Try one of these easy DIY tutorials to make your own instrument using materials all around you. What music were you able to make? Did taking your creativity to the next level inspire you?

Skills

Make your own musical instrument. 

Take advantage of music resources at school by joining band or taking a music class, or start learning on your own with online tutorials.

Education

Take a music class.

Do you have a unique talent, skill, or passion you want to share with others? Offer to teach your friends, family, classmates, or neighbors. How does teaching others make you feel? 

Teach someone a new skill.

Musical Instrument Repairers and Tuners

Repair percussion, stringed, reed, or wind instruments. May specialize in one area, such as piano tuning.

Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.

Realistic

Artistic occupations frequently involve working with forms, designs and patterns. They often require self-expression and the work can be done without following a clear set of rules.

Artistic

Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.

Investigative

Conventional occupations frequently involve following set procedures and routines. These occupations can include working with data and details more than with ideas. Usually there is a clear line of authority to follow.

Conventional

Second Interest High-Point

Third Interest High-Point

Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.

Enterprising

Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.

Social

First Interest High-Point

Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed

Precision Instrument and Equipment Repairers

Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations

Other Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations

Play instruments to evaluate their sound quality and to locate any defects.

Adjust string tensions to tune instruments, using hand tools and electronic tuning devices.

Disassemble instruments and parts for repair and adjustment.

Inspect instruments to locate defects, and to determine their value or the level of restoration required.

Repair cracks in wood or metal instruments, using pinning wire, lathes, fillers, clamps, or soldering irons.

Reassemble instruments following repair, using hand tools and power tools and glue, hair, yarn, resin, or clamps, and lubricate instruments as necessary.

Compare instrument pitches with tuning tool pitches to tune instruments.

String instruments, and adjust trusses and bridges of instruments to obtain specified string tensions and heights.

Repair or replace musical instrument parts and components, such as strings, bridges, felts, and keys, using hand and power tools.

Polish instruments, using rags and polishing compounds, buffing wheels, or burnishing tools.

Shape old parts and replacement parts to improve tone or intonation, using hand tools, lathes, or soldering irons.

Make wood replacement parts, using woodworking machines and hand tools.

Mix and measure glue that will be used for instrument repair.

Align pads and keys on reed or wind instruments.

Adjust felt hammers on pianos to increase tonal mellowness or brilliance, using sanding paddles, lacquer, or needles.

Solder posts and parts to hold them in their proper places.

Remove dents and burrs from metal instruments, using mallets and burnishing tools.

Wash metal instruments in lacquer-stripping and cyanide solutions to remove lacquer and tarnish.

Test tubes and pickups in electronic amplifier units, and solder parts and connections as necessary.

Refinish instruments to protect and decorate them, using hand tools, buffing tools, and varnish.

Deliver pianos to purchasers or to locations of their use.

Cut out sections around cracks on percussion instruments to prevent cracks from advancing, using shears or grinding wheels.

Refinish and polish piano cabinets or cases to prepare them for sale.

Solder or weld frames of mallet instruments and metal drum parts.

Remove drumheads by removing tension rods with drum keys and cutting tools.

Assemble bars onto percussion instruments.

Remove irregularities from tuning pins, strings, and hammers of pianos, using wood blocks or filing tools.

Repair breaks in percussion instruments, such as drums and cymbals, using drill presses, power saws, glue, clamps, grinding wheels, or other hand tools.

Clean, sand, and paint parts of percussion instruments to maintain their condition.

Strike wood, fiberglass, or metal bars of instruments, and use tuned blocks, stroboscopes, or electronic tuners to evaluate tones made by instruments.

Place rim hoops back onto drum shells to allow new drumheads to dry and become taut.

Assemble and install new pipe organs and pianos in buildings.

Cut new drumheads from animal skins, using scissors, and soak drumheads in water to make them pliable.

Stretch drumheads over rim hoops and tuck them around and under the hoops, using hand tucking tools.

Remove material from bars of percussion instruments to obtain specified tones, using bandsaws, sanding machines, machine grinders, or hand files and scrapers.

File metal reeds until their pitches correspond with standard tuning bar pitches.

