The interview with Thomas Humphrey was fantastic. I am sure that you'll receive controversial responses. A lot of people, especially those who have copied the Millennium (I do not have to mention names), claim that the idea of the elevated neck was not originally from Humphrey. From what I understand, the historical precedents of the elevated fingerboard design only appear to be like the Millennium. The Scherzer and Stauffer guitars, for example, do have floating fingerboards, but these fingerboards have no contact with the soundboard. Also, their necks are adjustable, kind of like violins. One of the main features of the Millennium design is that the neck does not stop at the body. It continues all the way to the soundhole. So the fingerboard is connected to the soundboard. Beside that there is the whole issue of the wedged body (sloping soundboard) that you do not find on Scherzer and Stauffer instruments.
I find it rather curious that all pseudo-Millennium builders who claim to have been inspired by 19th century design had their inspiration after 1985, when the Millennium design proved to be effective and useful.
Nima Mina
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Your recent interview with classical builder Tom Humphrey was of great interest. It should be noted that Humphrey is not the first builder to use the negative neck set angle, in spite of the fact that he currently has a patent on the concept. In April of 1991 I did an article in Guitar Player magazine featuring an 1898 Martin with a very distinct negative neck set, which looks quite similar to Humphrey's design. This same instrument was featured on page 23 of Acoustic Guitars and Other Fretted Instruments, by myself and Walter Carter.
Regardless of who can properly claim to have "invented" the negative neck set angle concept, it is clear that Martin, Stauffer, and other German makers who were using this concept during the 1800s had abandoned it, and that no current makers were using this design when Humphrey reintroduced it. Humphrey certainly deserves credit for revitalizing the design and making it a success in today's marketplace.
George Gruhn
Nashville, Tennessee
I was happy to see coverage of a contemporary classical guitar maker, but very troubled by certain comments contained in the article. The Millennium is nothing new or novel. It is a reinvention of the ubiquitous 19th-century Germanic style of building begun by Stauffer, who built guitars with the same negative neck angle. These were referred to as the Legnani Model in honor of the Italian guitar virtuoso Luigi Legnani, who created the design. Furthermore, negative neck sets have been the norm for nearly all good classical guitars made in the past 150 years.
The drawing on page 57, which depicts what is purported to be traditional Torres fan bracing, is quite inaccurate in its details as can be verified by José Romanillos' book on Antonio de Torres.
Finally, I find Humphrey's opinion that "[aside from] C.F. Martin, Orville Gibson, and Antonio Torres . . . there have been very few innovators in the world of guitar making" very troubling. This dismissal of other makers who have contributed numerous lasting innovations is an insult.
Richard E. Bruné
Evanston, Illinois
Tom Humphrey responds: I am amazed that people can spend so much of their valuable time worrying about the origins of my design. And I'm dismayed, because the purpose of the article was to express my belief that guitar makers should be looking forward and not living in the past.
To assume that I was unaware of the Stauffer model is absurd. The Millennium was granted a patent after an exhaustive three-year examination period, during which I defended against a large stack of patents dating back to the early 1800s. It was concluded that guitars with keyed (or adjustable) necks were not considered prior art.
I'm also well aware that mine is not the only guitar with a negative neck set. In fact, on page 54 of the article, I referred to "guitars built with a high (some call it negative) neck angle." Note that guitars is plural; it refers to all guitars, past, present, and future.
The drawing on page 57 was only meant to attribute the generic fan configuration of braces to Torres. Like me, however, Torres made very few guitars exactly alike, so it's quite possible that a Torres guitar does exist with exactly the bracing pattern in that drawing. Mr. Kramer-Harrison's comment that my bracing is a variation on Greg Smallman's is also incorrect. Had he observed a similarity to Daniel Friedrich's bracing, I could not have argued.
I maintain that there have been very few innovators in the world of classical guitar making who have made lasting contributions, which is probably why most guitars look remarkably like Torres guitars. But this is not to say that there are none. Greg Smallman, Mathias Damman, and Deiter Hopf immediately come to mind. I'm quite sure there are more, but few is still my word of choice.
In Josef Woodard's introduction to the transcription of Joe Pass' "Blues for Angel" (Solo, October 1995), he laments that the album Song for Ellen represents Joe's sole nylon-string album. Am I the only one who bought I Remember Charlie Parker in 1979? I love that album; it was what first turned me on to Joe's brilliance.
Mike Eaton
Grove City, Ohio
In response to Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers' Letter from Backstage in the September 1995 issue: You suck. I was furious after reading about the "slimy-looking guy with the tattoos" who knew nothing about good music. I own many guitars and have been playing since 1963. I also am a tattoo artist with many tattoos. What you conveyed to your readers is that anyone with tattoos is slimy and knows nothing about good music.
Paul M. Rixon
Davie, Florida
Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers responds: Are we at all redeemed by the fact that Jorma Kaukonen's tatooed hand prominently appeared on the cover of the November '95 issue?
Many thanks for the small-body review that you had in your March/April '95 issue. Because of that article and the one on building guitars that you ran in the November/December '93 issue, I am currently constructing my own guitar. Thanks to a kit from Martin that features the M body style with a cutaway design, I am the final cut and a few hours of glue-drying away from having the handmade, high-quality guitar that I thought I was going to have to wait years for.
Bryan Board
Inman, South Carolina
CORRECTIONS
The correct address for Gordon Bischoff, the luthier referred to in the article on Willy Porter ("Porter's Room," Jump Street, February 1996), is 2609 7th St., Eau Claire, WI 54703.
The song "Robert Johnson in Open G" in the December 1995 issue should have appeared with the following credit line: © (1978) 1992 King of Spades Music. All rights reserved.
SEND LETTERS TO Mail, Acoustic Guitar, PO Box 767, San Anselmo, CA 94979-0767; or to our E-mail address, Acguitar@aol.com. Include your name and address.
SEND LETTERS TO Editor, Acoustic Guitar, PO Box 767, San Anselmo, CA 94979-0767; or to our E-mail address, Acguitar@aol.com. Include your name and mailing address. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.
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