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Thanks Chris, I'll do that.

Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Chris,
Why not email and ask Jason instead of posting the question in hopes that he'll pop back in and then report back what you found out? That's why he poster his email.

They just arrived!
Here's the signed title pages.
I just did a quick look at it and right away I saw the section on bracing. From what I can see so far it gets into pretty much explaining the braces and bridge and etc. And it looks to me like that is a lot of the structual info I've been looking for. So I think this is probably going to feel my bill. Well it's a rainy day here so I guess I'll get down to do some reading today.

Very nice, Chris. Congratulations on being the first. That alone makes them worth it!

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

He never gives specific examples of how he voices or braces and why. He does give you valuable ways to think about guitar voicing. I and most who take his class that I've talked to, tend to think these tools are more valuable than simply showing you his approach. But I also think that if he had been more forthcoming about his specific approach, the bigger picture would have made a lot more sense a lot sooner. For instance, I recently got permission from a generous owner to tap around on the top of one of Somogyi's guitars. That was an amazing help in understanding what he was "talking" about and it would have saved me a tremendous amount of time to simply have done that in class.

Another reason that specifics would be helpful is that his methodology is most applicable to his style of guitar. If you are sold on building traditional guitars with scalloped bracing, much of his approach is just not going to make sense. The thought process would still be helpful but I don't see how the tap-voicing could be relevant.

As for wanting to be handed the keys to the kingdom or "wanting to be something but not wanting to become something", that's a load of crap. In the first place, if I wanted to simply copy someone's instrument, I'd find one and go at it with a mirror and a hacklinger gauge. Is that really going to allow me to reproduce that instrument and it's sound? It's just frustrating to pay a lot of money to take a class and have the instructor actively make it more difficult for you to fully grasp what they are trying to teach.

Again, in spite of my disagreement with his style of teaching, the class and books are a great value. And I thoroughly enjoyed being around Ervin. He is brilliant and hilarious (as are the books). And I'm sure he has some very good reasons for doing things his way. I just happened to find it frustrating and less than efficient.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

I probably was not the target audience for this book. I have built two guitars and hope to build a handful more - probably with each being a different model / style. I did buy the books open to gain some knowledge that will help me to be more successful with these builds. I have started the first book and skimmed the second.

Here are some comments from Ervin Somogyi's web site:

Book 1: There is nothing in the market or on bookshelves like this: this book is more or less a bible for guitar makers: it contains everything I've learned about making guitars over a forty-plus year career. For icing on the cake, there is a 32-color-page section showing some of the most innovative and noteworthy work being done today that I know of. There are close to 500 photographs and diagrams, and everything is described in plain, everyday language: there's not a single scientific formula anywhere.

Book 2: This is a book about understanding and making the guitar as I know it, practice it, think about it, and appreciate it. It is a comprehensive method, covering material that other books stint on or skip over entirely, including comparative perspectives on other makers' methods. It emphasizes making the steel string guitar but also touches heavily on making the Spanish guitar.

While I understand that he may hold some things back as being proprietary information ( I have already read this point in Book 1), I do hope after reading the books that I (the consumer) feel they live up to this promise. So far I will say I am enjoying reading the books, but I also hope that we can discuss the books here and get deeper into some of the topics.

Greg

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Greg Hatcher
North Carolina

Thanks, Kent. I don't think he needs to teach his methodology in order to teach application. I was talking to a fellow teacher yesterday about losing weight because she was asking about what I do when I work out (I'm a certified trainer). Instead of telling her how I work out, I told her why exercise changes body composition and the strength system that primarily runs on fat. I told her why, and then how to approach it from different angles so she could do what she was most likely to do. That's really all I'm asking about. If he doesn't teach me how to apply it, it's going to go right over my head. I could've taught Mrs. P about eccentric vs. concentric cardiac hypertrophy and left it at that, but I taught her why each is a desired adaptation for different reasons, how to think about what aligns with her goal, and then different ways to achieve it. I think that's important in any educational material.

Thanks for the detailed information about the books. Not that I was about to pay $250 for them but all this talk about them got me a bit curious and you and others here, including his apprentice, satisified my curiosity.

John

Although I've only read section one of the Responsive Guitar I 'm looking forward to finishing it as it already has given me some good points and I don't think if you are looking for the cook book you will want this. Section two starts to get into the stuff I've been looking for someone to explain for a while. Here's the chapter titles.

