Double Bass and Beyond - Gary Upton of Upton Bass
Double Bass and Beyond - Gary Upton of Upton Bass
Crafting the Heartbeat: Celebrating the Art of Double Bass Luthiery
Learn from Gary Upton about the world of the unsung heroes behind the music—the double bass luthiers—as we explore the mastery and tenacity required in this highly specialized craft. Throughout this episode, we compare the path of luthiers with that of bass players, highlighting the profound commitment and perseverance both crafts demand. Discover why these artisans deserve our utmost respect and appreciation for their meticulous contributions to the world of music, and gain a deeper understanding of their rare expertise.
Join on an exploration of what it takes to become a skilled luthier, where traditional handcrafting meets modern innovation. Learn about the invaluable role of hands-on experience and the importance of mentorship from seasoned instrument makers. Whether you're an aspiring luthier looking for formal education at esteemed institutions like the North Bennett Street School or seeking accessible online courses for beginners, this episode provides a comprehensive roadmap. Embrace the journey of continuous learning, collaboration, and community as you refine your craft and contribute to the vibrant legacy of luthiery.
So in today's podcast we're going to talk about a thought that I've had Double bass luthiers and when I say that term I mean that in a sense of not the entry-level guy that's tinkering on a bridge, which we all need, doing little setup things, but double bass makers. And then, more so specifically, people that have made numerous instruments Not one, not two, not five. You know people that have spent the instruments not one, not two, not five. You know people that have spent the 10,000 hours for mastery. We see you know the amount of time it takes an instrument and the amount of time they might've done in schooling and so on and so forth. We see that accumulate ideally into 10,000 hours. That being said, it might be a hundred hours of varnish and a hundred hours of setup and 500 hours of making, and so on and so forth, and you could see how really kind of quickly, or, in the contrary, how slowly you would become a master at one of the specific tasks, let's say fitting base bridges to bases. Someone like Jack Hanlon who works for us, I can tell you he's put thousands of bridges onto bases and I can tell you that he has done this step, which takes him now much less time than it used to, but he's done this step for four, five, six hours at a time, probably three, four, five thousand times, I would say stylistically. Someone might argue in ways that he does a thing or doesn't do a thing that they do it's not their opinion. But here at Upton Bass I would specifically say, when it comes to cutting bridges or planing fingerboards or doing nuts and sound posts and all that setup stuff, Jack Hanlon is a master luthier. Now, why I bring this up is I want to contrast this to being a bass player. You take a look at a Jack Hanlon and you look around America or around the world and how many other luthiers can you say have put on, let's say, two, three or four or five thousand bridges on double basses? How many people have a master's degree for bass playing from a university or a bachelor's degree for bass playing from a university?
Speaker 1:My point isn't just to say it's harder or more rare to be a luthier than it is a bass player, because obviously that's the choice of someone to have a career in either of those fields. What I'm getting at is oftentimes, I think, people approach luthier and woodworking. You know they have an interest and maybe they're thinking oh, this is a great hobby and I want to get into this. What I'm trying to highlight here is that I would venture to say it is a lot harder to become a master luthier or a high-level luthier than a double bass player. And myself, as a person that can play the bass and that I would say I'm a bass player and I went to school for bass playing and I'm also a luthier I can tell you that the patience and time and perseverance that you have to put in to ascertain mastery of one of the crafts with your hands, the difficulty both in having the work available because you can grab your bass and play it at any time.
Speaker 1:You don't need a client to bring you an instrument. If you're lucky enough to be in a place like we are, where there's hundreds of basses around and there's endless amounts of work, someone like Jack plugs himself in and does lots of work and masters a task Playing the bass. You can do it yourself off in the middle of the woods and work on becoming the most amazing bass player ever, middle of the woods and work on becoming the most amazing bass player ever Given. There are parts in this of natural, god-given talent. Right, those are the players that put in the same hours and they're just we're questioning and scratching our heads, going like, how did this guy play the bass? He does, and I've seen it here with woodworkers.
Speaker 1:There are some people that they just know what to do with the wood. There are luthiers that are, you know, they really have to work hard for it and sometimes I'd say, as with sports, a lot of those luthiers and the players and the people in sports, their commitment often when they've put in the time to get there, is actually higher than some of the people that get kind of that God-given free skill at doing something. So I really just wanted to kind of provoke this thought in people and I'd say, hey, take out your hands and count, look around the country and count as many as you can luthiers and then master level luthiers that you know have gone through either making dozens of instruments or setting up tons and tons of instruments or varnishing tons and tons of instruments versus how many bass players you know are out there. And I like the thought of that and the respect that brings to these guys that are doing this work and the level of the work that they're doing and how rare they are and the commitment they've made to that, and I will venture to say, just by the numbers alone we can say it's quote-unquote harder. That is not to insult someone playing at a symphonic level, the best orchestras of the world, or the top level, the jazz world or the bluegrass world, whatever it be. But we can all very quickly take out our hands and we'll run out of fingers very fast multiple times over naming bass player after bass player after bass player after bass player after bass player, deceased bass player, so on and so forth. Go ahead and do the same for luthiers. It's not so easy and you'll see that the rarity of these people is quite a gift. So think about it when you're talking to your luthier, or think about it when you're considering how much time you've put into the craft of playing your instrument. And I love the respect and appreciation that brings into my heart for gratitude towards these people and the absolute commitment they have, working hour by hour, day by day, tirelessly on carving pieces of wood into nice, perfect shapes to make instruments that we play sing.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that I want to talk about is how do you become a luthier? Right, it's a pretty straight shot with bass playing. You could buy a bass. You can start playing it at home. You find a teacher, you go on youtube, you do this, you do that. Next thing you know you might, if you're in high school, you're, you're finding a bass player teacher, or you're talking to your band director and then maybe you're auditioning for college and you, you know, you're mastering the craft of playing the double bass.
