My First Healdsburg Guitar Festival 2013

Here I come!

For those who wish see lots of pictures, go here: FB Healdsburg Guitar Festival 2013

About the show

I have attended the winter NAMM 2013 in Anaheim and a few visits to Music China in Shanghai. These were the big shows I have been. However when it comes to comparisons, setting the right context can make it meaningful. NAMM and Music China covers the world market in the music industry. It surely comes with no surprise that these two shows must be huge in magnitude to encapsulate the world market. While it was almost impossible to visit all booths in NAMM and Music China, the show didn’t provide the level of excitement I received from the Healdsburg Guitar Festival 2013. This show was catered for Luthiers producing fully handcrafted guitars and there were 100 over exhibiting tables, two exhibition halls, 2 workshops room, 1 demo concert room and 1 outdoor performance arena. For such niche exhibitions, I will call it a big show. See festival floor map on right.

The show weblink: http://guitarfestival.lmii.com/

Biennially, the festival was held. This year it stretched from 9 to 11 August within the lovely Hyatt Vineyard Creek Hotel, located in Santa Rosa, California, USA. The key organizer and sponsor was Luthiers Mercantile International (LMI), Inc. that specializes in developing and retailing tools and equipment for string instruments makers internationally. (http://www.lmii.com/)

Jeff and I

Adam & Adam

The show predominantly comprised of luthiers a.k.a. guitar makers and the remaining groups were the vendors and sponsors. From my observations, I think that this show has provided one of the widest ranges of guitars in terms of genres and designs. You can find the most traditional built dreadnought design, rigid rim (Micheletti Guitars) over regular binding, modular guitar bodies (Mervyn Davis Guitars), space edge materials with radical neck-to-body mounting (Ken Parker Guitars), unimaginable archtop body shape (Saul Koll Guitars), most artistic inlays (Laskin Guitars, Pederson Guitars), finest craftsmanship (Erwin Somogyi Guitars, Kevin Ryan Guitars, Bruce Petros), most experimental (David Anthony Reid), trend setters (Matsuda Guitars), alternative and exotic woods (Jeffrey Yong Guitars), offset soundholes (Schwartz Guitars, Martin Keith Guitars) etc. There were more…

Kinloch Nelson and I

Karl, Liz and I

The standard of craftsmanship exhibited by these luthiers was unparalleled. No matter what may be the differences in experiences and craftsmanship, the underlying engine that powered the show was invariably the good old passion.

Once again, I was privileged to attend this show with Jeffrey Yong. He was very encouraging throughout as he told me to move about to make acquaintances and sample as many guitars as I could. Having the chance to stand behind Jeffrey’s exhibition table, I have met many guitar lovers and luthiers in this show. The exchanges of perspectives and knowledge were very useful to me indeed. However nothing beats making friends with the guitar lovers I have met.

Larry Robinson and I

The Goodall Family 

Tom Doerr and I

Kevin Ryan and I 

It was probably a dream for many acoustic guitar lovers; I met many great luthiers and acoustic fingerstyle guitarists, like Kinloch Nelson, Michael Chapdelaine, Thomas Leeb, Erwin Somogyi, Michihiro Matsuda, Grit Laskin, Larry Robinson, Kevin Ryan, Gerald Sheppard, Tom Doerr, Al Petteway, James Goodall, Larry Robinson and so many more all in the three days!

My friend, Bob!

Having fun with Erwin

Talking about meeting new friends, an ex-student of Jeffrey came to help us in the show. Incidentally he is also Adam. Of course his last name was not like mine, he is a Garcia. We had such great time chatting and jaming. I think Adam will surely remember a TV program we have watched.

I have great regards for Michael Chapdelaine. He was trained in classical guitar playing but he has ventured in acoustic guitar fingerstyle as well. Very few guitarists can do well in both genres and Michael made it look easy. On the last day, I met him and summed up my courage to approach him cold. As it turned out, he was very approachable. I got him to visit Jeffrey’s table and sampled his guitars. Michael was very impressed with Jeff’s guitars and he has requested to privately play them in his hotel after the show. Jeffrey and I brought a few guitars for him to try out. He played live before us and I was in awed to see this guitar master in action. Without squandering the precious moments, I video recorded his playing. That was another precious moment to me.

Michael Chapdelaine

The most expecting event and also it was most amazing to me was the Sunday worship group I have joined at the show. It was a small gathering of luthiers and visitors who were believers. We sang and shared all the good things God’s has blessed us. Worshipping with James Goodall, Tim McKnight, Kevin Ryan, etc. it was absolutely wonderful!

In essence it was a big show to me in many ways.

