When I was asked to submit an article on my experience with guitar-making apprenticeships in contrast to being self-taught, I realized that my own education has actually been a hybrid of the two systems coupled with skills gleaned from other areas of my life. Apprenticeships were a great idea when there was an infrastructure to support them and the concept was hot-wired into society, but now it‘s all about pleasing the pesky shareholders in this dog-eat-dog world! OK, maybe that is being just a little overdramatic. Let’s just say, times change.

For pretty much all my adult life I have been involved in three independent disciplines: guitar making, guitar playing/songwriting and film making. I bring the same energy and work ethic to each of them and besides creativity, a common thread among them is that each involves working on 'parts' which ultimately form a 'whole' and the final product, be it guitar, song or movie, goes on to have an independent life of its own long after my work is done. Each of these parallel trades has had a significant impact on the other, but for now I will write about the guitar component and focus mostly on the big strokes.

I have had the good fortune to work with some great guitar makers and instrument restoration experts over the years and the amalgamation of all that experience together with an early fine arts background has left me with a very broad skill set. I have a piece of paper that says I am an instrument maker and I can turn out a decent instrument that looks, sounds and plays great (as can many with similar experience), but the reality is that my grandfather was probably the last person in my family to receive a traditional apprenticeship- a shipwright in his case.

Back in his day the concept was immersed in the social fabric both as a means of passing skills down through the community and as a way to measure a person’s experience and skill level in whatever field they were working. Each apprentice would 'serve' for various lengths of time in order to achieve a degree of mastery in their chosen discipline.

That is not to say I didn't learn plenty amount about guitar construction through my own journey, it was just not delivered in the cohesive way associated with an apprenticeship of the past. At this time in history though, I believe that 'piecemeal apprenticeship' is probably the best option available to anyone who wants to go deep into guitar making.

My journey began like many others. Initially I learned about guitars by playing them and then how to fix them when I couldn't find anyone else to do it. Then, as I became skilled in repairs and pearl inlay, I would travel around to folk festivals doing elaborate inlays in peoples’ instruments under the name "Tony Abalone"; the inlay work became a burgeoning career with orders not just from musicians but from art agencies as well.

One day I was offered a job by Jean Larrivée; he still had a small shop in Toronto and I spent a couple of years working on his instruments in the daytime and on his inlay-work in the evening. These included his first Presentation models as well as countless simple inlays on less expensive models- all cut and inlayed by hand each evening. He still uses my 'open ended' design for his silver border. Heather McCrae, who replaced me when I left, did some fantastic original inlay work and set the tone for the romantic style that Jean still uses in his inlays today. Jean’s wife, Wendy Larrivée, has been doing an outstanding job handling the inlay work since the hand-cutting became inefficient.

Part way through all this, the workshop moved out to Victoria B.C. and Linda Manzer, George Gray, Michael Jones and myself tagged along for the adventure. It was logistic chaos at first as with any major move, but eventually Jean expanded and the shop got into its groove.

Jean Larrivée is a fantastic guy to see at work. A natural builder and entrepreneur he is like a V12 engine- lots of headroom and able to lay rubber when the need arises, and it is no accident that he has been successful in his career. Of course, no one ever truly does it all alone and besides his good fortune hiring talented staff, Jean has the help of not only his wife Wendy but his two talented sons, Johnny Jr. and Mathew- a real family business.

By the time I left, I had a considerable amount of knowledge about half the aspects of guitar building. The benefits of this type of job are the skill levels you can attain at individual tasks by repetition that you can't achieve building just a few instruments a year, where months can fall between repeating complicated tasks. The down side is that when anything is made in a production line, no matter how small that line may be, efficiency dictates specialization. Whether it’s 'neck carving guy', 'lining and frame assembly gal', finishing and fretting dude, 'nut saddle and setup dudette', you wind up being a lopsided maker waiting for the rest of your knowledge to catch up!

Another benefit, should you be lucky enough to land one of these types of jobs, is that any romantic notions about instrument making are quickly obliterated by the sheer volume of 'grunt' work. Those who last and get to the other end of the tunnel, however, get to reacquaint themselves with their sensitive side once they have the skills necessary to actually understand and create what they can imagine!

I returned to repairs and restoration after coming back to Toronto and was hired at Ring Music, a very cool store run by a classic New York guitar store character, Bill Wager and the incomparable Michael McLuhan. I was hired as their head repairman and worked on countless vintage instruments.

Here are a few things I derived from this period:

Observing, playing and repairing great instruments not only gives you insights into how design and construction affect sound, but how the effects of stress over time are determined by the choices made by the builder. Over time, you also get a deeper understanding of the builders themselves and learn to recognize the structural design choices that worked and the ones that did not.

I always consider what I have learned from these lessons when faced with a structural challenge. It can really add to a luthier’s design arsenal when you are working future repair considerations into your designs; this is evident to the skilled repairperson, who has and who has not done his or her homework! The other important lesson I got from my time at Ring Music was dealing with customers and developing a thick skin- both crucial skills for the guitar maker!