Speaker 1:When it comes to luthiery, what does the road look like? There are similar methodology. You can learn basic woodworking and I would say that a nice place to start, actually for someone that really wanted to be a fabulous luthier. You could learn cabinet making. Why I say that is you know you might be learning how to make picture frames. You're going to learn the use of table saws, joiners, planers, sanders In modern woodworking. You know people are using 3D design and such. All of those are support tools to then what you'll do by hand, with hand planes and chisels and then setting up an instrument, and that would, I think, very much so naturally support someone to be a true luthier, which is making an instrument. You know that background. I still think you'd need some pretty serious time under the tutelage of someone that makes instruments.
Speaker 1:There are luthier schools around the country. There's one in England. A lot of them are violin-making schools. There are guitar-making schools. A lot of the violin-making schools is kind of extrapolated learning, where you learn how to make a violin and a template and then you're going to take that and bring it over into the double bass world and you're going to make your drawings and your templates and then you're going to make a bass. We actually do offer an online course where we're teaching people how to make an electric bass and the reason we're doing that, you know you might say, gary, why are you teaching people how to make an electric bass when you make double basses?
Speaker 1:The steps of joining the wood, learning how to carve the wood all of the rudimentary steps that are effectively applicable later's made many double basses. The craft of making electric bass is much more simplified and simplistic not to insult electric bass makers, but for us this is a way you know we've digitized this process. We've got an online school where we have people you know running through all of our steps, where they're completing instruments from start to finish. This is a great way to kind of get your whistle wet and get started With some rudimentary cabinet making, even carpentry skills applied to this, beginning steps in Luthri. These people, learning the template process, can then move on to making electric guitars, maybe electric violins and so on and so forth. It will be my plan, as time progresses here, to eventually get those people here in person and teach them how to make basses. Those are some really interesting ways. There's lots of resources on YouTube.
Speaker 1:Learning how to sharpen is a good example. You know you say, oh, I want to be a luthier, I don't want to learn how to sharpen. Well, you need to learn how to sharpen. You need to learn everything you can learn about spruce and maple and where to get it from and where to get hardware from to make instruments. If it's an electric, where do you get your frets and your tuners and your pickups and all the different pieces for the instrument? Where do you buy the wood? What wood's good? How do you store the wood? All of this builds eventually into making what would be an acoustic instrument, just like the guitar, the double bass.
Speaker 1:I'm going to say it's easier to make an electrified instrument with a solid body. In the guitar world if you're going to make a guitar hunting right down onto an electric, there are more simplistic joinery tasks than making a hollow body. Acoustic guitar, you know, with two, three, four millimeter thick ribs and sides and tops, things that are steam bent. That's a whole other level of craft. Again, I'm not saying to stay away from it, but you need to learn the extrapolated learning on how to get there, because these university programs, you know, for the double bass players exist in prevalence. I mean, again, take out your hands, how many programs can you count around America alone where people can go and audition and study to become a musician, specifically a bass player? You can do this in even community colleges. There are some nice community colleges that have fabulous instructors, top level jazz players that do this work for their part-time income. So that doesn't exist and it's probably part of why. But also luthiers are a derivative of bass players, meaning for every hundred bass. But also luthiers are a derivative of bass players, meaning for every hundred bass players. How many luthiers do you need so you can see kind of the trickle down effect. It's not that I don't think we could ever have as many bass luthiers, violin luthiers, cello luthiers as there are violinists, cellists and double bassists Non-traditional ways to get both towards bass playing and becoming a bass luthier.
Speaker 1:Like I explained, online resources learning, you know, I suppose the cabinet making example would be almost like learning how to maybe play a little piano before you play the bass. All of these little interesting steps along the way will build you into a multifaceted person that can make things. So our course, if you're interested in learning the beginning steps of becoming a luthier, is buildbasecom. This is a hand-guided, fully produced online learning platform with 80, 90 plus videos, a Facebook forum that's private with our instructors and our class members, weekly Zoom meetups. We provide wood and instruction and we hope that you can dynamically think about the task of becoming a builder. And we give you the resources to find the tools and find the parts yourself, because that's a large part of what you're doing as a luthier. You're sourcing materials. You know a lot of the stuff that we need is obscure and there's not just one source, and these are not products that you can go and buy at Walmart Granted, with Amazon today you can, but you know this is stuff that you need to learn why you're using what you're using and we leave that to you. So buildbasecom is our location. Where that platform is, we have a lot of handholding.
Speaker 1:We're absolutely committed as our passion to utilize this to make more luthiers. It's not a one and done thing that we're looking to. You know, of course they're welcome Someone that says I just want to make an electric bass and be done with it. We're really looking to impart some skills on people that eventually they could come here and we could do some more together. So check that out. And you know there are a few other options formal options like North Bennett Street School in Boston, there's the Newark School in England violin making course over there, and in Salt Lake City, utah, there's a program. These guys, obviously you've got to take about three years of your life. You've got to go and participate in what is almost full-time schooling, and then obviously the cost of tuition. So check that out and there's some of your options to