5. Dynamics of the Guitar
6. The funtions of the Bracing in the Modern Guitar
7. Materials Stiffness
8. The "X" Brace
9. Other Bracing Systems: An Overview
10. Tonewoods in Guitars
11. The Selection and Treatment of Bracewoods
12. The Basics of Guitar Designs
13. The Designs and Physics of the Guitar's Neck and Head
14. the Funtions of the Guitar Back
And on and on till chapter 34.
If this is the stuff you are after to know and understand then this book is for you. Read and absorb this stuff and think about it and you should be able to figure out how to shave a brace. Ervin also says that he is always trying new things with his guitars to see if it works( for his guitar design) or not. I believe that when I finish these books I'll at least have a far better understanding of how things work and will also be able to discuss some of these things and ideas that I may have with others from a more educated or knowledgable point of view and with a few more builds under my belt. If you are looking for a cook book maybe you can read these and try to write one of your own.

Building the guitar show's how he builds his guitar.

Me, I'll read these and use what I learn and play around with Alan Carruth's voicing method too and see where it leads me.

I hope the book and Al's voicing method leads you to good places (don't forget to protect your ears).

I must admit I've become a bit cynical about books and people that claim to offer some deep understanding and wisdom and then fail to explain it in simple terms that anyone who is sincerely trying to read can get. To me, it's very simple, if you really understand something you can explain it. If you don't, you can't. And if you refuse to answer their questions when they ask them in a simple and straight foward way, for whatever reason, you loose all credibility with me. Of course, I don't know is always an acceptable answer.

The word cookbook seems to pop up in this thread a fair amount as if that is the only alternative to a book that does not give answers. A basic physics book teaches basic physics, it gives answers, it explains why, a good one also makes clear where current knowledge and understanding stops. It's not a cookbook, although a lot of folks use them that way. At the other extreme you have any one of the modern pop physics books which give insight in to the direction and thought processes of people pushing the boundaries of our knowledge of physics but they hardly give answers- how can they, the answers aren't known yet. And that's the way I think it is with guitars and why they sound the way they do, the answers aren't known yet. Nothing wrong with modern physics books if you know what you're getting- it's a whole different story if you think you're getting answers though. Likewise there's nothing wrong with guitar books that don't give answers, especially if they're up front about it.

When I first started seeing some of the ways people talk about guitars, especially when it was couched in a "scientific" sort of way I took it at face value as actually being science. Why wouldn't I, often some of the accoutrements of science were there, their ideas were often grounded in reality, it's just that the extensions they made from there were not. Solid guys, like Al Carruth, are quick to acknowledge where science stops with their techniques, especially when pushed a bit, and where they are like the modern pioneers in physics trying to break new ground. They explain that they have techniques that look promising and seem to work but aren't quite yet science.

Of course, everyone has to sort through all this in their own way and in their own time frame. It's obvious that a lot of people are receiving great satisfaction from Ervin's book and that's just great.

I will say though, that if I was looking to spend $3500 dollars on some guitar making lessons from an experieced luthier I would take advantage of the fact that a dollar goes a lot further in NH than it does in the SF Bay area. And fall in NH is very beautiful.

John

If you are referring to the class it's now $5000.
That's why I bought the book.

How many months does the class last?

John

Well, I got my books just now. What a nice set of books. Even without content, Ervin went out of his way to make the books special. Beautiful covers, a great holder for the pair, with his signature on it. The quality of the printing and the pages it first class. Even the dust covers are outstanding. I recommend covering your dust covers with acid free protection, to keep them, and the books in excellent condition, as you use, and read them. The covering materials are available from Brodart, on line. There are also other suppliers of bookmakers supplies and book protection materials. My wife is into genealogy, and buys lots of old books for reference. We cover all of the books we use, and it's amazing how it keeps them in good shape. Some may think it's a little like having plastic on your couch, but it's not the same. It protects the value of the books, it's easy to do, and can be removed without damaging the dust covers if necessary. Your library will last much longer if cared for properly. My books will be covered before the end of the day. (There's that phrase again!)

I plan to take my time going through these books. Hopefully they will enlighten my perspective on building. I doubt they will change it, but maybe help me experiment without going backwards. I'm a bit like Chris, in that I just want to see where they take me, if anywhere. If not, I'm sure I'll learn another perspective, whether I adopt it or not. I have Overholtzer's book too, and didn't adopt much of that. Not nearly as nice a book.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

And don't forget that the foam packing blocks are just what you need to support the top if you are using Alan's voicing technic.
I've been removing the dust cover when reading so as not to tear them.
John, that would be .5 months.

My books arrived today while I was mowing my lawn and they say that nothing runs like a Deere.... Well I sure ran like a deer when I saw the mail lady in my driveway!

