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Cool.. Thanks, Trevor

What is it about Ervin that somehow there is an expectation that he should drop his shorts for everyone? There's not a professional builder I know that isn't somewhat guarded about how they do things and some things that you simply do not ask them to reveal. Why should we expect Ervin to be any different? I know in one instance in which a builder wasn't so much as asked to give up something they spent a lot of time developing -- it was arrogantly expected that they would give it away.

I agree with Barry and Kent that Ervin could have answered the question of failure better, but that particular issue does go deeper and more directly into his personal approach to building at the very edge and one that could be viewed as being outside the parameters of the course. His course has never been billed as the "How to build the Somogyi Guitar." If that's how you view his course description then you're allowing yourself to read more into the course than he promised. The course is designed to give you the tools to explore your building, and that it provides. What it lacked when I took it was a baseline finished voiced top for the students to consider. He didn't have to build a current top of his, but he could have built a baseline median voiced top, just as he gave the class a baseline deflected top from which to begin their new journey.

Well said..

Not bad.. 24 hours and rapidly headed for 750 views and 50+ comments

On the other hand, whilst a builder is entitled to keep secrets, that entitlement is somewhat reduced when they earn remuneration from lectures, classes, books and videos.

Jeff, you assume too much. Ervin never has said he is teaching how to build his guitars, therefore his students, who knowingly pay for what he promises, are entitled to no more than offered. Even his book is merely a method to the madness, not a how-to build his guitar. By what means do you suggest anyone is entitled to more than what they are promised?

When I signed up for the class, there was no mention one way or the other of whether he would talk about his own process but I wrongly assumed he would. Hearing one of his guitars was my main motivation for studying with him and since I had never heard of a paid instructor withholding information (including personal experience with Charles Fox and Frank Ford), it never occurred to me to ask. I and a few others were quite surprised by it. As I said, I totally support his right to do that but I think all would be better served if that was well publicized beforehand. Maybe he does that now.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

As I mentioned before, but it probably bears repeating, we can debate forever how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. But the final test is, are people, after Ervin's course, able to build appreciably better guitars than they could before?

In my experience, the answer is a resounding yes. Even among those who've taken his class and had issues, I think the answer is the same. Is it worth 5-6K? I can't answer that. That's a personal decision that will differ for everyone. I figure the course took at least 5 years off my learning curve. That makes it worth every penny to me.

Your mileage may vary.

Steve

I see Kent commented as I was writing this. (And by the way Kent, I asked you this very question about a year ago, and the answer was very helpful in setting my expectations. Thank you.) I played two of Ervin's guitars after the listening session. They sounded great during the listening session. Afterwards? Up close and personal? It was like the angels came down to deliver a personal message

If I ever make a guitar that sounds that good, I'll be a very happy guy.

$6000 worth of information in a workshop designed to be intensive and teach you how to be a critical thinker and get the most out of your top, which os I believe the stated purpose of his workshop.

Also the fact that in his ad for his book on Youtube, he restates the desire he has that builders who learn from him will one day be able to build guitars as good as, and hopefully better, than he does.

So yeah, I would expect him to hold back absolutely nothing, especially when asked a direct question.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

After reading his books, I lost interest in attending the class. Too much...build it so light it is on the "verge of collapse".... BUT... if you build it too light "there won't be anything there.. tinny..lacking". Which is it? Not to mention some of best sounding guitars I've ever heard are were not lightly built. Sound is so subjective. I've about thrown my hat in with Cumpiano to the "we're deluding ourselves" camp.

That's the deal. There's more than one way to build a great guitar. And some methods appear to use polar opposite principals. Learning from someone with experience can speed up the curve but you have to find your own balance. That usually comes from a long process of build, tweak, repeat.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

I agree with that too. I believe this class would help me gain a better crasp for quicker then just doing it on my own. To me, it's worth spending the money on a class that could save me years of figuring it out On my own. Someone said check out the cumpiano class that's a grand less but you then have to spend money on a hotel. So that's bringing you up to almost the same price and the somogyi class. And somogyi is more geared towards voicing the guitar and knows how to get the sound your customer wants. Cumpiano's class is just on building a guitar. Which I'm sure is still a great thing to take.
I guess what I'm looking for Is a class that will help teach me how to get the sound I want and to know how to do it.
I do want to say thanks for all of the feed back everyone. It means a lot!