Quality of Guitars

The closest to such experience I had was at the GAL Convention in 2011. I have seen many guitars in that show and the quality varied widely. One may ask, what is in qualities of guitars? It should be the embodiment of creativity, intricacies, accuracies, alignment, details, selection of woods, playability (set-up), tonal characteristics, visual identity, craftsmanship and above all passion.

The guitars in the Healdsburg Guitar Festival indeed carried the mentioned qualities. They may not have embodied by one guitar but the overall quality was top-notched. I have tried to detect faults in some guitars in the show but it was difficult to spot. The great attention to details, aided by precise manufacturing processes has ensured near perfection quality. The bottom line is; when a guitar was not well made, it wouldn’t have made it there.

Program and Activities Flow

The 6-figure Ryan Guitar

Matsuda's Deconstructed Guitar

From all the guitar shows I have attended thus far, this one certainly packed the three days with non-stop activities. There were guitar demonstration shows that went on the whole day. Learning workshops one after another. Outdoor performances that never stopped. You will not find a dull moment in this show.

Click to see the program for the festival: http://guitarfestival.lmii.com/activities/workshops-2013.html

Post Festival Road Trip

I could not thank Jeffrey enough. Again, he has planned a road trip for me visit a few cool places that guitar lovers would love to go. We visited LMI to start the ball rolling. This place retails just about anything guitar makers would yearn for. From tonewoods to guitar picks, as long as you have can think of it, you can find it at LMI. As I entered the main office, I could sense the hectic mood because it was a regular weekday. To my surprise, they allowed me into the warehouse. I was immediately surrounded by cool guitar merchandizes in huge quantities. It was unlike walking into a shopping mall, this was way cooler! I took the opportunity to get a few useful items to add onto my collection of guitar repair tools.

At LMI's store house

At Allied Lutherie

The next stop was to Allied Lutherie. They are specialist in tonewood retailing. Jeffrey introduced me to the founder of Allied Lutherie who was Todd Taggart. It was cool to see many huge machines designed for wood handling at Todd’s workshop. It was my first encountered with white ebony in timber form. I could imagine the beauty it would give when made into guitars. While the visit was brief, I had great time listening to Todd and Jeffrey.

Bruce Sexauer's Workshop

Bruce, Jeff's Family and I

The next stop was Bruce Sexauer’s workshop. When we arrived, Bruce greeted us with warmth. He was an cool guy and was helpful too. He showed us around his workshop and we talked about the challenges for guitar makers. From the stuff in his workshop, it was obvious that Bruce could build and repair other instruments as well. I saw a bundle of disc shaped wood hanging from the ceiling. As I looked closer, they were the cuts from the soundhole and there were many of them. This simply meant that Bruce has built many guitars. When we left Bruce’s workshop, we tried to make it to Erwin Somogyi’s workshop within the same day but we didn’t.

Erwin's apprenctices

Leo, Chris and I

Jeff, Leo and I

Erwin Somogyi and I

The visit to Erwin’s workshop was postponed to the following day. We received great hospitality from Erwin. He greeted us and took us to his kitchen for tea. I have heard so much about Erwin’s great emphasis in craftsmanship in building guitar and I must admit that I was nervous at first. It turned that he has such good sense of humor. Unexpectedly, Erwin cracked most of the jokes. He was on a hectic schedule as such he bided farewell after our chat. He has graciously allowed us to remain in his workshop so that I could tour it. Erwin’s apprentices were around to guide us around his workshop. I was very impressed by the cleanliness and orderliness of his workshop. We had a great chat about guitar building and left Erwin’s workshop before lunch. It was a great experience.

Mammoth Tusk… heavy

The Healdsburg Guitar Festival 2013 was another wonderful trip to me in many ways. Jeffrey has been making things accessible and easy for me and I feel blessed by his mentorship. Also I would like to thank the National Arts Council for their invaluable support as well. Above all, praise God for His unending blessings.

For those who wish see lots of pictures, go here: FB Healdsburg Guitar Festival 2013

NAMM 2013 - A view from my eyes

The Main Entrance

One of the many performers

The NAMM was held from 24 to 27 January 2013 in Anaheim, California, USA. This show has been called many things, like the biggest, loudest, most in variety, most crowded, etc. I think calling it a marathon may fit the bill because the amount of distance I have walked in four days could very well cover the entire marathon distance. The size of the exhibition halls in combination is likened to football fields. The number of exhibitors are almost uncountable manually. Everything seems interesting in NAMM whereas some are a lot more. Visitors are either attracted by interest or music and they walk from point-to-point to satisfy their curiosity. I was no exception as well. There are not many free seats for visitors thus standing around is pretty much name of the game. A tiring game I must add…

NAMM Show 2013: http://www.namm.org/thenammshow/2013

Ibanez

Business deals are the main thrust in NAMM, as such it is only for trade and it is not opened to public. In a way it is good for business activities. Unlike Shanghai's Music China, the sheer visitation numbers could dwarf other music trade fairs easily. In such situation, quality is traded for quantity inadvertently. However, if NAMM show wants to drive visitation numbers, reaching out to public is the obvious choice. Well for years, NAMM has never allow numbers to supersedes relevance.

