Official Luthiers Forum!

Thanks Jon and Mike.

This morning I wrote Ervin a letter and enclosed my check for $235 along with a couple of pictures that I took of him in 2007 that I don't think that he has ever seen. My hope is that he will get a kick out of these photos and maybe remember who the whack job with the weird name was that he spent about 1/2 an hour talking with outside the HGF last time.....

He is a very funny guy and in my case was very generous of his time and his thoughts. I also got to play two of his guitars and as stated previously on this forum these were both two of the finest sounding guitars that I have ever had the sincere pleasure to play. The playability was outstanding too.

A couple of years ago I really, really, really wanted to take his course which if I remember correctly was priced at that time at around $3,400. Unfortunately I was sick as hell and could not make it but when I heard that Ervin was going to publish these books they immediately became a must-read for me.

Let's see the course was around $3,400 and the books are $235.... Not that the books are a substitute for the 7 day course mind you.

Understandably they are not for everyone but IMHO I seriously doubt that anyone on this forum would not get a great deal of information that it took a true living master 40 years to compile out of these books.

Anyway that's my story and I'm sticking to it... Also, I am not affiliated with Ervin in any way (I WISH!!!).

Lastly I had better post the pics since I brought them up. You can clearly see that Ervin is a man who knows his own direction...

I sent him a check. Too good to pass up!

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Well we are all certainly entitled to our opinions, but as a hobby or a profession this is not a cheap endeavor, this is the cost of a decent set of tonewood. Is 40 years of knowledge not worth a set of tonewood?

This is cheap by any accounting.

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

He seems to work out of the fine art framework. Given that, the prices of the books aren't unexpected. They'll probably be printed on nice sealed paper with nice full color prints. A few pdf excerpts would be nice.

As far as text books go . . . Let nobody kid themselves into believe it isn't a billion dollar business with new editions often having no more modification than new page numbers on the bottom of every page.

Nobody here is begrudging Ervin. Quite the opposite. The people who can afford them won't understand why those who can't are upset, but some of the them are probably mad because they'll be shut out on this. I don't think there's anything wrong with vocalizing that. Not everybody is in the place to collect $250 sets of wood.

Hmmm..... Seems there's a pattern here. I remember the last time there was a discussion about Ervin, things got a bit - shall we say - elevated.

I'm ordering. At the very least, the books will be a good precursor to taking his course, if that day ever comes for me.

Pat

_________________
formerly known around here as burbank
_________________

http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Maybe I'm missing something, It looks like his feet got installed backwards.

_________________
Jeremy Douglas

It would be really easy to turn this into a political discussion on the rights and wrongs of market driven economies.

In effort not to do that, I will just say that Mr. Somogyi is the one who spent over 30 years of proffessional building time on guitars. He is the one who consistently gets his guitars to sound nothing short of other worldly. He is the one who spent 8 years of his life working on this project so we don't have to. I think that gives him the right to charge whatever he wants to. You either buy his books or you don't. You either buy what he has to offer or you don't.

Some will be happy to not buy the books and save the money and others will be happy to spend the money and be better guitar builders. These are an individual's choice. Neither is wrong, neither is right.

To say that he should lower his price because it excludes certain people is a value judgement on Ervin's choice and work and is certainly conciously or unconciously aimed at getting the accuser and his chosen others inside the circle. This kind of strategy is flawed because it is victim based. It makes Mr. Somogyi responsible for EVERYBODY. It says that he is responsible for getting me inside the circle. I'm sorry but nobody is responsible for others. Flori, I suggest that you stop wasting time defending a position as a poor me, victim/martyr. If you really want his books find a way raise the dough and get them. If you really want to find a way to get them for libraries, do a fundraiser for them and make it happen! That would be a worthwhile endeavor!

You might also check out why being outside the circle bothers you so much. You might find that although what you feel is certainly valid, the strategy is flawed because the line between the inside and outside is an apparition placed there by none other than yourself.

I'm no saint and no authority but as long as we're having this discussion I thought I'd add my 2C.

Not being able to afford them is a reality for sure, and I can't really afford them, but dang it all if I won't sell something personal of mine to be able to get them!

Really when you seriously think about it without any prejudice, ego, or jealousy the books are easily worth the price he is asking.

There is a distinct possibility I'll disagree with a lot of what's in these books, there is also almost no doubt that I'll learn quite a bit and improve myself as a luthier, and to me that is worth well more than $250. You can't take away knowledge. Knowledge is priceless.

_________________
John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Sweet...totally inaccurate personal attacks from people who know nothing about me. Oops. There I go playing the victim again.

I'm just going to chime in because I come from the cheapskate side of the camp.

I was sort of bummed about the price when I saw it. But like he said, the tone wood for one guitar cost more than he is charging for the set of books (depending on the wood). If I build 20 guitars without reading the books I might just happen to think of some of the things he talks about from his years of experience. I could build 100 and some of the stuff might never even occur to me. Of course it might take 100 for me to absorb the info that is in the book.

As I think about the overall development of my education would it be better to build 20 guitars and hope I somehow hit it? I think for me taking a class from someone would make a huge difference in my understanding of the guitar building process. It is very unlikely that I am going to be able to take a class in the near future. As an alternative, the books could help tide me over. I refer to the Bennedetto and Cumpiano books as reference all the time (and I’m not even really building). I can’t see these as being a onetime read.

Are they expensive? Yes. Do I want them? Yes. As a cheapskate I am going to have to plan on some sort of scheme to finale it. Am I planning? Yes. But as far as the value of the books I can see my self picking up $250 of information from them. If I can apply some techniques and understand why I’m making the decisions I am making, I can easily see these books saving me over $250 in the next 20 builds. I can’t afford them now, but I may be able to pull off a one at a time purchase after a while. Until then I think I need a sticker that says

My Other Book is a Somogyi

John

I got the email 2 days ago and my $235.00 is in the mail now. Wow, too much drama over a set of books.