I completely agree with Waddy that these books are very special indeed. My books had a note in there that apologized for the delay in getting them to me indicating that some Chris Paulick guy kept bugging Ervin with questions, hence the delay... Just kidding of course and congrats to Chris for now owning Ervin's "first" books!

In the short time that I have been browsing these books I have a number of impressions.

First - for those of us who have met Ervin his personality does come through very clearly. Ervin is the sort of teacher who understands the value of individual discovery. As mentioned in this thread these are not cook books but then personally I would not want to learn to build a Somogyi guitar either - not that they are not incredible guitars. What I do hope to glean from these books is a structured way of thinking, objectively, that helps me to discover what ever I have the opportunity to discover in my own personal journey of guitar building. Ervin asks us questions that once we have a better understanding of the concepts that he discusses very well we ought to be able to answer ourselves. It's the old give a guy a fish and they will eat tonight. Give them a GE top-of-the-line, 5 burner, commercial quality stove and they will make thing....

Additionally, for the the folks who wanted more specifics there are a number of pictures of things that Ervin uses or does that heretofore were not available. For example when I was interested in double/laminated sides I wondered what a fixture to do the laminating might look like. I even asked some of the Somogyi disciples and I was told that some of the things in Ervin's shop were not for public disclosure. I respect that too and I understood this but it didn't help me. Another example was a voicing fixture.

Well there they are both Ervin's side lamination jig and voicing fixture pictured in the books.

Just like everything else in my shop these books are tools and perhaps one of the best additions to my shop that I have made to date. The books are very well done and in my opinion do justice to decades of hands on experience and a very open mind that Master Luthier Ervin Somogyi possesses.

Lastly I think that the format, two books, was also very well thought out. Of course we all want to build a responsive guitar. One of the two books discusses some things to consider toward that end. The other book, appropriately, provides a discussion of just what a responsive guitar is or in other words - the goal.

And really, really lastly my congrats and thanks to Ervin for the incredible achievement that writing and publishing these books truly is while sharing his knowledge and experience with countless guitar builders now and for years to come.

Bravo!

Well said! And Congradulations to Ervin Somogyi as well.
And thanks to Jason for straightening things out.

I got my books today too!!! Yay!

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John Lewis
Wannabe builder owned by 2 crazy dachshunds

Yay! Mine arrived today too

They look great - LOTS of useful information in there....as well as food for thought. I'm going to really enjoy devouring these books in the coming weeks.

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

All this talk about Ervin's books made me curious enough to check out his web site. I watched the video and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the whole experience. Of course I expected to see the beautiful carving and interesting guitars that always surround Ervin but I got much more out of it than that.

For me, the gentle way he was shown carefully carving the ends of his braces was especially powerful- gouge and all, because it contrasted so greatly with the quick single stroke style that I was taught by Al Carruth many years ago. Al's technique was to achieve fluidity in the carving by making strong powerful and swift movements through the wood which worked well for him but never felt quite right to me. I find that a more delicate style of carving feels and works better, so of course that's what I use. Still whenever I do it, somewhere down in the depths of my soul I hear Al's voice saying, “you're doing it wrong”. I think seeing Ervin carve in his style will be very freeing for me.

I was also surprised by the calm charming presence of Ervin throughout the video, it contrasted sharply with my few experiences of seeing him at shows where I was left with an overall impression that resonated more with a comment like:


Somehow I always got the feeling that asking pointed questions, or even making factual comparisons about how Ervin's position about something has shifted from one show to the next was greeted with suspicion and then deflected rather than addressed. I got the same feelings while I was “checking out” his guitars too. I never really felt welcomed to do so in the same way that I did, - well just about everywhere else. Perhaps my overall impression was exaggerated by how the “team Somogyi” experience contrasted so strongly from the impressions left by the extremely welcoming, friendly, even bubbly encounters I had with folks like, Harvey Leach, or the strong directness of Charlie Fox. I don't know him well at all, but from the little I've seen, it's hard to imagine that a question could ever make Charlie Fox flinch- I wonder if he plays golf too.

In the video describing his books Ervin did say:


So anyone who buys the book has every right to expect him to reveal all he knows without holding back “secrets”.

And comments like these certainly suggest that he did not and that it is his sop.







Wow, you mean Somogyi doesn't pass around a few of his guitars in his class and tell you to “help yourself?” -Enough said.


