For my guitar gurus Bill, John, Larry, and Bill, and the eternally perfect band the Seven Studs

THANKS

The guitar world is an unusually generous one. Everyone we reached out to, without exception, made the time to share their work. Thank you especially to Michael Bashkin, Mirko Borghino, Tony Duggan-Smith, Gordon French, Rudy Pensa and everyone at Rudy’s Music, Bevan Frost, Avi Goldfinger, Michael Greenfield, Rosie Heydenrych, Richard Hoover and the folks at Santa Cruz, Joshia de Jonge, Rick Kelly and Carmine Street Guitars, Murray Kuun, Mark Lacey, William “Grit” Laskin, Benoit Lavoie, Linda Manzer, Michael Millard, Shelley D. Park, Ken Parker, Claudio and Claudia Pagelli, Nick Pourfard, Tom Ribbecke and Ray Boyda, Juha Ruokangas, Erich Solomon, and Ulrich Teuffel. And, retroactively, to all the luthiers, builders, mavens, and photographers who contributed to the earlier book, Guitars, and whose work helped shape this one. Plus thank you to the novelist and author Joseph Skibell, who not only shared “Emy” from his personal collection but acted as a bit of a Virgil to the world of contemporary luthiers.

A special thank-you to Lia Ronnen for her endless support, inspiration, and keen eye.

And finally, serious thank-yous too to all the people at Workman who helped make this book real, including Lisa Hollander, Barbara Peragine, Kenneth Yu, James Williamson, Bruce Tracy, Beth Levy, Doug Wolff, John Passineau, and Suzie Bolotin.

DAVID SCHILLER is an author of eclectic interests whose books include The Little Zen Companion, The Little Book of Prayers, See Your Way to Mindfulness, and Guitars.