually turned out pretty good. That was the beginning of me as a Luthier. Since that project, I have build (or rebuilt) 6 different instruments including a bouzouki, a banjo, another bouzouki, another mandolin, a dreadnought Guitar, and another Banjo. Maybe I’ll tell you about each of them some time.
Ryan Shupe & The Rubberband on iLike - Add iLike to your MySpace
