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This guy is amazing.





I can only hope that someday my mind is 1/10th as creative as his.

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Wow

I think the headstock looks horrible, but it is creative. The pic of the front of
the guitar is pretty random and awesome looking.

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Lance - I'm not sure if I'm reading the label correctly.  Who is the builder?  Way cool guitar. 

Michihiro Matsuda

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

I agree with John I think the headstock is probably the ugliest I have ever seen. The top looks interesting, if a somewhat over done. I'm still of the less is more school, but then I'm a boring old academic. Good to see the other side of the art. But, what does it sound like, if he can be inventive but still produce an amazing sounding guitar, then good luck to him. Just not for boring old me.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

I happen to like new innovation, whether it's aesthetic or not, just because it may lead to new discoveries of guitar design.

As an artist, I happen to like Japanese design, although my artistic tendancies instinctively lean towards traditional design in stringed instruments, well heck, in art generally!!

To me, Japanese design always seem ahead of it's time, defies physics, creates line and form in places you've never seen before.

On man! I think that headstock is incredible! And the design on the front of the guitar looks very deliberate to me, it flows together so nicely.

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

I can see how a person with an eye toward that type of art would like it, but it just isn't my "cup of tea".  I'm with Colin, in the less is more, camp, and I prefer more traditional designs with innovative and beautiful uses of appointments that blend into the natural curves and the with the wood's grains.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

His rosettes remind me so much of Lissitsky and Malevich paintings. I love those painters, but it always strikes me as odd (in a cultural way) to use those people as an inspiration for guitar design. They do look cool though and the craftsmanship to inlay them cleanly is amazing. I have always wanted to see one in person and play one. Things like the sculpted heel I would like to feel to see how it fits your hand when reaching for the higher frets. Sometimes design for its own sake seems so self concious, but I like his very much. And the guitar he made where the "soundhole" is at the neck joint is a great idea. I would love to hear that one.

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

The jury's out on the headstock as I would like to see more angles, but I'm with Lance on the "deliberate flow". I think that the double purfling on the bass side upper bout is quite dynamic and a very simple and clever way to add a realy unique style to this guitar.

The series of incomplete lines which make up the rosette force you to pay attention as your eye fails to make a complete circle, and the right angle line and block would seem to indicate that this was the intent of design.

Don't get me wrong, I love a well executed display of tradition. But for me, anything done well deserves respect and acknowledgement, and I think that this guitar does visually exactly what the builder intended. Therefore, whether you LIKE it or not does not realy matter, in my eyes it is a success, it is a work of art.

Cheers

Kim

I have been to his shop before. He is a really nice guy and is work is very imressive. Regardless whether you tend to gravitate to his sense of design or not, just seeing what he can do with a hunk of wood is inspirational.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

I got to take a sculpture class in art school with Toshio Odate and the message he tried to drill into us was that "art" and "craft" never mix. Anything that has an actual function cannot be truly art, but is rather an expression of design. True "art" exists only as an expressive element. I am not sure exactly if I believe this, but it is something I think about all the time and something which I am reminded of very much in Matsuda's work. While it seems like an extreme position to take, it helped to focus my attention towards the purpose of what I was doing and has helped me very much since I moved from painting to guitar making: i.e art to craft.

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

Michi is a true artisan. I saw some of his work at Ervins class. He was an apprentice of his. All of you should look at his website!!!! it is awesome.

Michi

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Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

I'm with Lance on this. I've followed Michihiro's guitars for some time. To me they are all truly works of art. Not sure how they sound, but if if they sound good, and I had the money I'd buy one in a second. Even if they didn't sound good at a minimum I would hang it on the wall as art. But then again, my wife is Japanese, and I tend to like the Japanese way of art.
Tracy

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Tracy
http://www.luthiersuppliers.com

I am with Lance in that I wish I have a fraction of the creativity that Michihiro Matsuda builds in his designs. He does inspire me to stretch beyond my comfort zone.

Outstanding!

