American School of Lutherie

expert training for luthiers of all levels

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ADVANCED DESIGN FEATURES Duration: 5 days Class format: demonstration Tuition: $1000

Advanced Design Features is a five-day lecture and demonstration seminar focused on the many new design features that are redefining the contemporary guitar.

What a great time it is to be a luthier. The acoustic guitar is in a unique period of rapid growth and transition. The luthiers involved are enjoying a deep engagement in their craft and the satisfaction of doing relevant, meaningful work. Sharing in the collective energy is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, not to be missed. I invite you to consider the value of bringing your own work up to speed in this area and setting it on a path to evolve naturally into the future rather than sit by and watch others have all the fun.

Until recently, the evolutionary pace of the acoustic guitar has been conservative, advancing more through the refinement than through innovation. Suddenly though, that's all changed. Yesterday's small band of luthiers experimenting with the guitar's further possibilities has mushroomed into today's large number of luthiers whose collective work has influenced the craft and the industry in major ways. This explosion of design creativity has already changed the guitar forever, and created a market that rewards innovation instead of resisting it.

The evidence of this is all around us - double tops, bevel arm rests, sound ports and adjustable necks ..... Players have embraced these revolutionary new guitar design features for the very real value, enhanced musicianship, that they derive from them. Compound, scalloped and double cutaways, elevated finger boards and 'trap door' access panels are offered as options and even standard features by more and more luthiers and manufacturers.

Information on these new developments is hard to find. Their attraction and value is clear to most luthiers and players who've experienced them, but the theory and how-to of these various design elements is not always obvious. Advanced Design Features provides an opportunity to study and understand each of the following:

- Removable necks - Spiral fret boards - Adjustable necks - hinged angle, vertical lead screw - Rigid rims - Double linings - Solid laminated rims with foam/cedar core - Access panels - Scalloped cutaways - Sound ports - adjustable, non-adjustable - Arm rests - bevel insert, bent soundboard - Cantilevered fingerboards - Elevated fingerboards - Compound cutaways - Wedge shaped bodies - Semi-hemispheric fret ends

- Headless necks - Braceless tops - Off-center sound holes - Double tops - nomex core, lattice core - Internal baffles - Removable bridges - Adjustable tone bars - Double cutaways - High tech bridge & saddle materials - Fan frets, multi-scales - Lateral compression - Pinless bridges - Alternate body architecture - Ventilated, relieved braces - Laminated rims