the.com/luthiery
Coaxing a tree into singing for a hundred years after it died.
means The craft of building and repairing stringed instruments like violins, guitars, and lutes.
from From 'luthier,' the French word for a maker of stringed instruments, which comes from 'luth' — French for the lute. 'Luth' itself traces back through Old French and Spanish (laúd) to the Arabic 'al-ʿūd,' literally 'the wood,' the name of the pear-shaped instrument Moorish musicians carried into medieval Spain. So baked into the very word is the thing the essence names: wood, made to sing. The English '-y' suffix simply turns the maker's trade into the trade itself.
- name origin
- From lute, though violins now dominate the trade
- wood aging
- Tonewood often dries decades before being touched
- thinness obsession
- Violin tops are carved to millimeter precision by ear
- stradivari mystery
- His varnish recipe still isn't fully cracked
- glue choice
- Hide glue lets future repairers take it apart
torres guitars — spanish family workshop founded by antonio de torres in 1840s, revolutionized classical guitar design
martin guitar company — american manufacturer established by c.f. martin in 1833, still handcrafts acoustic guitars in nazareth, pennsylvania
stew-mac — stewart-macdonald company in athens, ohio that supplies specialized luthier tools and materials since 1978