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Green Ghetto stringed instrument making

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  The Green Ghetto "Do we get crushed by the green wave, or do we  surf it ?" Okay, so here we are. 2021. Whether by malicious design or by "never let a pandemic crisis go to waste" political agenda opportunity (or not), we are seeing social wrangling and economic upheaval on a global scale never seen before. Regardless of your position, we all (collectively) get to bathe in the full suck of the consequences (good or bad - the jury will be out for a while - time will reveal more). At present, it is a frightening time for those of us who simply want to get on with making an otherwise happy living, loving our art, serving you, our fellow musicians, and shipping our state of the art all over the world. Our entire petit bourgeois independent craftsman/artist class is confronted by a leveraged push into a utopian (dystopian) "Green Ghetto" agenda where fossil fuels are bad and all things carbon neutral (dead) are good. Cluster all (who walk or crawl) into carb...
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Ready, Fire, Aim: Three decades of prototypes (and counting)

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Follow your true north; screw market research. If you love it, the right people will also love it. Haters are not your fans, don't try to convert them. Focus: If you want it to exist, just start!  1990-92. Van Nuys CA . I was a trainee draftsman at a (short lived) start-up aircraft upgrade firm called Galaxy Group that was headed up by Mercury astronought Col. Gordon Cooper . At Galaxy Group I was trained by senior engineers; many of whom designed WW2 aircraft that were integral in the war effort. They allowed me to come in after hours to work on my own my own project. By day I was drawing aircraft parts and by night I was rendering full scale drawings of my dream instrument: a modern take on a 19th century guitar-violincello called the "Arpeggione" by Johann Stauffer. I had no Idea what the original looked like but I knew what I was after! I read about the Arpeggione in 1989 while I was voraciously reading an entire 1948 encyclopedia volume about violins. (We did not ha...
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Why do I make specialty stringed instruments in the 2020's?

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  "In my heart, I endeavor to create functional works of beauty that give wings to music for making other lives more tolerable" . What do I produce?   Specialized bowed string instruments that can be described as "bowed guitars" or more specifically, "Guitar formatted Violas" called GuitarViols .  For the musicology geeks out there, these are essentially 21st century versions of Johann Stauffer's Arpeggione ; a fretted cello like instrument with six strings tuned EADGBE . There are some   similarities to Viola Da Gambas that actually predated modern Violin family instruments. Since the early Y2ks, TogaMan GuitarViols have been used in thousands of Film/TV/game media soundtracks by hundred's of professional composers around the world. The GuitarViol's popularity with media composers may have to do with it's almost immediate adaptation for guitar natives. The catch is: Learning some bowing skills! Though I am a life long guitar player, and ...
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