After building my first instrument in 2001 and working at Dammann Custom Instruments since 2007, I won’t lay claim to mastery or expertise but as I embark on my second decade of building I feel the results will speak for themselves. While my years of experience haven't led to me crossing an arbitrary finish line that would confer mastery, I’ve instead gained a base of knowledge, an understanding and feel for working with wood, and an extensive mental catalog of sound and playability profiles from instruments both good and bad. These experiences coupled with a diverse set of interests helps to guide me in crafting individual instruments to suit each individual player.

While it can be hard for generalists to find a niche, a multi-disciplinary pursuit such as lutherie turns out to require a diverse skill set. My initial interest stems from a lifelong experience with music starting with violin from a young age then later transitioning to guitar (classical and fingerstyle) in my teenage years. Window shopping for guitars made me realize that instruments could, in fact, and sometimes are made by hand by individual luthiers. That realization, in conjunction with stumbling across a copy of Cumpiano and Natelson’s “Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology” while browsing at a bookstore prompted my to try my hand at building a Philippine Bandurria when the local Philippine Rondalla was short on instruments. While hardly a masterpiece it was perfectly playable, stable, and sounded better than than I had expected. There was still plenty of room for improvement though, so I built another to fix the previous mistakes and make improvements, and I’ve been following the same pattern ever since.

While I’m not currently taking orders personally, I still take custom orders under the Dammann workshop so please feel free to inquire about commissions through the Dammann Instruments portal.