2003 Greg Smallman CD/CSAR (ex Ben Verdery)

This 2003 Greg Smallman is a cedar and CSA rosewood lattice classical guitar owned and recorded on by Benjamin Verdery – with his handwritten letter.

Ex Benjamin Verdery

This guitar was owned and recorded on by Benjamin Verdery, who used it on his duo album “First You Build a Cloud” (with Andy Summers of the Police) and also on “Start Now”, which features Ben’s own compositions. Included with the guitar is a handwritten letter from Ben describing his history with it.

Sound and Videos

Smallmans are known for their power and piano-like sustain, and this guitar lives up to that reputation with ease. It has been filmed often: Tengyue “TY” Zhang (Scarlatti and Dyens), Jiji (Verdery’s “Tread Lightly”), Olivia Chiang (Bach) and Federico Núñez (“Romance del Agua”) all play it in the videos above.

Greg Smallman and the Lattice Guitar

Australian maker Greg Smallman (born 1947) is the builder behind the lattice-braced concert guitar, which he first built in 1974. His cedar soundboards are very thinly built and reinforced internally not with any kind of traditional fan system but with a unique and intricate lattice of balsa wood, reinforced with carbon fiber, while a heavily domed and very thick back makes the body a very rigid and stiff outer shell, forcing all the vibration to the soundboard. These instruments are known for their great power and piano-like sustain.

John Williams and Other Players

Smallman’s instruments have been played for years most famously by John Williams, who recorded on them from the 1980s on, but also by several other concert artists, including Xuefei Yang, Ben Verdery, Craig Ogden, Tim Kain, Nicola Hall, Carlos Bonell, Miloš Karadaglić and even Paul McCartney. His sons Damon (from 1993) and Kym (from 1996) build with him, and from 1999 the labels read “Greg Smallman & Sons Damon & Kym”.