Wow, so apparently it’s been 2 ½ years since I wrote a new blog post. It’s also been 3 ½ years since I quit my day job and pursued luthiery as my fulltime passion. I’m happy to say it’s definitely no longer a hobby. Even with the pandemic, I’m still in business and doing fine.
A lot of things have happened in the last 2 ½ years. First and foremost, Melinda and I married in September 2018. We share every day together and continue growing closer. Our wedding was a fun celebration at Crandall’s Orchard on Lake Roosevelt with some of our closest beloved friends. For music we hired the real deal R&B singer Max Daniels and Nu Jack City. The food was delicious, everyone had a great time and we “danced until dawn.”
Melinda and I attended several local guitar shows to display my instruments. The first show was an evening with guitar legend Andy McKee at the majestic art deco Fox Theater in Spokane. If you’ve never heard of Andy McKee, I highly recommend you look him up. His fingerstyle technique is unlike any other and his playing is almost hypnotic. His show was a lot of fun and we got to hang out with several other instrument builders from eastern Washington. Another show I was invited to participate in was with Jenifer Batten. Jenifer Batten is a guitarist who toured on Michael Jackson’s last 3 world tours and then later toured and recorded with Jeff Beck. Only a handful of luthiers were chosen to participate. Unfortunately, the show was canceled by Jenifer at the last minute. The third show I was excited to participate in was the Spokane Fall Folk Festival. This festival showcases the diversity of our community through music, dancing and the arts. I rented a booth beside a dozen regional guitar builders from the Pacific Northwest. We shared 2 days of networking with new clients and building friendships with the other builders. For this show I brought several handmade Irish Bouzoukis and a 10-string Cittern. I was shocked by the number of Irish Bouzouki players in the Spokane area and even more surprised by the interest in the Cittern. Apparently Citterns are not common but highly sought after in the bouzouki circles. The show was a huge success with several instrument sales! Hopefully there will be a show in 2021 and I will be ready with some new Bouzoukis and Citterns, as well as a few acoustic guitars.
In the last 2 ½ years I had a graduate of the Roberto Venn School of Luthiery as an apprentice and a local musician as shop helper. I’m very happy to share with you that I will have a new apprentice starting in October. John Prietto is a semi-retired architect whose hobby is woodworking and furniture making. He has a background in AutoCAD design and can assist me with learning CNC. With a small shop I really don’t have room for an apprentice or internship. My shop is only 14’x20’. However, John has his own shop, tools, tone woods, books and jigs and is ready to start building. John is an accomplished mandolin player and as they say, strike when the iron is hot. Stay tuned as I’ll be sharing photos in the coming months!
Do I have any advice on getting into luthiery as a career? My best advice is “no, I don’t”. It’s either in you or it’s not. If you don’t have the confidence to go out and do it, you probably shouldn’t be doing it. The person who can do this and barely make a living has to have the necessary hand skills. You have to be able to do good quality work. You have to look at your work and say, ‘this isn’t finished’, ‘this isn’t good enough’, ‘I have to redo this’. You’re always striving for perfection. Flawless perfection. A good journeyman knows how to hide their mistakes. I am the first to admit that I am not a master. I work hard every day trying to do a good job.
My bread and butter comes mainly from doing instrument repair and restorations. This takes up a fair share of my time. The other 10% of my time is building new instruments. I try to build about 4 new instruments each year, mostly during the winter months when business slows down.
In this field you have to be continuously learning. You have to do research and know where to find information. Work with your local library to help you with very difficult to find or very expensive out-of-print books. This may sound weird, but you absolutely have to know what you don’t know. You have to be good at budgeting; to know where you’re going to spend your money; what kind of stock to have on hand, parts, inventory and materials. Identify what the market wants otherwise you’re spending money on materials that won’t sell. You have to be able to source those materials. You need to know your vendors, be able to put up with shipping delays or backorders. I’ve had some parts take over a month to arrive!
You have to be good at self-marketing and promotion. If you’re going to build guitars, you have to get them out in front of the public. Attend guitar shows. Where are the local guitar shows? Spokane has had a few guitar shows, but the major shows are on the west coast in Anacortes, WA, Portland, OR and Healdsburg, CA. If you’re going to fix guitars you have to talk to musicians. Gain their trust and gain referrals. Go to open mics, go to gigs. My best clients come from very good referrals. Therefore, I don’t advertise in the traditional way like most businesses do. Other than Facebook or my website, it’s all word of mouth.
Many of my clients contact me through Facebook, but what was once a cool forum to promote pictures of guitars and see what other projects my friends are working on has now mostly turned into a cesspool of nasty politics and stupid memes. Therefore I’ve decided to move my online promotion to Instagram with minimal promotion on my Facebook business page – Keeley Guitars. As for my personal Facebook page? Well, that will go away very soon.
Ultimately, it’s the human interaction, establishing positive relationships with my customers and great referrals that keep me going.
You have to be self-motivated because there is no boss. You need to be good at customer relations because you have to talk to people. You need to know what they want and be able to tell them what they need as well. You have to assess the instrument and determine if it’s worth working on. You also have to size up people you don’t want to work for because, believe me, they are going to find you! Although I am honest and sincere with my customers, I still have a lot to learn about dealing with some customers that are a real pain in the butt. People-relation skills. You have to learn how to do that, or you have to learn how to fake it! However, I am truly grateful for the customers I do have. Without them, I could not pursue my passion.
If you have all these skills in a single package, there are so many other jobs you could be doing that would make you a lot more money, be a lot more secure and be far less precarious. It doesn’t make any economic sense to do this. In the end if a person is bound and determined and says “I don’t care that it’s not rational for me to do this”, that is the person that will be the one to succeed.
For the love of it!
Don’t be under the illusion that’s it’s an easy life. It’s a rewarding life, but it’s not an easy one. There are so many things out there to be concerned about. What if I get sick? What if I can’t do this difficult repair? What if I make a mistake? As I mentioned earlier, you just need to know what you don’t know. Know when it’s okay to refuse a difficult repair. Ask for help from an experienced luthier. I could worry about so many other things, but why? Keep learning and striving for perfection. I will continue to focus on my work. My craft. Luthiery…