Tech 21

Beautiful Girl, it works all the time

I have heard of the NAMM show for years and it was really a growth opportunity for me to attend the 2013 show. This was made possible by Mi-Si Electronics' invitation. This company produces pickup systems for acoustic guitars. In fact, it is the only active pickup system that doesn't get its power by 9V dry cell instead the pickup gets it juice from ultra-power capacitors. Mikhail, who is the founder of Mi-Si Electronics, he has generously included me as a show visitor. In the show, I have met Mikhail's life partner Simona and Greg Romano who is the Sales Manager.

Mikhail and Greg of Mi-Si Electronics

The love for music as a culture has certainly rooted deeply within the Americans. Playing an instrument seems as common as running, at least in this NAMM show I have observed. It wasn't just recognizing the instruments, most people I saw in NAMM 2013 can really play well. In comparison, Singapore music enthusiasts are way off in terms of the capability to play the musical instruments. Perhaps we can attribute it to the size of the market. Personally I am more inclined to attribute to their passion for music which is intensified by the culture of arts, not forgetting the keen competition among the music enthusiasts to better each other. The music industry doesn't tolerate the half-baked. If you're not up to standard, the natural selection will flush you out of the music industry in no time.

Andy McKee

Thomas Leeb

This is the time of the year for every brand to create impressions to the potential buyers thus they spare no effort to attain that. Big brands like Fender, Gibson, Taylors, Godin, Roland, Yamaha, Peavey, etc. each has its own private exhibition halls and performances. You can expect heavy weight artists to be hired to enhance their positions in the market. They will showcase their best products, some are specially made for the show. Fender made a diamond studded Telecaster which was priced at USD $120,000. When I was photographing it, I realized that the label says "SOLD." Martin Guitars presented a glowing Dreadnought guitar to commemorate her 180th anniversary. Gibson has set up a row of guitars for visitors to get direct hands-on experiences. Each guitar comes with a headphone to allow visitors to listen to the generated sound of each guitar. Many brands have set up live demonstration stations of their products to create instant yet unforgettable experiences for the visitors and buyers. I guess they stop at nothing to make a point.

A USD $120,000 Telecaster

The Glowing Martin 180th Anniversary

As for the regular exhibitors, they are all consolidated in various exhibition halls. Indeed there big brands in these halls as well. Perhaps these companies didn't wish to book private rooms for reasons only known to them. In the past, NAMM show was populated by Americans, Latin Americans, Europeans. In this NAMM 2013, I have notice the number of Asian exhibitors. Most of them were from China. In fact, many business meetings I have seen involved Asians. Looks like the scale is tipping.

This show features many brands in this music industry. I was delighted to learn that a group of luthiers has teamed up to showcase their priced handcrafted guitars in this NAMM show. They called themselves the Luthiers Consortium. It was made up by these luthiers (I may have missed some, apologies in advance)

1. Kent Chasson

2. Laurent Brondel

3. Jason Kostal

4. Bruce Sexauer

5. Howard Klepper

6. Mike Baranik

7. Randall Kramer

8. Eric Schoenberg

9. Mario Beauregard

10. Michael Dunn

11. Michael Lewis

12. Sparky Kramer

Laurent, I and Kent

They were aware that trying their guitars were not suitable in the NAMM show because of the loud sound within the exhibition halls. They invited the interested parties to visit them at their hotel after the show to test drive the guitars instead. I visited them on day 2 of the show. It was a pleasure to have so many handcrafted guitars that I can lay my hands on without restriction. Indeed I have enjoyed the meeting with them. The conversations were so insightful as my key interest is in building acoustic guitars.

A show of such scale naturally attracts many people as well as all kinds of people. These unique characters turned with their desired apparels to make their statements. In fact, I met the "lizard man". This guy has tattoo done on his entire body (I assume) and also certain bodily modifications done to take on the lizard look. His tongue was split to resembles the tongue of reptiles. Some people turned up in all black, wearing mascara, pierced tongue, etc. Invariably, there was also no lacking of beautiful girls in the show.

