Traditions

The apprenticeships served in Ervin Somogyi's Oakland workshop have become a defining route into the responsive, modern fingerstyle voice — a room whose reach runs from California to Singapore, Sweden, and North Yorkshire.

Avenir Guitars · Bashkin Guitars · Beauregard Guitars · Buendia Guitars · Hozen Guitars · Kostal Guitars · Kraut Guitars · Matsuda Guitars · Rasmussen Guitars · Tom Sands Guitars

Dana Bourgeois hand-voiced the OM revival, and the line passes down that ear — for the individual top, tuned before the box is closed.

Bourgeois Guitars · Circa Guitars · Rasmussen Guitars · T. Drew Heinonen Guitars

George Lowden's Downpatrick workshop anchors a tight orbit of Northern Irish building: builders pass through the Lowden shop, then set up their own benches within an hour's drive.

Lowden Guitars · Avalon Guitars · McGreevy Guitars · McIlroy Guitars · McNally Guitars

Québec treats guitar building as a teachable craft — the École Nationale de lutherie, the Bruand school, and two teacher-luthiers extend the classroom from Montréal to Tokyo.

Indian Hill Guitars · Irvin Guitars · Ivanov Guitars · Julien Sublet Guitars · Kazourian Luthier · Keystone Stringed Instruments · Pellerin Guitars · TreeHouse Guitars

The guitars Martin built between the late 1920s and the Second World War remain the reference point an entire wing of boutique building measures itself against — a claim these builders make themselves; the Atlas records it.

Martin Guitars · Atkin Guitars · Borges Guitars · Circa Guitars · Dudenbostel Guitars · Flammang Guitars · Franklin Guitar Company · Greven Guitars · Pre-War Guitars Co. · Schoenberg Guitars

The slope-shouldered, punchier voice of golden-era Gibson flat-tops has its own modern custodians — homage more than strict replication, heard dry and punchy rather than big and ringing.

Gibson Guitars · Atkin Guitars · Fairbanks Guitars · Kopp Guitars

Jean Larrivée's 1970s Toronto workshop trained a generation of builders whose names now stand on their own — and the line keeps paying forward.

Larrivée (top-end only) · David Wren Guitars · Manzer Guitars

Flatpicking's home ground runs down the Appalachian spine, and its guitars have home addresses too — a territory defined less by a construction recipe than by repertoire.

Gallagher Guitars · Huss & Dalton · Wayne Henderson Guitars

Michael Gurian adapted free-form classical construction to the steel-string guitar on Grand Street in New York; half a century on, the method still passes bench to bench in Vermont.

Circle Strings · Froggy Bottom Guitars

Jim Olson, maker of the SJ that James Taylor made famous, prefers to build alone — the line that leaves his Circle Pines shop is short by design, and that is its story.

Olson Guitars · T. Drew Heinonen Guitars