I think you have already decided to take Ervin's course, and that is great. But I also think you got some very wise (and in an otherwise contentious thread, got very consistent advice ) about the level of knowledge and experience necessary to make it a worthy experience for a participant. It sounds like this is a master class. I went to a 2 week scratch build course before doing any building, and it addressed voicing at a level I could both understand and perform. The resultant guitar sounded good, and each of the 4 instruments I have built since have been successively better-sounding. That said, I STILL feel that I am not ready to take Ervin's course.
I have built two guitars now using Robbie OBrien's online couse, and all the generous help of the experienced folks here on the OLF. I highly recommend Robbie's courses.
Good luck with the class, and let us know how it goes!

My personal opinion, which I'm sure means nothing, is that the teacher should answer any and all questions honestly and to the best of their ability without holding things secret. If one has gone into the business of teaching classes on something then all we have to go by when deciding who to take the class with is the teacher's reputation and past projects. So if I want to learn how to build a guitar I have a multitude of different options for classes to take and who to learn from. I personally would base my decision upon what the teacher has made himself, so If I chose a luthier/teacher based on a awesome tone then I would expect to be taught the necessary tools to attempt to produce this sound.

I am an electrician by trade. Any of the people I've worked under or any of my school teachers tried to give me everything they knew about electricity and showed me all sorts of little tricks they've picked up along the way to speed things up. They do this to pass on what they've learned and hopefully produce an electrician that is as good or better than they are themselves. In general I think we'd live in a better place if everything wasn't a great big secret.

Anthony your last sentence was spot on +1.I have attended a lot of luthiery classes in the past vln/vln bowmaking , and I felt like a lot of the shmexperts (tongue looking for expresssion)held back on us.My problem was that I knew nothing abt the teachers credentials.

Anthony your comparison is not a fair comparison (and as an audio/electrics stagehand, I do understand). You want to compare the study of electricity which is a tangible and defined field of study, with a craft which is not. If I am asked by someone how to do a three phase tie - in, you better believe I will take them through every step from putting down a ground mat, to metering the box, strain relief, making sure the lugs are only catching the wire and not the insulation and so on. Guitar making is not such a defined endeavor. It is a craft, and like it or not, it is a competitive one. I happened to talk to a friend yesterday, an instructor at another highly respected program about this thread, and he was in agreement -- their objective is not to teach the students to build their guitars, but rather to give them the tools and parameters with which to play. They give them ranges in which to play, the controlling factors. The point of these courses is to give the student the tools, not the farm. The fact is that something is lost when you are given all the answers and are not required to work through them. Most courses in math and science are like this -- concepts are presented and the student is expected to apply them to a problem set. Professors and teaching assistants do not give away their research ideas to students -- its their research they're trying to publish, not give it away.

Cumpiano's course is not JUST a guitar building course, it's a guitar building course from someone who has made 300 plus guitars and has his OWN method of voicing, by building with materials of a certain stiffness built to tightly toleranced dimensions, and he teaches you how to do exactly what he does from start to finish, and you walk away with a completed instrument instead of just a "reference top" that may or may not be optimal (you don't know since you're not putting it on a guitar). Frankly, it sounds to me like you walk away from Somogyi's course with an even bigger mystery than you went in with. And you will STILL have to go home and build many guitars to practice what you've learned and see how it REALLY stacks up, and if indeed it even DOES give you the ability to deliberately get the actual sound you want.

I listened to quite a few of Cumpiano's guitars while I was there and they all sounded great, and all the guitars I've made on my own since have sounded similarly.

Would they sound different if I used Somogyi's method? Sure!

Would they sound better? I don't believe so, not from the Somogyi's I've handled.

However, I fully expect to be able to improve upon the sound I get in time, and even shape it to a degree, once I've collected enough data on the materials I've built with do do that, which is the essence of what I believe Trevor Gore's books offer.

It seems to me that the point of Gore's method is to collect data on the materials properties, and the frequency response peaks of the various vibration modes. At some point you will have(hopefully) made some guitars that you personally have found to be exceptional, and then you have a refernence to correlate WHY they sound the way they do, and then have a target to shoot for, so to speak.

The design book gives you an overview of the collection process, and the build book shows you how Trevor has actually applied the method to a guitar sound that has been succesful for him.

The point is that even if your and your customer's tastes are different from Trevor's, you can still achieve your personal goal, and it's not a big mystery why.

From what I see, Somogyi teaches you how to get "optimal" based strictly on his interpretation of what he personally thinks guitars should sound like.

Frankly, I'd rather pay $6000 for Cumpiano's course (and lodging) and $250 for Trevor's books, and then I'd feel a little farther ahead than if I'd taken Somogyi's course alone, after which I'd STILL have to go home and figure out how to even build a neck and box, and fit them together in a cohesive manner before I could even BEGIN to put the information I'd learned at Somogyi's course to use.

