What follows is only my personal opinion and the likely result of my own professional history. It is therefore open to debate and holds true only till it is proved wrong.

This article offers me the opportunity of going back over my 20 year career and weighing up which factors have been essential or simply significant to my personal growth. First and foremost, there is my passion for music and in our case for guitar music in particular. If you allow me, I would like to add that my passion for working with wood was also significant, something which for others might take second place. A smile still comes to my face when I remember the first time I went to Brianza to buy wood for my first guitars: one set to be made out of Fir and Maple and two sets to be made out of Cedar and Indian Rosewood. Back then, going to buy wood was as exciting as going to a party, and twenty years down the line, I’d say it’s even more so!

But passion alone isn’t enough. You also need to be well-trained. There’s a good chance that not everyone has the opportunity of starting their career by attending a school, which I believe to be the ideal solution as it precludes a whole series of mistakes and expensive time wasting. A valid alternative however would be to help out in an established luthier’s workshop. Some people do take a self-taught approach to lutherie. I tried it myself at first but I soon felt the need for guidance and a teacher. People who have attended a school have followed courses on Technical Drawing, Organology (the history of musical instruments), Chemistry, Acoustic Physics, Varnishing and Restoration. You need to study a guitar in minute detail to understand how it’s been made, read up on anything and everything to do with lutherie and visit collections of guitars in exhibitions and museums. This theoretical side fuels the practical part of actually making the guitars because the curiosity and enthusiasm in seeking to reproduce what you have discovered is amazing.

Buying wood isn’t enough to start making guitars. You need a place where you can work which isn’t the kitchen table as the dust produced is toxic. Even those who have attended a school must find themselves a workshop – it may be a cellar (if it’s not too damp!), a cupboard under the stairs or a garage. It doesn’t have to be big but it must be dedicated solely to this purpose. We mustn’t forget about tools. Planes, files, chisels and drills are all indispensable and you will need other tools too as you progress with the work.

At the point in which I began to feel the need to have a teacher and attend courses, I had realised that what I had managed to make so far were simply functional objects. They were beautiful but they lacked personality. Studying instruments that had been made by masters such as Torres, Hauser, Gallinotti, Martin and others who have made their mark in the history of guitar lutherie enabled me to appreciate how a musical instrument must have a soul, a strong personality expressed through the sensibility of whoever had created it, influenced in turn by the cultural context, environment and musical sensibility of the era in which the luthier lived. The ability to grasp these subtleties allows the luthier to create their own personality and transfer it to their instruments, which must also and most importantly meet the needs of the musicians for whom they have been built.

Our emotional reward, which I believe to be the greatest satisfaction of our work, lies in fusing the art of lutherie with the art of music.

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