Official Luthiers Forum!

The question at hand: at what point would you/did you feel competent to offer instruction in setup/minor repair, building, or general repair and restoration?

Discussion:

The Greeks believed that hubris begets nemesis, but I have to wonder after seeing one of our local offerers of guitar setups and repairs here in the Northern Virginia (NoVA)/Md/DC area discussing their perceived need on social media for hanging out yet another shingle as an instructor in the art and craft of guitar setup and repair.

I would normally greet this announcement of intent with both interest and a glance at my own schedule to ascertain as to whether I might partake, as the trip to Ann Arbor for that similar body of instruction offered by Messrs. Collins and Breakstone is, alas, simply not in the cards at present. The only reason I hesitate is the knowledge that the person discussing gifting his talents to the masses is barely competent to conduct string changes, much less teach essential skills such as setup, minor fret work, or nut/saddle replacement. While my former boss, Mr. Stock, was fond of suggesting that the surest way to master a set of skills was to teach those skills, that advice presupposed at least a journeyman's - if not near-mastery - of the topic at hand.

Another pithy bon mot offered by that former boss - usually after my fumbling of a magazine change or malfunction drill on the range - is that 'amateurs practice until they get it right, while professionals practice until they cannot get it wrong' (various citations, but Percy C. Buck, 1944 appears the most likely). This insight suggests that I have perhaps another decade or two before I might consider announcing to the world that my shop lies open and waiting to ensnare wannabee luthiers, but apparently, the perceived need for mastery of a skill set before offering instruction in that same skill set varies somewhat across our trade from my own opinions on the topic.

Off to the monthly luthier's breakfast in Maryland... thanks in advance for your thoughts.

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We have become a civilization that elevates idiots, prostitutes, and clowns. Am I still to defend it? Yes, for its principles. Yes, for what it was. Yes, for what it still may be.

-Mark Helprin, The Oceans and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story (A Novel)

I think that your thinking on the matter is about right. There is no real guild in steel string acoustic guitar making. I liken it to potter which my wife does. We both have our own shops, we create objects and we sell them. But we took it all up on our own. IMHO only a master should have an apprentice and in our game one must be told they are a master by fellow accepted masters in the craft. Then one can share his or her skills through teaching.

Every once in a while you see some faux master builder who very well may have skills at building guitars but it seems their skills are better at YouTube and social media in making you think that they are good at building guitars.

Me personally? I've built over 70 instruments now 60 of which are guitars and I don't think that is half way close enough to claim that I can teach anyone to do anything except maybe how to tie their shoes.

knowing when your ready to teach is a hard point to know when . My best advice is this , if you can diagnose an issue , fix it , recreate it , you now know the cause and effect so that is knowledge that is sharable .
If you are basing knowledge on an opinion you are guessing.
Having knowledge and being able to teach it , is a skill.
I have made over 260 guitars I have done over 1000 neck resets and fret jobs , I have machinist and engineering back ground , I am sure you have viable experience and sharing knowledge is a good thing. The more someone tells you my way is the only way, you have to question them. There are techniques , and often there are more than one that will do the same thing , which one is the correct one to use on that particular scenario is based on experience.
Teaching is often a good way to learn more , as a teacher some of my best ideas came from people that looked at a technique from a diffrerent angle than my paradigm allowed. Go for it you never know where your next success is at.

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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 guess some of it depends on the nature of the students, as well as the teacher.

Teaching a half-baked musician how to quickly check/tweak relief and saddle height on their telecaster backstage is different to training a classroom full of eager student luthiers on how to do bleeding-edge setup work. I know plenty of people who would be well qualified to do the former and totally unqualified for the latter.

Personally I wouldn’t presume to teach a masterclass in soundboard voicing. I just haven’t got the depth of experience.

But with 10 years of building behind me, I think I could lead a total beginner through the assembly of a stewmac dread kit without my ignorance getting in the way or causing any calamities. My understanding of the basic mechanical processes of assembly is sufficient.

Luthiery is a vast field and I feel like the one of the most important skills we can develop is the ability to know what we don’t know.

The only “bad” luthiers I’ve ever met all shared a trait: a total failure to understand where their competence ended and their ignorance began.

I felt comfortable to teach my first apprentice after my 10th year at the bench. Since then... a bunch, singly and in small classes. In fact, I'm being asked to consider teaching small classes again.

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

I think there are folks who want/need alternative revenue streams, so they start teaching things they don’t know all that well themselves. A guitar player gives guitar lessons because they can’t get enough paying gigs to supporters themselves. The repair person thinks it is great marketing (and good money) to offer setup classes. It’s a common way to tout your own abilities: cast yourself as so good, you teach others how to do it.

But when people figure out that’s what’s happening, and if they figure out the teacher is not so knowledgeable, those revenue streams dry up, too.

It would be laughable for me to teach guitar building. However, when a newer builder wants some help, I provide it. And when my local woodworking club asks me to show how I work with hide glue, or how I bend sides, etc., I am happy to do that.

Being honest about where you are in this endeavor is pretty important to any teaching- like interaction.

