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Larrivee plant tour

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I found this fascinating video by a former Larrivee worker who gives us a behind the scenes tour of what goes on inside the legendary Larrivee Acoustic Guitar plant. While watching it I can’t believe how much time, dedication and patience goes into creating this acoustic guitar. All the little things that we take for granite in a guitar is disclosed to us right here in a fantastic series of videos below. A trivial piece of information is that I did not know that it can take literally months to complete one Larrivee acoustic guitar. I thought maybe 2-3 week tops but months?

In Video 1 @ 05:42 on the video counter, it shows that Larrivee installs a nice reinforced section that is located on the upper inside of the guitar body, right below where you rest the outside part of the guitar body near your sternum or in between your breasts when you play it sitting down. This reinforce section is very useful when either Larrivee, or the end user, installs a pre-amp for a pickup inside of the guitar. This is one damn good thing to know if you want add one yourself. I wasn’t aware of it until now.

When you reach video counter 06:22, it shows a guy doing some sanding on the body of a guitar. I think that I would be natural at this point in the process! Back when I was going to school to become a goldsmith, I took this grinding & polishing course that was extremely difficult to master. It takes great hand eye coordinating to pull it off. Unfortunately your fingers take one hell of a beating, that’s the only thing that I hated about this area. Mind you, grinding and polishing of a small piece is easy compared to a larger one. This guy here is good.

In video 2 I love how they show the inside or the inner workings/guts of the acoustic guitar. It’s the bracing that interests me for some strange reason and @ 02:22 my curiosity is satisfied. I remember when some of the bracing inside my original no name acoustic had come apart from the top of the guitar. I always wondered what was inside there that made the acoustic guitar work, now I know.

In video 3 @ 01:31 they show us an employee putting in the friction fitted dove tail joints where the neck of the guitar and the body meets. It actually starts @ 00:22 if you want to be technical. I always wondered what that dove tail thing was all about in all those guitar forums. I mean I’m just a player not a luthier for crying out loud! I also liked how they put the truss rod in @ 03:15. This ties in nicely to a post I did about what your Truss Rod is used for.

So here are those links that I am talking about. Check them out to see what I mean.

Video 1, 2, & 3

Keep on Jammin’





More on the Carillon

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On my other blog, Guitar Licks, I did a post in 2009 about this really interesting church instrument called the Carillon. The post was titled The Carillon at Metro United Church in Toronto. This classic bell based instrument is located at the Metropolitan United Church M.U.C. in downtown Toronto, Ontario. So the story goes like this …

I had been just been at a doctors appointment across the street from the M.U.C. and I was killing some time before I returned for the second half of my visit. It was a hot July afternoon so I decided to sit in a park right beside the church. While sitting having a smoke, I’ve been successfully smoke free for 3 months now, when I heard the sound of bells coming from the bell tower at the church. Not just bells ringing to tell the citizens what time it is but bells that are actually playing multiple notes creating a real song. I thought to myself wouldn’t it be neat to get a closer look at this thing?

Since I had nothing to do and the doors to the church were open, I waltzed in to take a look around. After chattin’ with a women inside, who was handing out pamphlets, I noticed this guy walking down an old staircase. The women then introduced him to me as Gerald Martindale. I told him that am a musician and have a couple guitar blogs that I love to talk about unique instruments to people on. After telling him of what drew me into the M.U.C.,he said he was flattered. Gerald said the belled instrument that I was listening to is called the Carillon and that he was it’s principle player. He then began tell give me a brief history lesson about it.

After a couple minutes into our conversation he offered to take me up the bell tower for a closer look. He said it would take around an hour or so for a full tour. I thought to myself that if I get up there, there’s no way in the world I’d make the rest of my appointment so I had to begrudgingly declined his offer. He then told me I could come back later and make a little video about the Carillon. So we exchanged e-mails so we could arrange a proper time to met again.

Obviously I wanted to head back there but I never had the opportunity to do so. So today while searching a website from a local college, I came across a video that one of their students made about this exact instrument. Now after going through the video, it takes a couple of minutes to get to the actual piece, I thought it was well done so I just thought that I’d do a follow up on my previous post.

Check out this link to Centennial On Demand and proceed to 18:33 on the video counter to see the whole interview. It’s really neat to see all the moving parts, a little history about the Carillon and watch how to play this instrument. I hope that your enjoy it!

Keep on Jammin’

The Nintendo Guitar

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I have to admit that at one time in my life, quite a while ago I might add, we were addicted to the original Nintendo Game machine. I think I got a bad case of Nintendo Hand-itis. way back in the day. We use to pick up tons of illegal game cartridges all over the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). It got to a point where we were on this thing WAY TOO MUCH!

The Nintendo Guitar

I came across a picture of this weird custom made Nintendo Guitar and upon looking at the body of this thing I had a flashback to those addicted to this game years! I can’t image playing this thing for extended periods of time, but I guess it would be fun picking on it for maybe 1/2 an hour.

Keep on Jammin’

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