William R. Cumpiano

Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology's first edition is dated 1985 and at this writing, it is now well into its fourteenth or fifteenth edition. The book is a detailed description of the two author's techniques--mine and luthier/lawyer Jon Natelson's--at the time of it's composition. It was motivated by our dismay at the inadequacy and incompleteness of contemporary texts on the subject. While it still remains a perennial best-seller due to the fact that it is still the most exhaustive and complete manual of its kind, it nonetheless can be correctly faulted for not being up to date. It has not been possible to easily update the book because it was originally produced before personal computers on analog media (composed with pencil on paper, typeset galleys rubber-cemented to full-size page boards, etc.) so updating would require it to be produced anew, almost from scratch.

Over the years, I have done the next best thing to actually producing an updated edition by assiduously posting updates and technique improvements online on my website at www.cumpiano.com/textbook.html as well as creating a luthier's blog with answers to my reader's questions at http://dolcecano.blogspot.com

Jon Natelson and I are creating an online webpage for guitar-making enthusiasts at www.guitarmaking.com, which is currently under construction and which will be an adjunct resource to Guitarmaking. In 2012 I and my long-time shop partner Harry Becker intend to create at this site a step by step video instruction course following the sequence and standards of Guitarmaking, available to enthusiasts and career-minded aspirants on a subscription basis.

I currently live and work in Northeastern Massachusetts, where I and my shop-partner Harry Becker construct and repair fretted instruments on an ongoing basis, as we have for over thirty years. I offer individual guitar-making tutorials on an extremely limited basis--four or five sessions per year--out of my studio when my other commitments permit. I can be contacted at william@cumpiano.com, where I respond to inquiries and guitar-making questions as promptly as I am able to.