There's one thing you've got to admit guys... There are many, many, many builders who addopt the straight-laced, traditional approach... You could line up 1000 guitars and you'd swear they were all build by the same guy/company. (not that there's anything wrong with that) However, there aren't too many builders that you would confuse with Matsuda. To me, that is something very special...

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

[QUOTE=blegeyt] I got to take a sculpture class in art school with Toshio Odate and the message he tried to drill into us was that "art" and "craft" never mix. Anything that has an actual function cannot be truly art, but is rather an expression of design. True "art" exists only as an expressive element. I am not sure exactly if I believe this, but it is something I think about all the time and something which I am reminded of very much in Matsuda's work. While it seems like an extreme position to take, it helped to focus my attention towards the purpose of what I was doing and has helped me very much since I moved from painting to guitar making: i.e art to craft.[/QUOTE]

That is EXACTLY what I did...a lifelong painter in various media myself, trained in three art schools to degree level...

Interesting post about art vs. craft. (or function over form?)

An interesting statement about art not being a very functional media; take a look at that headstock, for example.

As a functional piece, longterm, would that headstock withstand the stresses and strains of a full-time life as a professional/studio guitar?

I am sure that Michihiro Matsuda has overcome function over form, and is able to create both.

Study the Shaker furniture period and see that they were made purely for function, and today the furniture is prized for it's longevity within many years of use.

I have many, many artistic ideas about guitar design, and have shelved many due to not being able to find a solution to make that idea functional like, "Would that compromise sound quality?" or "would this affect the headstock's structural integrity?". I say this, but then my inexperience of guitar building may have a factor in not being able to visualise and concieve a solution.

In a lot of ways, I find guitar building an art form in itself; for a painting/sculpture can only be appreciated on a basic one-two dimensioal basis eg. visually and tactually (excluding the emotional reaction); but with a guitar, creating further art by enabling it to be a conduit for creating ANOTHER art form, music, is something that still blows my mind.

So in itself, is guitarbuilding an art AND craft?

anyone want maple syrup with this waffle?

Sam,
it blows my mind too! And that is a big part of what I think about in terms of the guitar being made by a builder, but being the instrument for the owner to express their art. (Assuming, of course, that the guitar is purchased to be played, and not admired.) It is a humbling position coming from painting where what is prized is the force of personality and individual communication through visual expression. I think design has an important place in building, I don't know what a purely functional guitar would even look like. A design can come to define an instrument too like a Loar mandolin. Those scrolls are not functional! For me, Matsuda is a fascinating example of the design being so distinctive from the bulk of other guitars produced that it is immediately recognizable through the design elements. Even more so than Howard Kleppers double recurves, which are unique and really cool, but not as distinctive as Matsuda's strange assymettry. The New Yorker article on Ken Parker touched on this some too and he talked about his ideas of design and function in designing his new archtop guitars. I think there is a fine balance between the two and I love seeing when people push it a little.

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

Michihiro is a really great guy. I met him at the first NGF a few years ago. His guitars have an incredible sense of art to them, and the execution was incredible as well. I would love to be able to build as well as him, and be half as ceative.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

I met Mishihiro at Ervin's. I was awe struck by the quality of his work and his skill level. He is truely amazing. When I first looked at the pics above my first thought was..." well...maybe someone has a creative way of fixing mistakes". Then after learning it was MM I know for sure it was no "mistake"...

Thanks for the pics LANCE!

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Dave Bland

remember...

"If it doesn't play in tune...it's just pretty wood"

    Michi is one of the true innovators in modern lutherie. His designs stray
from the typical so far that there is no confusing them with anything fro
another builder on the planet.....ever.


    I love everything that I've ever see from him and have heard that his guitar
sound and play as great as they look.


Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

I too am in awe.  In general, I'm pretty practical and more likely to call myself a craftsman than an artist but I love his work and would still be in awe of it as sculpture even if it sounds like rusty wire on plywood (which I doubt that it does).

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http://www.chassonguitars.com