During the next few years I focused on a blossoming musical career with the Pukka Orchestra and went to Denmark and help a friend, Peter Jakobsen open a guitar workshop; it was a great experience, especially learning Danish! In that period I had the opportunity to get a closer look at some fine European classical guitars- details of which were absorbed into my personal melting pot.

After I had been back in Canada working on music and film for a while I got a couple of Arts Grants to study archtop guitar making with my good friend, Linda Manzer, a brilliant luthier. She had studied with Jimmy D'Aquisto and was the perfect teacher for this style of building. She had made hundreds of notes while studying with Jimmy, describing not only his technical information but his unique views about sound in relation to archtops. In addition, as she was building her own well-respected archtops, I was able to gain lots of hands-on experience with her stunning instruments. That was ten years ago now, and I am still having a blast working some of the time with Linda and the rest on my own guitars and songwriting.

I wanted to add a few last thoughts on studying guitar making that may be of help to someone considering luthiery whether as a career or for pleasure. If you can afford to study at one of the formal academies in a major city like London or Paris, then go for it!

• Gifted builders like Sergei de Jonge (Canada, http://dejongelutherie.com/) offer excellent live-in courses and there are others around the globe. Do the research on people who have taken these courses. The levels of instruction are not all equal!
• Listen to as many good instruments as you can and how different they can sound in the hands of different players. There is no 'one perfect sound' to strive for but a guitar with great character in the hands of a player that recognizes it is an awesome opportunity for creativity.
• Take some kind of woodworking classes to learn about tools and how to use and maintain them. It is amazing how many instrument makers do not know their tools!
• Take a business class and learn how to market your wares. First-hand experience in a sales environment may serve your needs in this regard.
• Tell the truth and talk about what you know.

With practically zero opportunities to truly apprentice with a great builder, the 'non-apprentice' must learn the shorthand version of acquiring knowledge. With guitar making, body language is half the story. Not all talented builders have a gift for gab, but by watching how they use their tools and physically approach each task, you can discern subtle visceral aspects of the craft that have real value and can be absorbed in byte sizes.

I highly recommend that serious students seek out the most gifted, experienced makers in their locale and either pay tuition or work out an exchange of time for a master class whether one-on-one or in a small group. Because of the brevity of these interactions you need to hone your skills of observation together with learning when to talk and when to listen. We all love the sound of our own voices and we all place a value on how we are perceived by others. Unfortunately, some great lessons slip by unseen as we ramble on about our own great experiences. A huge lesson for us all is to learn when to shut up and listen, and I feel I’ve almost reached that point in this essay.

In the traditional master/apprentice relationship you were deemed a “master” of your trade at the point when your teacher felt you had earned the title. Unfortunately, with no true apprenticeship system in place, and no tangible measure of mastery in the self-employed and self-taught world we exist in today, there are many fabulous makers walking the earth, too neurotic or humble to adopt the term “master” for themselves. In equal numbers there are hacks eking out a living and declaring themselves masters at the drop of a hat. Sometimes the media bestows the title in an article, after which time it is adopted by the maker as fact. Either way, the term will crop up eventually for everyone who goes the whole nine yards in this whacky but wonderful profession.

Tony Duggan-Smith has played guitar since the age of 13. He studied Fine Arts at the Canterbury College of Art in the UK (1970-73), and at the Nova Scotia College of Art in Canada (1973-74). He met Rufus Stewart of Rufus' Guitar Shop in Halifax, Nova Scotia and became interested in instrument repair, later moving to Toronto to work with Steve Darke at The Toronto Folklore Centre where he learned more about repair and restoration (1974-75).

Tony was offered an apprenticeship by luthier Jean Larrivée and worked with him both in Toronto and Vancouver alongside Linda Manzer, David Wren, George Gray, Michael Schreiner and Mike Jones (1975-77). Following his study with Larrivée, he returned to Toronto and became Head Repairman at Ring Music for “ringmasters” Bill Wager and Michael McLuhan (1978-81). Later Tony moved to Denmark and helped Peter Jakobsen open the Aarhus Guitar Vaerksted (1982).

Tony has enjoyed a simultaneous career as cofounder of the popular band Pukka Orchestra (Solid Gold Records) alongside Graeme Williamson and Neil Chapman and countless other great performer/players, and was also the co-leader of the group Neotone (Touchwood Records). He has also worked as the key set designer for many film and television shows, all the while performing and restoring instruments (1980-present day).

In 1995 Tony received two major arts grants to study archtop guitar making with his good friend and noted luthier, Linda Manzer; this apprenticeship morphed into a long-term, part-time working relationship with Tony contributing to Linda's instruments. These days, Tony focuses mainly on archtop guitars although he has a few flattops including a hybrid Cuban tres underway; he continues to write songs with gifted artists such as Alannah Myles, Neil Chapman, Graeme Williamson, and Russ Walker.

Tony Duggan-Smith can best be reached by phone at (416) 699-7082) or by email at: tonyds@pathcom.com. Select Duggan-Smith instruments can be viewed at The Twelfth Fret website: http://www.12fret.com/new/Duggan-Smith_Tony_Guitar_pg.html