The Artisan Guitar Show Master Class Series provides learning opportunities that are nearly impossible to find elsewhere. These master classes are diverse and our lecturers are quite literally masters in their fields. All Master Classes are in the Cameron Room.
Saturday – 11:00 AM
Hub of Acoustics – Building Guitars with Torrefied Spruce
Martino and Simone from Hub of Acoustics present a study on the use of heat-treated spruce in guitar soundboards. Their work focuses on how heat treatment affects the properties of spruce, based on measurements carried out on a relatively large number of soundboards before and after treatment. The analysis examines changes in density, stiffness, and damping, along and across the grain. Starting from these experimental results, the research extends to numerical simulations aimed at evaluating how heat treatment influences the vibrational behavior of a guitar soundboard and the resulting tonal characteristics of the instrument. This masterclass offers a clear overview of the methods used and the implications of heat-treated wood for contemporary guitar making.
Saturday – 12:00 PM
Smartphone Photography for Luthiers – Photos That Make Guitars Sell Themselves with Scott Marx
Great guitar making starts as a visual craft – and before anyone ever plays your instrument, they see it. In this session, Scott Marx, StewMac’s in-house professional photographer and Ohio University photography faculty member, will show you how to create professional-quality images using nothing more than your smartphone and a few simple tools. You’ll learn practical, repeatable techniques for lighting, composition, and setup that dramatically elevate how your work is presented without expensive cameras, complex gear, or years of technical study. Better photography helps communicate the quality of your work, strengthens your brand, saves money on professional shoots, and gives you the freedom to document every detail of your process. Whether you’re sharing on Instagram, building your website, or selling instruments directly to clients, this session will give you the skills to make your guitars look as good as they truly are.
Saturday – 1:00 PM
Rick Hearne – Exploring for New Tone Woods
During this Renaissance of Lutherie we are living in, there is a constant demand for fresh materials. What is involved in finding potential species that could be tone woods? How do you check out the legality of the species and what are the necessary inspections and import permits? What are the consequences of failures? These might be the easy issues in discovering a new tone wood and once resolved, the hard work starts. Processing the material to make it suitable for building can be an adventure to make it ready for a prototype to be built by a respected luthier. The instrument then needs to speak for itself — it needs to sound good to the ears of the artists. Rick Hearne has been searching for tone woods for fifty years and he will explore these experiences during his presentation.
Saturday – 2:00 PM
Livingston Taylor – Stage Performance Techniques
Livingston Taylor is a much-beloved songwriter, concert performer, educator, and author. Livingston retired as a full professor at Berklee College of Music, where he taught a Stage Performance course since 1989. He taught young artists invaluable lessons learned over the course of an extensive career on the road; the course was consistently voted the most popular at the College. His book, Stage Performance, released in 2011, offers those lessons to anyone who is interested in elevating their presentation standards to professional standards. Livingston will provide a synopsis of this valuable coursework in an Artisan Guitar Show Master Class.
Saturday – 3:00 PM
Sean McGowan – The Holistic Guitarist
The 2025 presentation of The Holistic Guitarist was so popular that we have decided to present it again for this year for those who were unable to attend.
Sean McGowan is a fingerstyle jazz & acoustic guitarist who combines many diverse musical influences with unconventional techniques to create a broad palette of textures within his compositions and arrangements for solo guitar. Sean is an avid arts educator and currently serves as Professor of Music at the University of Colorado Denver, one of the largest contemporary music programs in the country. He is a strong advocate for injury prevention and health education for musicians, and his workshops incorporate a holistic approach to playing. His new book, The Holistic Guitarist, is published by String Letter Media/Hal Leonard and covers a wide variety of techniques and strategies for health and wellness from the book, including: an overview of common physical injuries, preventative measures, and resources; mental aspects of practice including focus, developing repertoire, and performance anxiety; how to integrate creativity and structure into your practice sessions.
