Official Luthiers Forum!

Based on your own personal opinion, are you a better player or builder?

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Julie Moriarty
http://JulimorCreations.com

Jack of all trades master of none

I've been playing for 50 years and am just completing my 5th guitar. I'm, without any question or reservation, a better builder.

You get out what you put in. I spend most of my time working on 'em, not playing 'em. Guess what I'm known for? It sure ain't my jazzy octave runs or crushing speed metal solos.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Used to be better player than builder, now the opposite,

My wife says I'm a better builder than player. She is right.

Its interesting how building has affected my playing. I've been playing since the early 1970's, mostly folkie and blues. Three chords and the truth, as long as one of them is a flatted 7th. I built guitars accordingly, small bodied acoustics, a couple of 12 strings. I consider myself a pretty good slide player - I built a tricone and a Weissenborn.

For some hairball reason I built a Les Paul clone, I think I was mostly fascinated by the shape. Had to buy an amp, well, actually, I built an amp. Had to learn something called pentatonic scales and figure out what some of those notes up by the body were. And bending notes, no one does full step bends on an acoustic.

Then I built a couple of jazz guitars for friends and decided, what the heck, I need a jazz guitar. Owning a jazz guitar has forced me to learn a little bit about how chords are put together and different voicings and what a 6th and a 9th and a 13th are, which chords sound, well, jazzy. Owning a jazz guitar has forced me to learn music.

I should have built a jazz guitar forty years ago

I was a professional, even toured a bit (Japan, S. America, most of the US) but arthritis robbed me of my left hand fingers so now I'm a 3rd rate classical pianist. Vastly better builder than player at this point but that ain't saying much. Getting old is not for pu$$ies but it beats the alternative.

My daughter has her own repair shop and she plays blues in NYC. She just got a write up earlier today:

https://nationalsawdust.org/thelog/2018/07/05/mamie-minch-giving-girls-the-tools-to-succeed/

In it she says:

"But your dad is also a musician, right?

"He’s a guitar player, and he’ll tell you he taught me everything he knows—in about 15 minutes. That’s our little shtick. But he’s good. He plays fingerpicking blues guitar in the way that a lot of college students in the early seventies might have. He only plays around seven songs, but he plays them really well, tunes by Reverend Gary Davis and Mississippi John Hurt. And a killer version of “Teddy Bear’s Picnic.”"

I know 7 songs and I am building my eighth guitar - I must be a better builder than player.

Check out that she is giving a ukulele building camp to 10 girls starting in 10 days.

Ed

Hopefully I'm a better builder. My playing sucks

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

That's one talented young lady there Ed. She must make you proud

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

I’ve been building since 2000, just for fun. I’ve been playing since I was 12 years old ( that’s 44 years). I can build a decent guitar, but no matter what I do, I am terrible at playing. Just requires muscles on the wrong side of my brain. I envy great players and just wish music was natural for me.

I've been playing for many years. Never as a professional, but it has been a life long hobbie. I can certainly hold my own in either an acoustic or electric group setting. I got inspired by Tommy Emmanuel and other fingerstylists a few years ago and have been doing some of that style. I've been playing a lot longer than building. I have completed 17 guitars in the past 12 or 15 years and have two more almost ready for finishing. I guess you'd have to ask those that have heard me play and seen (or played) my builds which I'm better at. I enjoy doing both. I definitely believe that the fact that I play helps me to build an instrument that plays well. I've had good luck with the sound of my builds too.

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

Player, but I’m proud of my builds. 35 years playing and only 20 building. But no matter how far I go, I always feel like I’m frustratingly still close to the starting blocks.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

As a player: I’m mainly a singer, and my playing is a means of accompanying my singing, so that tends to define what type of player I am. I’m a very good rhythm guitarist, and I can work out parts for fancier things, as needed. But I will never be a great lead guitarist. If I had a desire to be one, I think I could have (and perhaps still could be, if I practiced enough), but honestly, it is not my thing.

As a builder: I move slowly, due to having a demanding day job, but I am learning all the time, and I see myself figuring out what I want to build, how to build them, and how to get good at it. I see real progress.

I think I have much more potential as a builder than as a player, and I don’t mean that in terms of material success. Neither one compares well in that regard to my day job. I mean in terms of achieving high quality in the work. I think I can build a better guitar better than I can play a better tune, if that makes sense.

building is making me a better player but I would say better builder at this point yet

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I played guitar from age 18 until I reached 65 at which time the dreaded arthritis got into my fingers on both hands. I played all styles, country, rock, and jazz earlier on. I took up classical guitar at age 25 and within 5 years it became my true passion. I started building classical guitars when I was 40. After about 30 guitars I went down to Healdsburg, California to take a master class with Gregory Byers at the American School of Lutherie where I also met Charles Fox. So far I've built and sold 127 classical guitars. My oldest client has been with me for 37 years and says I'm a far better builder than I ever was a player.

I have played for 56 years and still gig several times a month but I am a better builder.

Developing an association with really great players through lutherie has been a critical part of my evolution as a builder.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

I started playing guitar at 18 Also play the the violin , became interested in playing guitar and became a pro . Started to build when I was 28, now i just suck at both LOL

About the same on both. I'll never play as well as I want to, and I'll never build one the way it looks in my head.

I'm not particularly good at either but I am, hands down, a better builder than player (not saying much). I lack that intangible thing that makes what you play actually music. When I play, it is just a collection of notes. I'm probably different than most as I didn't get into this because I was a player and took interest in making a guitar. I have always loved making things. There is something about bringing an object into existence that really appeals to me. For some reason, I did not incorporate that into my professional life at all. Once I started making instruments, it clicked and I suddenly remembered that part of me that loves that type of thing.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

It seems a bit sad that so many of us haven't achieved much playing skill.
I am certain though that some experience at playing, whatever the level is an important input to the build process.

And you Julie...?

Oh, I did my years on the band circuit - but nowadays I have little to say musically.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

It was the summer of '65. A neighbor in my class said he was going to start a band. I asked if I could join. "What do you play?" Nothing. He recruited a pretty talented guy in our class who could play piano, guitar, bass, drums and some brass. And he could sing. I convinced them I could learn. They needed a bass player and could find no one. I got the spot.

I was taught the very basics of the bass part on Satisfaction, Wolly Bully, Tamborine Man and a few others. I also learned E A & D chords on guitar. Ten years later, that's all I still know. Or has it been 20 years? My math is so bad lately. What year is this anyway? Will the Beatles ever reunite? Where's my dentures?

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Julie Moriarty
http://JulimorCreations.com

I was 16 when I started to learn to play guitar. Same age I made my very first guitar, I was still at school. In terms of playing something went wrong along the way. I'm reasonably musical but technically I'm pretty bad, lots of mistakes and stopping at them. Terrible habits. I should give up but I don't. I still have hopes that things will slot into place but in 40 years it hasn't happened. My building is at a much higher level than my playing. A year ago I took up the piano and I'm almost at the same level as the guitar despite there being a huge difference in years played on each instrument. Says it all really.

Nobody ever said the guitar was easy (at least nobody who tried to play it). Piano isn't easy either, I've been at it for almost 10 years now (classical) and am still 3rd rate at best.