Of course, that's what I've done, so of course I would advise that path, but it makes great sense to me.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

That would be, a misinterpretation of Ervin's course, and his intent. To be sure, his intent isn't to push anyone in any particular direction, but rather to give students the tools to make informed decisions about how their guitars behaved and how they can change the next. I think that at its core is what drives some batty about him -- folks ask him questions to validate their approach and he refuses to and comes off either as obtuse or unwilling to answer the question. He doesn't want any doors to be closed by emphasizing anything too much. To the extent that he discusses how the top can be made light and what happens when a top is well coupled verses, not, then yes, he does emphasize this in the class, but not without the acknowledgement that there are other valid approaches.

Based on HIS observations and HIS interpretation of optimal, which is what the course teaches. You will be working the materials, observing what they do, and listening to how he teaches you to interpret what you're seeing, feeling, and hearing in the wood, so that you can think critically about it, but ultimately your opinion is formed on his interpretations and how well you understand what he thinks about things, as that is the information he gives.Not saying that's bad, but you STILL won't know what optimal is until you then go home and figure out the REST of the build process, so that you can see for yourself if indeed it IS optimal, and if your guitar doesn't sound how you want it to, you won't know for sure if it was the info you recieved, or your execution.

It still to me sounds very subjective and open to interpretation.

And from what I can see, you're not even woprking with completed instruments, so how do you REALLY know how to apply the information to completed instruments to even be able to MAKE an informed decision about how guitars actually behave and how to change the next?

Same thing could POSSIBLY be said about Cumpiano's course. But at least with his, you know how to build a guitar and voice it to his specs at the same time, and his guitars to my ear sound as good as Somogyi's guitars. He DOES discuss how he thinks the material properties affect the overall sound, in terms of compliance to string vibration, and when you ask him a question, he gives detailed and complete answers, to the best of his knowledge. And you're working with complete instruments!

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Old growth, shmold growth!

It really seems like apples and oranges to me. Somogyi's class seeks to accomplish something quite different from a full guitar-building course. I view the full course (regardless of who is teaching it) to be "Lutherie 101" (or 201 if you're less of a newbie), and Somogyi's as being a post-grad course, which narrows the focus of study to the variables involved in voicing a top. I don't know think the two can really be equated.

Of course it is. Isn't that the nature of what we do?

My only real issue with Trevor Gore's books (which I have found hugely helpful) is that he postulates a "perfect/optimal" guitar (I'm oversimplifying). But my "perfect" guitar may be substantially different from yours.

Ervin's course is about controlling the outcomes. Whatever your definition of "perfect" may be. More fundamental? More overtones? Less bass? Better trebles? These are the questions he tries to help you answer. He may succeed, he may fail, but he's trying to give you a structure of knowledge/understanding so that you can puzzle out some of the answers for yourself.

I have no interest in making Somogyi guitars. Ervin already does that quite well.

I think Beth makes a very good point here. Going in with a certain amount of knowledge/experience can really make a difference. I'd completed 7 guitars when I took the course last November. I'd also done an immense amount of reading. I'd read Gore/Gilet, Somogyi, Cumpiano, Kinkead, all of the Big Red Books (twice . So I had a ton of theoretical knowledge, and a limited amount of hands-on experience.

There was still a lot to take in.

So I would recommend that you really study Somogyi's "The Responsive Guitar". Treat it like a textbook in a really tricky university course you're about to take. Because the course is about understanding a whole pile of that theoretical stuff, and then getting it under your fingers.

I have an immense amount of sympathy for the poor folks who did this course before Ervin's books were published, and had to take in all this info with no prep.

But all that aside, good luck in the journey. I had a great time, learned a ton, and met some really interesting people. You could do a lot worse.

Steve

Just to clarify, have you taken Ervin's course?

Steve, out of curiosity (this was asked before) . . . Does the course cover the book's content, but in a more in-depth and problem solving kind of way, or is there additional content?

I read the books two years ago and sold them, but I find myself wanting to go back. I remember reading about monopole, cross-dipole, and long-dipole, but not about things like getting more fundamental or overtone.

Just let me clarify this:

Chapter 3 in the Design book is called "The Design Objective - The perfect guitar" and there follows 40 pages on how YOU might like to specify YOUR perfect guitar so that you have a target to aim at when you start building. As I take the reader through that discussion, there's plenty of examples and I give my own preferences, too, because I do have preferences, like everyone else. But they're just mine, and are used to illustrate the points I make, and will provide guidance for someone with the same tastes as me, but, of course that is not everybody. The idea is that readers have enough information to formulate their own preferences in a way that allows them to build their own guitar. The Build book goes through four different guitars, two steel string and two classical, four different bracing schemes, to illustrate how the whole process works.

So as Steve says:
And of course it is. That's the point. But you can now articulate what the difference is.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au