For several years, Sean has been a contributing editor for Acoustic Guitar magazine. He is the author of Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar Solos (Hal Leonard) and the String Letter Media book/video instruction methods The Acoustic Jazz Guitarist, Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar Essentials, and Holiday Songs for Fingerstyle Guitar. Sean has also produced fourteen courses for TrueFire (available at TrueFire.com) and in 2024, released a comprehensive Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar course with ArtistWorks (Artistworks.com)
SeanMcGowanGuitar.com
Saturday – 4:00 PM
Wood Sculpting for Guitars – Michael Brolly Northampton Community College
Michael Brolly is a visionary artist and designer known as the creative force behind the iconic C.F. Martin Guitar & Co. Martin Guitar, a striking fusion of fine art, sculpture, and instrument design. Blending surreal imagery with meticulous craftsmanship, Brolly transforms traditional guitars into bold visual narratives that challenge how we define functional art. His work demonstrates how artistic innovation can coexist with precision engineering, elevating musical instruments into collectible, conversation-starting artworks. Michael works at Northampton Community College, where he teaches luthier students how to apply advanced wood sculpting techniques to their instruments, bridging fine art practices with traditional guitar making. Join Michael to learn how to push artistic boundaries while honoring classic forms.
Saturday – 5:00 PM
The Player’s Perspective – Tim Farrell, Grant Gordy, Sean McGowan, and Kinloch Nelson
This master class will feature four prominent guitarists and guitar teachers. Tim Farrell, Grant Gordy, Sean McGowan, and Kinloch Nelson are all highly respected players and teachers. The class will feature brief commentary on playing styles, practice methods, and the art of learning to play the guitar from each guitar player/educator. A question and answer and conversation between the speakers and the attendees will be a highlight of the class.
Sunday – 11:00 AM
StewMac – Building a Modern Guitar Brand on Social Media with Brock Poling and Ally Campbell
Thirty years ago, great guitars were discovered through dealers, magazines, and word of mouth. Today, like it or not, social media has become the front door to building a modern guitar brand – and for builders who aren’t already household names, ignoring it is no longer an option.
In this session, Brock Poling – a 25+ year guitar builder who works daily with thousands of independent makers – and Ally Campbell, who leads social and creator partnerships for one of the largest guitar communities in the world, show how builders can use social platforms to build a community of loyal followers and true champions of their work. This isn’t about chasing trends, going viral, or turning your shop into a content factory. It’s about understanding how attention actually works, telling your story in a way that resonates, and focusing your limited time where it counts.
You’ll learn what matters right now, what doesn’t, and how to think strategically as platforms continue to change. Most importantly, you’ll leave with a practical 12-month roadmap – what to focus on in each phase of the year – so you’re no longer guessing, reacting, or starting over. A year from now, you won’t just be posting more. You’ll be communicating with real fans of your work – and spending far less time worrying about where your next commission is coming from.
Sunday – 12:00 PM
Tim Farrell – Exploring Wood and Tone
The sonic relationship between wood and tone is both fascinating and complex. Woods from the same species but from different trees or different geographic regions will have noticeable tonal differences.
Join Tim Farrell as he explores the interesting relationship between tone and wood in a practical manner. He will compare the tone of two guitars of a similar size and style that were built by different luthiers using different tone woods and wood combinations. Tim will illustrate the similarities and differences by playing the same song on both guitars. He will then engage in a discussion with the audience and luthiers about the sonic differences and similarities as well as any other thoughts that may arise from the performances.
Sunday – 1:00 PM
Guiliano Nicoletti – Mastering the Sound of the Acoustic Guitar – A modern acoustic framework for builders and players
What truly defines the voice of an acoustic guitar? Beyond tradition and intuition, the instrument is governed by clear physical principles that shape its response, balance, and dynamic behavior.
In this seminar, Giuliano Nicoletti presents a modern, accessible framework for understanding how sound is generated and controlled in the acoustic guitar. Drawing from his work as a guitar builder and acoustic engineer, he introduces key concepts such as resonance modes, frequency response, monopole behavior, and common acoustic phenomena like wolf notes.
The session bridges craft and physics without replacing the luthier’s art, offering builders practical insight into diagnostic tools and players a clearer understanding of what they hear and feel when they play. The goal is not to teach formulas, but to provide a shared language that connects construction, performance, and musical experience.
Sunday – 2:00 PM
Grant Gordy – Mapping the Fretboard: A Triadic Approach to Soloing and Chords
In this class, Grant will guide attendees through a simple yet impactful method of understanding the guitar’s fingerboard in a way that makes everything more accessible, from melodies to hot licks to chord relationships. This is an ear-based approach that applies to getting around the neck on fiddle tunes and bluegrass songs but also works just as well with all other musical styles. We can use this method to expand our fingerboard knowledge and to break out of ruts and plateaus in our playing.