JOSÉ ROMANILLOS 01 | Validity of OLD METHODS
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Loading ...Posted on: September 25, 2009
Posted in: Acoustic Luthier, Custom Acoustic Guitar, Custom Guitar Making, Custom Guitar Video, Featured
In 2005 we spent a whole week in Següenza, Spain close to Madrid to document the construction of a guitar he finished for his friend and luthier Josep Melo in Barcelona. This is right from the workbench. Spanish “Guitar Making” at its best.
In the first part José talks about how to select wood to build a Classical Custom Acoustic Guitar, the choice of tone wood for the struts (braces) and the validity of old methods. Here is why it is good to stick to tradition, instead of reinventing the wheel. José is one of the most humble luthiers we have ever met. Enjoy.
José Luis Romanillos Vega (b.17-6-1932, Madrid) was apprenticed to a cabinet maker when he was thirteen. In 1956, after national service in the Spanish Army, he left for England, where he worked as a nurse in a mental hospital for three years. In 1961 he attempted his first guitar, aided by a library book and using the kitchen table as a work bench. One guitar led to another during four years in Spain and a return to England where he has remained, though maintaining close links with his native land.
A meeting with Julian Bream in 1969 led to an invitation to use part of a workshop in Wiltshire where he produced a guitar for Julian Bream that he played for three years. In 1973 he made a guitar for him which he played in concerts and used for various recordings for at least twelve years. Romanillos now works from his own premises and his waiting list for instruments stretches into the next century. He is an internationally respected luthier and quoting the Daily Mail, ‘the Stradivari of the Guitar’.
He wrote numerous books about the Spanish guitar and the man who defined the classical guitar as we know it today, Antonio de Torres. We spent a whole week in Següenza, Spain close to Madrid to document the making of his last guitar. Check for the extensive features about José Romanillos and Antonio de Torres.
November 9th, 2009 at 3:45 PM
Is this series on Jose Romanillos availble for purchase on DVD?
Thanks,
John