Woodie I think you are dead right there are a lot of people out there who think they are experts in various fields and they just are not.

I agree with what has ben said but would re emphasise that one needs to know the limits of one's knowledge. I decided after around guitar build number ten that I could just about see the scope of all the stuff that I didn't know.

As a small analogy I have made a fair bit of furniture but wouldn't dream of trying teach anyone else how to do this. However as part of my learning process I do know a lot about sharpening tools and have, and would happily demonstrate this skill to others.
Cheers Dave

Pretty wide gulf between setups/minor repair and restoration.

Th first is pretty easy as it's based mostly on things that can be measured, the second, I've no idea.

Certainly you shouldn't ask for money unless you're journeyman/master already, but explaining things to someone can be helpful even as part of the initial learning process. In computer programming we have a technique called rubber duck debugging Even if it's an inanimate object you're explaining the problem to, formulating the explanation forces you to think of all the details that another person would need to know, and often makes the solution obvious. It's the same with teaching. You gain insight into your own process by examining the details of what you do and why you do it.

Those who were here on the OLF back in 2006ish will recall this weird Hesh guy who would jump into nearly every thread and answer the OP's questions. I had only been building for about a year. It's my nature to live something 24/7 when I am into it. I get obsessed and can't stop.... This said as I am building my second tube amp in two weeks....

Anyway it's also how I learn best to totally engage in the subject manner and I saw helping other OLF members here as an opportunity to learn the material better myself because every time I did this it was a quiz or test of sorts and I like being tested. I also knew, and this is important that although I was a newb to the trade and the forum there were much more experienced people here, Mario, Rick and others who would set me and others straight if I got it wrong.

So I was out there in a way but with training wheels on and under the scrutiny of the people who really knew the material.

I agree that the fastest way to learn something really well is to teach it and that's kind of what I did here back then but again and importantly with others to keep me honest and the information being conveyed valid. I would not and did not take what I learned here and on my own with no scrutiny attempt to teach it. I'm not being critical of anyone I'm simply stating that I didn't feel comfortable teaching anything unless there was someone else to back stop for me when, not if... I got it wrong.

We, Ann Arbor Guitars as you know taught a couple dozen or so OLFers and about the same number of non-OLF folks. We taught them what we do every day and have done hundreds and thousands of times.

Although using metrics, how many of this or that we do or did may bother some it's impossible to not mention it for me and I believe it's important to be able to separate the people who have an academic knowledge of the material and the folks who actually walk the walk and do these things hundreds or times annually if not every day. If I were a student it would matter to me the experience level of anyone teaching me anything.

Dave Collins my best friend and business partner used to teach Lutherie professionally for years at the Galloup School of Lutherie. He is from the same professional linage as Dan E and Bryan Galloup and now I am too. We all started in Ann Arbor around the Herb David Guitar Studio.

So when we offered classes and hung out that shingle Dave had already taught hundreds and also built over 200 guitars including many of the prototypes for what became McPherson guitars.

We didn't teach people to be Luthiers but instead offered what I identified as the greatest need for the builders I knew, learning to do great fretwork, nuts, saddles and killer set-ups. Most here see guitar building as a woodworking project. We see it and saw it as building tools for musicians.... which brings playability into the top of the task list.

We surveyed our students after every class and everyone always gave us five stars and many of our students talk about what they learned from us to this day here. They had an instructor with 20 years of experience who had always been a professional Luthier including doing repairs at Elderly Instruments in Lansing as well. And they had me, Dave's loyal sidekick to weigh-in and piss people off once in a while...

What do I think of someone barely qualified to string a guitar offering classes in repair and set-up? How about them Tigers.... Seriously I try not to think of such things.

In our neck of the woods people hang out shingles every year seemingly and then see themselves as competing with us. We rarely even notice them and by the time we do their girlfriends and wives/husbands, etc. are tired of paying all the bills themselves and the repair businesses are shuttered.

A note on why we taught. I thought that Dave was and is a incredible teacher, look what he did with me. And I knew he used to teach so I made a list of goals for him that I thought he would dig when we started the business. This list included him teaching again, a couple of jigs he invented being brought to market and one last, important thing, being profitable. I was trained to run corporations at the senior level so making a Lutherie business profitable sounded very fun to me.

Anyway everything has been checked off the Dave list we have now done all the things we wanted initially to do.

Teaching for us was harder than the daily work likely because we gave a **** if the specific student seemed to get-it or not. The days were very long too, 12 hours sometimes and then I got stuck in the elevator in a blizzard and the fire department had to get me out. That same elevator has been down all last week...

In the end for now of our teaching we decided that we are more profitable doing billable hours and it's way easier on both of us too. So we stopped teaching at least for now.

So with all this said naturally I am going to say that anyone who teaches anything should have a great deal of hands-on experience actually performing those tasks over and over and over again. They should have references and accomplishments. Being published would be helpful and more specifically anything that they do that willingly and knowingly puts their teaching ability out here for peer review I think is a good thing.

What I would be very concerned about and avoid is someone who does not have experience and even the metrics to convey what level of experience.

But then again what are ya going to do? They will come and they will go and only the people who represent and offer real value will prevail.