The Lizard Man

Taken from: http://travel.sndimg.com/static_files/tc/images/ideas/Haunted%20Travel/Slideshows/idea_ss_lizard-man/idea_ss_lizard-man/idea_ss_lizard-man_002_596x334.jpg

In the show, I have met my local counterparts like the dealer of Samson Technologies, Swee Lee's General Manager, the boss of Tomas Music, staff from City Music, etc. It was a nice feeling to see "your own kind" but I was equally delighted to meet people from other parts of the world.

This show was very well organized in many aspects. I will share my two cents from these,

1. Layout & Booth Design

2. Registration

3. Content

Layout & Booth Design

The entire show utilizes 5 exhibition halls, 1 arena hall and three levels of meeting rooms. If I am incorrect, most likely I have under reported the space utilization. As there are many exhibitors and so little time, it was imperative to locate any given booth efficiently. Near the ceiling of the exhibition halls, huge booth labels are suspended to allow visitors to recognize very quickly the row number. The design of individual booth was like a beauty pageant contest. Each brand presented their strongest visual identity to the visitors. No effort was spared to put up the most eye-catching decorations to compete for attention. In space utilization, it was not about maximizing the space available. The organizer has carefully planned the spaces required to avoid over cluttering of booths and people. Cafeterias were located conveniently in each hall to cater to the visitors' feeding needs. The width of the isle was sufficient for large crowd to move pass with the exception of the passes between one exhibition hall to another that experienced over-crowding situations. Between booths, boundaries were well defined.

Many people would expect the sound level to be deafening. However, it wasn't the case but I am not saying that it was soft. I have witnesses a few "sound patrol" guys enforcing the sound level restrictions at the show floor. They were holding on to sound pressure meters to ascertain if any performance was too loud. It was clear that the sound level within the show was under controlled. Each exhibitor was given the "sound space" to demonstrate their product strengths. I think NAMM show fare better than Music China in this aspect.

There were ample of lavatories to cater to the crowd. The cleaning frequency was increased to keep them clean and neat. While there were some disgusting ones, overall it was reasonably well maintained.

Registration

The registration process started off well. I was given an email with my tag and barcodes to validate my attendance for this show. There were many reminder emails sent to ensure I have the email ready for the registration. On day 1, I was all geared up to attend the show. At the entrance, I was turned away by a show usher because of my haversack. This person said that bags aren't allowed for people who are labeled visitors. That was indeed an anti-climax. I had to make my way back to the hotel to dock my haversack and get back to the show venue. This time I was granted entry but I have to queue up with the rest to get my badge printed. This process puzzles many visitors as many have lamented about having to queue for 20 to 30 minutes to get your turn. Why not just send the badge to all registered participants? In my opinion, the organizer has probably given more weight to security over convenience.

To my surprise, I notice other visitors who were carrying bags and they were allowed to enter the show. To clarify things, I approached another staff about this issue. He apologized to me about the confusion. He claimed that they were given the instructions to bare any entry of bags with wheels. However my haversack has no wheels but I was refused of entry earlier. He apologized again for the confusion as certain staff were just exercising their judgement. I hope the incident hadn't happened as it wasted my time and money to catch taxis to and for the show venue. Indeed I didn't expect such confusion to occur considering the years of experiences NAMM show's organizers have garnered. After day 1, there was no more entry barrier.

Content

With years of experiences backing NAMM show, they have accumulated a wealth of relevant content. In fact accumulating content is the easy part but keeping it organized is the hard part. In my opinion, NAMM has done well in organizing the content. It wasn't hard to navigate through the website to obtain things you desired. Detail information of the NAMM show was at your fingertips. Regardless exhibitors classifications, locations, performance schedule and venue, workshop write-ups, seminar schedule and venue, advertisement opportunities, etc. They are a click away. There are many formats of ideas-sharing in the NAMM show. In my opinion, these sharing sessions regardless of format are very important to stay innovative and forefront. Perhaps it is the passion for sharing in NAMM show that made it a success year after year. This year's NAMM, a mobile apps was made available in the open source domain for downloading. Being my first visit, the apps has benefited me indeed. I was able to mark out the booths I have planned to visit. The apps showed the entire floor layout, zoomable option was available to see close-ups. With the apps, performances schedule and venue were easily retrievable. There are many more options in the mobile apps than I have illustrated.

My Closing Thoughts

Indeed it was eye opening for me. I have been to Music China and some other exhibitions and the NAMM show has left an impression in me for sure. Learning is a continuous journey that never ends. In this show the conversations I made with different people have benefited my knowledge of the music industry. Just being present in the show, and being bombarded by the sound and sights have inadvertently heighten my awareness as well. If opportunity allows, I will visit NAMM again!

Pictures time!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What can I say?