Lutherie is an ideal medium in which to pursue elegance. Elegance is my holy grail. Considering the acoustic guitar in all its aspects, you realize that it combines so many mutable elements that must be carefully joined into a form whose ultimate purpose is to make music. If any crucial element of the material, design, or construction of a guitar fails to show up and do its job, either acoustically, structurally, visually, or ergonomically, that guitar fails the Elegance test.

 

    I like to think of each guitar as an individual entity. When I’m starting a new project, I try to pre-visualize it as a complete instrument. How is it going to sound? How will it feel? Will it be beautiful and perfectly proportioned in appearance?

   All aspects of the form must serve the guitar’s function as a musical instrument, hopefully with notes and lines of elegance in all respects. The pursuit of elegance is the prime directive, ever elusive and arcane though it may be.

  

   When I was sitting here awhile ago trying to think of what to say about Elegance, an unexpected phrase popped into my head: “The necromancy of wood”. That may sound a little odd at first, but the phrase does capture the essence of the guitar maker’s art: Necromancy is the conjuration of the spirits of the dead, and setting them to the purpose of foretelling and prophecy.

   The woods we make guitars with are a once living, now dead substance. We luthiers and musicians bring it back to life in a new form, wake it up with vibrating strings, and make it sing songs and tell us stories. It’s the elegance of life force, moving through transformations of form, with the Guitar as the body, the Musician as the mind, and Music as the soul, all coming together in a synergistic agreement.

  

   I do not mean to imply here that I have found elegance, or that I know anything about elegance, or that my guitars are elegant. I do mean to say that this is the quest I’m onto. I know I can never achieve complete elegance in my work, because no one thing can be all things. It would be foolish to even attempt.

  

   And yet, to not make the attempt would seem even more foolish. What else is the point to being alive?

   If you are in command of all your senses, you can never be permanently satisfied by the ordinary, once you’ve seen and felt elegance. It is ephemeral, inscrutable, and teasing, and only comes around when you are open and receptive. Then the moment you notice it with your waking attention, it’s gone off hiding again.

   Is it in your coat pocket, maybe? Did you leave it at work, or under the bed at home? Are you carrying it around in your hand, with those car keys you thought you had misplaced earlier? It’s so close, you can almost hear it breathing gently behind you. The Name of it comes in flashes, but you can’t quite catch ahold of it.

   And then, when you have given up the search, Elegance appears before you, drops the cloak, and stuns you with its naked beauty.

  

   You can’t own Elegance. You can only make yourself available to its grace.

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