I also checked out some of the sample chapters that he was kind enough to post. I read the chapter on humidity and how it affected wood- good information to be sure but one could add a lot of meat on the bone without every being accused of writing a cookbook. Maybe he covers it in more detail later, I don't know, but just to give an example. If you are serious about building guitars, a book like “Understanding Wood: A Craftsman's Guide to Wood Technology” by R, Bruce Hoadley will give you a lot of specific and very detailed information that will really help you understand how humidity affects wood. It will teach you a lot of other very specific things about wood too. And it does so the old fashion way, it actually presents the information so that, with a bit of work, you leave knowing exactly what he's talking about.

I also checked out the chapter on the “The Basics of Guitar Design.” What I found here was a bit surprising because contrary to some of the descriptions I read in this thread where folks say thinks like:



I found that it gave a lot of specific answers to a lot of issues related to guitars, Just one small example that struck me. Ervin says:



While on the one hand I understand the point he's trying to make, on the other hand I can say that I have in fact learned a lot about guitars and the affect of string height over the bridge by doing just what Ervin says not to do. (Sometimes I did it deliberately- to see if the myths about all this were true, sometimes not so deliberately and yet still very educational.)

From the, admittedly very little that I read, it seems that there are a lot of these “rules” throughout Ervin's writing and I can't help but wonder how many “voices” are being planted that sound a lot like the voice I used to hear when I was carving brace ends, “you're doing it wrong.” Especially, given how the books are talked about by other folks, as someone mentioned.



And I don't think there's anything wrong with that- I'm just saying that you may want to mind the "voices".

Just some thoughts I had about all this, I'll go back to work now, as luck would have it I'm going to carve top braces this afternoon and thanks to Ervin I'm sure I'm going to enjoy doing it more than ever.

John

FWIW, I flipped through "Making the Responsive Guitar", this morning. Good thing I'm my own boss! I wasn't reading, but just checking out the different chapters. What I found really surprised me in it's depth. It really does take you through all of the construction steps, explains some various bracing patterns and their strengths and weaknesses, bridges, tips on bindings and purflings, setting necks, and a multitude of other things on construction techniques. He shares many of his jigs, shows his braces, and lots of other stuff. It looks like a pretty good treatise on building as near as I could tell. I really didn't expect a how to, book, but it seems that there is one in there. Another thing, is that he has extensive notes at the end of each book on each chapter, that includes lots of detail information, not included in the chapters. An interesting approach. I can't wait to read it in depth. I'm starting on the other book first, but I just wanted to see what was in that one. One thing that, sort of, stuck out in my quick flip through, was the height and thinness of his bracing systems, regardless of the one he used, which I get the impression changes a lot, as every guitar is a bit of an experiment, to him.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Yeah, I didn't see the end notes untill chapter 3. It would have been nice to have 2 placement ribbons so you can flip to them when you come the the listed endnote as you are reading. I just keep my finger there as the aren't to far inbetween.
John,
What is it you want to know or is bothering you so much about these books? Either buy them and read them and keep them or sale them or don't buy them at all. It's starting to look like you have a secret adjenda to just keep trashing on them and Ervin. I'm sure we are all not going to all think like Ervin after reading these books or think like Alan after seeing his DVD. There is also some stuff in the book about the author that might even be a bit enlightening as to perhaps why it is the way he acts towards people. Maybe you have surpressed anger about Alan telling you that you carve the ends of the brace wrong for too many years and are taking it out on Ervin. Perhaps you should email Alan and tell him "It's my life and I'll do what I wanta" or It's my brace and I'carve it like a wanta!

John, thanks for your thoughts on this topic. Since I probably won't own this book until after the next "latest and greatest" book comes out, I will have to satisfy myself with the free stuff that is being slung about.

When I met Ervin, it seemed like I was talking to someone a little too much like myself, all things being reduced to philosophy, so I could never trust too much in what he said. It is good to know that he is teaching a hard and fast measurement around which everything else is designed. For beginners, it would be good if he went ahead and said 1/2" and be done with it, but it being the anniversary of Woodstock, I understand.

I remember Eugene Clark saying, about laying out your guitar to "strike a line down the center of the paper, everything else is laid out according to this line." Simple enough.

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For those who say he doesn't show his bracing. He in fact does some lattice bracing pattern he is working on in the footnotes. Footnote 9.7 guys. And like Hesh says there is also a picture of his top voicing Jig/box in the back in the class chapter. And my friend Keith MacKenzie is in the background.

Now that's not nice. Just because he has a different oppinion is no reason to get snippy.
I bought the books and although I don't regret buying them, I can understand how some may feel that there was a little hype involved in the description of the books on the web site.

Not ment to be snippy.