Making music. (Keeping your Edge).

WHO? Randall Harris

WHAT? Executive Director

WHERE? San Francisco Fashion Industries

WHEN? Since 1985

Q: How did you first learn about luthiery?

A: About four years ago I was flipping through a guitar players' magazine and ran across an article about a luthier named Bill Cumpiano who wrote the bible, basically, on how to build an acoustic guitar. The article really piqued my interest, and I thought to myself, "This is very cool. I really need to know more about this." The next year I happened to see an ad from Cumpiano indicating that he was interested in taking students on a one-on-one tutorial basis and I called him. So in the summer of 1998 I spent 16 days, just he and I in his shop, and built my dream guitar from scratch. I came home just very excited about this luthiery concept and decided I would learn more. Now it's fast forward to 2002 and I've built eight guitars, sold six of them, and I'm currently designing guitar number nine.

Q: What kind of commitment is involved?

A: My biggest problem is finding the time to build. It takes a long time--anywhere from 110 to 150 hours to build a guitar, depending on the amount of cosmetic embellishment. Finding that much time on weekends and nights is very difficult.

My guitars are also custom built, so I spend a lot of time getting to know the person. It's very important that I know the player very well if I'm going to devote six months to building an instrument for him. How big are his hands? What kind of music does he play? How refined is his sense of tone and hearing? Also, virtually every aspect of the instrument itself--from the shape, the scale length of the strings, the radius of the fret board, and the types of tonewoods--all of those things are determined greatly by the needs of the player.

Q: What keeps you involved with such a demanding activity?

A: Oh, it's just addictive. It's a very mentally and physically taxing hobby. I think that it's important that the mind and the body both be worked out on a regular basis. Luthiery is sort of integrating everything that I know--my musical pursuits, whatever talent I have in using my hands, and then using the mental capacity. The sense of accomplishment at the end is so tremendous. The greatest feeling in the world is stringing the guitar up for the first time and playing it. It gives me an enormous sense of self-confidence that I can sit down with a pile of wood and turn it into a thing of beauty and art. I think that sense of accomplishment pervades my entire life.