My bet is this will self correct in a couple dozen months.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

I have always adhered to the “see one do one teach one” mantra.

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

There is an adage - "Those that can't Do, Teach", To some extent that is true. An often unheard corollary to that is that "Those that Do, can't Teach" which is often true.
Teaching is a special skill, which some can learn, and some of us never will. My limited forays into teaching have left me dissatisfied with the results. It's not that I don't understand the matter I want to impart, but rather that I can't engage with the people I want to impart it to. I am not a "people person". I guess that is why my friend calls me a "hermit".
Honestly, some of the best teachers I have had were not the most skilled in their field, but were able to impart the principles of what they were teaching in a lucid and coherent fashion. Sometimes the student became more skilled than the teacher.
The person mentioned by the OP may not be a skilled craftsman, but may be a great Teacher - perhaps that is were their true abilities lie.

( Woodie - I'm being the usual contrarian I am )
P.S. is the monthly luthier's breakfast an exclusive event?

I’ve always disliked the saying that those who can’t do teach. It always felt unnecessarily demeaning or dismissive. As Clay points out, proficiency in a skill set and the ability to teach it are related but not mutually exclusive. Some of the greatest pitching coaches never pitched but they understood pitching and the mechanics of pitching. That said, it seems less likely that something like fretwork and set up would be the type of thing one could teach well without being able to do a passable job of. Though I would have a hard time putting into words why it seems like that to me.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

My day job is as teacher and researcher, and in my field I've also been a practitioner as well. Instrument building is an amateur activity for me - I've achieved instruments which play well and sound nice, though all with flaws.

I think I could teach the theory behind set up and fretwork pretty well - my students would have a clear idea about what they were trying to achieve, and the techniques which could get them there. This is because I've researched the topic thoroughly, and practised enough of it to understand how to start putting the theory into practice.

Where my teaching would fall short is in teaching the final progression from adequate to excellent. My own practice in setup and fretwork tells me that this is where experience (doing lots of the work) and achievement (actually producing excellent work) is critical. Without that, I can't analyse why (say) a refret job falls short of excellent, and thus I can't teach the last step. there is something intangible about the expertise which comes from experience which defies analysis - putting it in musical terms, we all recognise the difference between a musician who can play all the notes and one who turns them into great music, but I don't know anyone who can explain the difference clearly.

On the other hand, there will be really excellent luthiers who just know how to get it right, but have never learned how to analyse and explain what they do. They can't teach, other than by saying "That's bad" and "That's better", and leaving the student to self-learn (somehow) from the differences.

I would agree that you needn’t be the world’s foremost grandmaster in order to teach others.

But you should probably be at least competent.

In Woodie’s original post she referred to a far-less-than-competent repairer deciding to offer lessons in luthiery. This reminded me of a fella in my neck of the woods who was trying to sell franchises of his “guitar making school” business. His advertisement advised potential franchisees that no guitar-making experience was required, all training provided.

As one that does teach I run into a student that may have taken a class from others. Most just learn a different technique but the understanding of the process is there every once in a while you get to hear a real BS story.
You don't know what you don't know till you learn it.

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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

Wanted to expand a bit here too since we taught a lot of people as well.

There were very different people in our classes. Some were like me and wanted a retirement gig repairing guitars. Some were professionals with several hundred builds under their belts and they were into quality enough to be looking to up their game and deliver even more value to their clients.

Some of our students were what Dave and I refer to with no insult intended as "Lutherie tourists..." And believe it or not if you count the Lutherie tourists and people who actually may want to hang out a shingle who take classes or go to schools its a very large percentage of both.

Does the Lutherie tourist who will built two more guitars in their life span and then fade away need the same level of instruction as the master builder who never learned about fretwork and wants to up their game? Probably not.

Does an instructor have to know it all to be an instructor, hell no.

So with this offered, what the market of students looks like.... I am going to make the case that even an inexperienced instructor who does have some chops does have something to offer someone that would be an improvement over the status quo.

But again, I default to my original position what are we going to do about the folks we believe not qualified? Nothing it is what it is.

All I know is that if you provide real value people will beat a path to your door.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

I said I would have a hard time putting my thought into words. You did a good job of doing it for me!

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

I might as well add my 2 cents. I've studied under some really good Luthiers. One thing I will say is just because one knows how to do something as a professional doesn't necessarily male them a good teacher. For instance I happened to be fortunate enough to take a fretting class from Dave and Hesh, they were both great teachers and both are really good at what they do. But it's not always the case. This brings to mind going to school, only about 20% of my teachers were great, the rest were just punching a clock and had no business teaching anything.

On another note I think we all need to get together and encourage Ann Arbor Guitars to do more classes. To me it was money well spent and worth every penny and I would pay even more to take more classes with them.

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Thanks David we greatly appreciate you too and I am not just saying that because I want to sail in the San Francisco Bay again. I used to sail Banshees there, race them actually it was very.... athletic.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

I would say TL;DR but I actually read the whole post. Can someone summarize the point in 1 or maybe two sentences? Thank you kindly, I'm lost.