Reference Library Articles

During the late 1970s, a new generation of virtuoso American rock guitarists was emerging

Jacob Rayman is revered in England with rather more honour than he is perhaps due. His contribution to violin making is fairly minor and few instruments of his survive, but as the earliest maker in England his place in history is for the moment secure.

Jacob Stainer remains an enigmatic maker, despite the comparatively large amount of documentary evidence about his life that has been discovered

Jean Baptiste Vuillaume was undoubtedly the most successful violin maker of the 19th century.

Nashville-based luthier Jerry Jones is dedicated to recreating the classic Danelectro, Silvertone, and Coral electric guitar designs of Nathan Daniel

This is a rare and fascinating instrument. The name is unrecorded previously, although Henley cites a label of 'Chiaravalle di Faleri'

John Lott, celebrated in life and fiction, is probably the best known of English violin makers.

Californian luthier Steve Klein's electric guitars look strikingly unconventional, but their appearance is far from being a visual gimmick

Lorenzo Storioni is usually credited with saving the rapidly declining violin making tradition in Cremona at the end of the eighteenth century.

Whenever great violins are talked about, the name of Luigi Tarisio will arise at some point.

Marco Dobretsovitch has the distinction of being the only professional violin maker up until the present time active in Egypt.

Christian Friedrich Martin (1796-1873) was born at Markneukirchen, Saxony, in the southeastern corner of modern Germany, on January 31st 1796.

Leo Fender's designs stimulated demand for the electric guitar at all levels.

We now know a great deal about Michele Deconet, through archival researches in Venice, but there remains a considerable mystery about the circumstances of one of the most apparently prolific of Venetian makers.

Prior to the electronic era, luthiers often sought innovative ways to boost their acoustic instruments' audibility.

National never resumed production of metal-body resonator guitars after World War II, but the Dopyera brothers revived the Dobro line in the 1950s

Pietro Giovanni Mantegazza was born in about 1730, in a parish outside the city walls of Milan.

Rock and jazz are radical forms of music, but the guitarists who play them often have surprisingly conservative views about instrument design.

The Gagliano dynasty of Naples is possibly the longest and most prolific of any of the Italian violin making families, overtaking the Amati at least in sheer numbers

Rick Turner's 'Pretzel' and Model 1 Guitars Rick Turner, one of America's most creative and respected luthiers, designs and builds his guitars in the Monterey Bay-side city of Santa Cruz.

Well before his enforced departure from the National String Instrument Corporation (see National article), musician George Beauchamp (1899-1941) had been developing a design for an electric guitar pickup.

In 1953, F.C. Hall (founder of Radio-Tel, Fender's original distributor) purchased Adolph Rickenbacker's Electro String Instrument Corporation, and re-named it after its founder

Having a guitar custom-made is not dissimilar to being measured for a Savile Row suit.

Sanctus Seraphin (or Santo Seraphino) somehow stands apart from the other makers of Venice.