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Title: Making Early Stringed Instruments by Ronald Zachary Taylor ISBN: 0-85442-051-7 Publisher: Bold Strummer Ltd Pub. Date: June, 1991 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.95

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Average Customer Rating: 3 (1 review)

Rating: 3
Summary: A Useful Book
Comment: This is a useful book for those interested in musical instrument construction. If you are interested in making musical instruments this is a good book but it's not for those with no experience.

Ths book contains plans and instructions for making eight different stringed instruments: a bowed psaltery, a lyre, a simple lute, an appalachian dulcimer, a flat-backed mandolin, a mediaeval fiddle, a gothic harp and a guitar. All are adaptations of original instruments or are inspired by traditional designs. All of Taylor's designs are aestheitically graceful and elegant. The plans provided are detailed and clear. There are, however, some aspects of the book that I didn't like. I found Taylor's writing style to be rather flowery, verbose and pretentious. Conversely, his sets of instructions for building each instrument are too brief, one reason why this is not a book for beginners. It would have been nice if less space had been given to wordy anecdotes and more to fleshing out the instructions.

There is also a glaring error in the instructions for making the mandolin and guitar. It describes attaching the neck to a flat board when gluing the sides to the neck and bottom block. Doing this will cause problems with gluing on the fingerboard...there will be a step down from the soundboard to the neck surface. I hit this problem when I made a guitar from the book and it caused lots of frustration for me.

Otherwise, this is a fairly good book that would be a useful addition to the library of anyone interested in making traditional musical instruments. I'll give it three stars.