Videos: Luthiers and Wood

There’s a story (no idea if it’s true) that when Antonio de Torres was on his deathbed someone said to him “you can’t die without telling us your secrets” and he sort of rubbed his thumb and forefinger together and said “the secret is here”, the point being that feeling the wood between those two fingers and knowing which wood was right was the whole ‘secret’ of making great guitars. Looking through the videos I shot with luthiers in Spain a few weeks ago I started to notice that everyone is talking about resins and crystallization and the ‘secret’ of choosing good wood.

So I put together a few clips of those conversations, because I love how these guys make guitars day in day out, have huge stocks of wood, and yet they just obsess about it. Here are Teodoro Perez and Graciliano Perez talking about their obsession.

Here’s Teodoro Perez (working, of course) talking about ‘the secret’ of making great guitars.

Graciliano Perez is a maker from Cordoba who is very much following in Miguel Rodriguez’ footsteps (he bought a lot of the wood that remained when Miguel Rodriguez died, and has been using this wood to build some amazing guitars). We’ll be getting two guitars from him later this year. He’s building a serious reputation as a flamenco maker, thanks in part to Vicente Amigo’s having purchased a few of his guitars recently and Raimundo Amador, too. I’ve ordered one for myself, and I’m pretty excited about it.