_________________
John Lewis
Wannabe builder owned by 2 crazy dachshunds

Flori....What Randolph said was a hard read dude....but I don't think he is ATTACKING you personally. He probably disagrees vehemently but I didn't see him calling you names and such.

There is an EXTREMELY fundamental concept in play here:

Do we, as individuals, with intellect and choice, OWN the products of our thinking and our efforts? Do we OWN what our life produces? I think the answer is most certainly yes. If the answer is anything but yes...we then have to have discussions on the following questions. Does the individual have real access to his or her life's product? Does the individual have THE RIGHT to own what his or her life produces? Who DOES it belong to? See how ridiculous that gets? Through what mechanism does the result of ANY person's life not belong to him or her?

I know you are not arguing that Ervin's work doesn't belong to him....but the realm your opinion approaches CAN cause one to think you might not fully agree with the above premise.

Ervin owns the product of his life and as sole owner of the product of his life, he gets to choose EVERYTHING that relates to the disposition of what his life produced. He does not bear a duty nor is he bound by ANY entity to consider said entity's ability, desire, or willingness to obtain his product (if he's smart he will but that's not the point). Please understand that for the sake of the debate this is very sterilized. Throw in Ervin's desires and political compass and any other number of personality traits and the outcome is shaped.

Again...not attacking...just getting thru the layers.

_________________
There is no difference between the man that thinks he can....and the man that thinks he cannot.

Brock I'm with Flori and John Mayes, I was gutted when I saw the price, and not being able to afford them is a big issue for me it'll mean saving for a month, then having to delve into precious hard earned saving to make up the balance, I said to Ervin when enquiring about paypal, that I thought $10 for signing was cheeky and we had a little discussion via email and I don't think I can justify that $10. I will be buying the book whilst looking to what I can sell on ebay to restore my savings, but Flori I know your playing devils advocate and are going to buy the books, but does 8 years $30,000 personal out lay not put over how much effort the guys put in to share the knowledge.

The internet seems to of bred a generation of people whom think they have a free entitlement to knowledge and demand it without the due respect for those who have gained it.

_________________
Formerly JJH

I learn more from my mistakes than my successes

Can I play the victim too?

I mean, that was such a sweet PM you sent me...

***Michael takes a Thalamic Pause......decides to leave it at that****

there is one thing I haven't seen mentioned yet...

the concept of prices of other books has been brought up...yep, it has...from what little research I just did it appears as if all of them are published by a publisher (you know, a business that specializes in the printing and distribution of books and such)...

Ervin is paying for all of this himself...do I need to say more, or are there a few "students" who need further "education"?

What can I say? It's amazing that internet based psychoanalysis hasn't caught on.

Mike_P, let it go. I already addressed the issue of how quickly he'd recoup his 30k.

Flori I got a question - If Ervin had said.."I've spent my whole life learning this craft. Now I'm going to write a book and tell all....but I want to make some serious cash so the book is going to cost you."

Would you still have a gripe? I'm just trying to gather the curtain so I can see what's behind it. Yeah maybe psycho analyze but I'm really curious. Not so I can say "see told you so" either. It sounds as though you contend that those with knowledge have a duty to divulge it in a manner that makes it accessible by the masses.

_________________
There is no difference between the man that thinks he can....and the man that thinks he cannot.

He didn't only invest $30k, but also a few hundred...or thousand hours (no idea how long it takes to write two books...). While it would of course be sweet if Ervin Somogyi were to benevolently donate this time to the luthier community, from a business perspective it's understandable that he wants some compensation for the invested time. So the price does of course also reflect what he thinks his time is worth... What's his approximate hourly wage for building a guitar again?

Christian

c'mon d00d, say what you really mean...

you're communist that feels that everything should be free....heck, maybe you live for the time you can spend using LameWire...so by that logic Ervin is only allowed to recoup his capitol investment, and all of his personal time has no value?....hmmmmm....following that process then I guess you feel his knowledge has no value?

if that's the case why are you so interested in his manuscripts?

_________________
Formerly JJH

I learn more from my mistakes than my successes

Agreed. Chris, I wouldn't have a gripe if he said that.

Thanks Flori

_________________
Formerly JJH

I learn more from my mistakes than my successes

Man what is it about Somogyi that causes him to be such a lightning rod?

Since I'm sort of a "everything for free 'cause money is bad" hippie, here's what I did. I have this little set of plans of a army-navy style mandolin (that apparently there aren't any plans of) and I offered them for trade over on the Mandolin Cafe. No money (please! don't want any of that to rub off on me) but send something with local color from where you are. So far I've gotten a indian spear-point, a AAA baseball team hat, some flowers some maple syrup, spices, a hippie newspaper, a tool, several CD's, picture postcards, etc.

My wife is sort of mad at me because I've had to spend money on large envelopes and postage. I wonder if Ervin likes indian artifacts...

_________________
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008907949110

Locked...
Sorry guys, we got to play nice here or not at all.

Like I said, Ervin deserves more respect than this and I wont let this thread
degrade any longer.

Buy it if you want, dont if you dont want to. But PLEASE stop fighting over the price!
My goodness! Tools cost an arm and a leg and some are crazy expensive, BUT I buy what
I need to advance my guitar building. ES's books will no doubt be amoung the best set of tools in my
box, AND not the most expensive!

_________________
Support the OLF! Bookmark our STEWMAC link Today!
Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Somebody's read Atlas Shrugged.

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com