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So I was commenting on another thread about Stradivarius’s, and it reminded me of something I have had cause to fume about lately. Now, seeing as how I am anonymous here so that I can be a prick when I feel like it, could someone explain to me why so many professional guitar players are such unbelievably cheap assholes? Sorry to be so blunt about it, but professional violinist spend tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars, some times even millions to buy an instrument which is of a sufficient quality to play professionally. A cheap professional BOW will cost you almost $10,000. So why is it, then, that a person who makes his living playing guitar will be down right insulting towards a luthier who is asking $3,000-$4,000 for a really nice guitar? I mean, you make your living with the damn thing. Get the best tools available.
I am not asking that what we do should cost what violin luthiers charge. They can build maybe a dozen instruments a year, maybe two dozen if they are REALLY good (or really sloppy, but that is not the kind of builder I am talking about). We can do more instruments then that without losing any quality, because what we do is more easily automated. All I am saying is that we have a right to make a decent living. I don't need a private jet or anything, just a house, a car (I don't even WANT a luxury car, just a way to get to the shop and back) and the ability to help support a family (and if I ever get married, I have no problem with her working. In fact, I hope she makes a lot more money than I do). Just a decent living for doing an honest, and not particularly healthy (dust, solvents, some heavy lifting, and my father has bursitis from polishing guitars by hand for the first ten years he was doing this) job.
If I have a guitar which I am asking $3,000 for, please don't ask me to sell it to you for $2,000. I have to pay for my shop, my insurance, my taxes, my supplies, my wood, my utilities (our phone bill alone is almost a thousand dollars a month). When you figure I can only make 30-36 guitars a year, given the overhead involved in a large shop (4 full time employees doing repairs, plus two builders), our profit margin is incredibly thin. In fact, the shop almost always loses money (which is one reason why I do stage hand work). If you can't afford it, fine, but don't ask me to shot myself in my foot for you, OK.
On another note/rant. I have a good friend who is the best know small shop builders in the world. Not one of the best, the best. He has many very famous people playing his guitars. As a result of this, he gets many more orders every year than he can actually complete. He is good too. There is no question he deserves his reputation, even if other builders who are jealous of him, or just vindictive or stupid, say other wise. If you know who I am talking about, please don't announce it on the board here.
Now, as I said, he receives more orders every year than he can complete. As a result of this, his guitars will fetch a very high price on the open market. This was particularly true a few years ago when he stop taking orders as a way of cutting down his backlog (he was two years behind, and that is a lot of deposits for his wife to pay back if anything happened to him). While he was not taking orders, he noticed something. He was finishing guitars and sending them to people, and a week later he would see that guitar on EBay for twice what he had sold them for. Now, any economist would call that supply and demand, and the market value of his guitars would reflect that. Having now caught up with his orders (not really, he is behind again), he is taking orders again, but has raised his prices to the market value.
All this being the case, why would you call him up (as has happened several times) and ask him to lower the price for you, "just this once." Even worse is the guy who, when he says no, start yelling at him that he has a responsibility to, "make instruments players afford." Do you really think that you will get him to do you a favor by yelling at him? He is just a builder working his ass off (he is probably the hardest working person you could ever met, and we all worry about him a great deal because of this) to do the best he can. He is great at his job, and got lucky with the people who play his guitars. As a result of this, he makes a better living than most builders. But it is his work that has created his situation, and he deserves it all. So don't get upset with him for the market value of his guitars. If you can't afford it, go to another builder.
Sorry to rant, but I needed to get that off my chest.
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"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
I am not asking that what we do should cost what violin luthiers charge. They can build maybe a dozen instruments a year, maybe two dozen if they are REALLY good (or really sloppy, but that is not the kind of builder I am talking about). We can do more instruments then that without losing any quality, because what we do is more easily automated. All I am saying is that we have a right to make a decent living. I don't need a private jet or anything, just a house, a car (I don't even WANT a luxury car, just a way to get to the shop and back) and the ability to help support a family (and if I ever get married, I have no problem with her working. In fact, I hope she makes a lot more money than I do). Just a decent living for doing an honest, and not particularly healthy (dust, solvents, some heavy lifting, and my father has bursitis from polishing guitars by hand for the first ten years he was doing this) job.
If I have a guitar which I am asking $3,000 for, please don't ask me to sell it to you for $2,000. I have to pay for my shop, my insurance, my taxes, my supplies, my wood, my utilities (our phone bill alone is almost a thousand dollars a month). When you figure I can only make 30-36 guitars a year, given the overhead involved in a large shop (4 full time employees doing repairs, plus two builders), our profit margin is incredibly thin. In fact, the shop almost always loses money (which is one reason why I do stage hand work). If you can't afford it, fine, but don't ask me to shot myself in my foot for you, OK.
On another note/rant. I have a good friend who is the best know small shop builders in the world. Not one of the best, the best. He has many very famous people playing his guitars. As a result of this, he gets many more orders every year than he can actually complete. He is good too. There is no question he deserves his reputation, even if other builders who are jealous of him, or just vindictive or stupid, say other wise. If you know who I am talking about, please don't announce it on the board here.
Now, as I said, he receives more orders every year than he can complete. As a result of this, his guitars will fetch a very high price on the open market. This was particularly true a few years ago when he stop taking orders as a way of cutting down his backlog (he was two years behind, and that is a lot of deposits for his wife to pay back if anything happened to him). While he was not taking orders, he noticed something. He was finishing guitars and sending them to people, and a week later he would see that guitar on EBay for twice what he had sold them for. Now, any economist would call that supply and demand, and the market value of his guitars would reflect that. Having now caught up with his orders (not really, he is behind again), he is taking orders again, but has raised his prices to the market value.
All this being the case, why would you call him up (as has happened several times) and ask him to lower the price for you, "just this once." Even worse is the guy who, when he says no, start yelling at him that he has a responsibility to, "make instruments players afford." Do you really think that you will get him to do you a favor by yelling at him? He is just a builder working his ass off (he is probably the hardest working person you could ever met, and we all worry about him a great deal because of this) to do the best he can. He is great at his job, and got lucky with the people who play his guitars. As a result of this, he makes a better living than most builders. But it is his work that has created his situation, and he deserves it all. So don't get upset with him for the market value of his guitars. If you can't afford it, go to another builder.
Sorry to rant, but I needed to get that off my chest.
Light
"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
When Fender can punch out a gazillion Squier POS guitars for $129 from their overseas factories people get a seriously wrong impression about what it takes in terms of craftsmanship and tooling to build high-quality instruments.