Action regulators

Adjustable C clamps

Adjustable fret slotting saws

Agraffe removers

Air dusting guns

Air hoses

Alcohol lamps

Alignment jigs

Allen wrenches

Alligator forceps

Arbors

Arch punches

Automated sprayers

Ball-end hex keys

Band clamps

Barrel reamers

Belt sanders

Bench anvils

Bench blocks

Bench brushes

Bench grinders

Bench lathes

Bench motors

Bench oilers

Bending irons

Blow torches

Blowpipes

Bore cleaning brushes

Bore tools

Bracket hex wrenches

Brass mouthpiece brushes

Bridge pin hole slotting saws

Broaches

Buffing machines

Bunsen burners

Burnishing rings

Bushing inserters

Butane heaters

Butt plate inserters

Calipers

Cam clamps

Capstan regulators

Capstan screw wrenches

Center pin punches

Chain nose pliers

Chamfer tools

Chemical dip tanks

Clarinet pad leveling tools

Coil makers

Cold chisels

Countersinks

Cross lock tweezers

Cross-cut saws

Curved nose forceps

Curved nose pliers

Curved nose scissors

Damper regulators

Damper rod hooks

Damper spoon benders

Deep throat C clamps

Dent hammers

Dent machines

Diagonal cutters

Dial calipers

Die stocks

Digital humidity gauges

Digital tuners

Disc sanders

Dollies

Drill gauges

Drill presses

Duck bill pliers

Edging clamps

Electronic tuners

End cut nippers

Endpin jack wrenches

Feeler gauge holders

Feeler gauges

Felt cutters

Felt cutting knives

File cleaners

Fingerboard band clamps

Fingerboard levelers

Flange bushing reamers

Flange screwdrivers

Flat nose pliers

Fluorescent lamps

Flute body mandrels

Flute gauges

Flute head mandrels

Flute key leveling tools

Flute pad irons

Fret dressing sticks

Fret end dressing files

Fret files

Fret rockers

Fret slot depth gauges

Gauged saws

Glue brushes

Glue guns

More specialized training is available today to learn how to make guitars. Apprentice with a maker to learn the basic skills and hone your style. 

I coach our guitar makers, tell our story, look for responsibly harvested wood while relentlessly seeking peace of mind and quality of life for everyone involved.

Founder

What are my friends and family going to think about my decision to build guitars?

[Male narrator #2] Everywhere you turn, people try to tell you who to be and what to do. But what about deciding for yourself? Roadtrip Nation is a movement that empowers people to define their own  roads in life. Every summer, we bring together three people from different backgrounds. Together, they explore the country, interviewing inspiring individuals. from all walks of life. They hit the road in search of wisdom and guidance, to find what it actually takes to build a life around doing what you love. This is what they found. This is Roadtrip Nation. [roadtripper #3] Rather than the straight shot, we took the scenic route. We went up Pacific Coast Highway through Big Sur. And that was a  harrowing drive. [roadtripper #2] In the beginning it was pretty foggy, so like you can look out and you know it's a drop down there, but you don't know what's at the bottom. You don't know! Until it like cleared up and suddenly it was like "woah." [Ben] They basically just carved out a little road on the edge of this cliff, you know,  and these mountain passes. And it's a shot straight down to the bottom and it's ocean. [Sofaya] Easily the most terrifying drive I've ever done. [Ben] Yo, we're climbing on top of the RV and taking a selfie. Let's go. No, I'm not kidding, let's go. [roadtripper #1] Yeah, there are no coasts like that on the east coast. At all.  That I've ever seen. It was just stunning. It was absolutely gorgeous. We're about to take a collective dump. We're gonna dump the tanks that hold our waste. Our tanks have been full so it's been smelling kinda stinky here for awhile. [Ben]  Is this clean in here? Ready everyone? [Martha]  Oh yeah. Ohhhh I feel it. [Sofaya] It's going. [Ben]  A little chunky on our end. All right, don't let. Nice and easy,  oh my god! I said nice and easy! No, put it in! [Sofaya]  I'm sorry. Chill. [Martha] We're about, I guess, a week and two days at this point  into the trip. [Ben]  And there was so much in that first week. The days feel really short because there's so much packed into each one. Each time we sat with somebody and heard their story, and then left, kinda felt like I was walking out of a really cool movie that like changed my perspective of the world in a good way and pumped me up to go make something of my life, you know? [leader #2 How do you reject that freaking cultural narrative  that we're all told? That you like, "Go to school, and you go and you get a job and you find a career." And you know there's like this very specific road that you're supposed to take. 'Cuz the reality is it's different for everybody. [Sofaya] I'm just standing at the intersection wondering where I'm supposed to go. [Leader #2] We sell, "We wanna go, we gotta know, you gotta know." Well, sometimes you don't know!  And that's okay! And I know what that angst is like, guys. I've had that angst most of my life. [Leader #3] There is absolutely a place for all the things that you guys do and the things you  love to do. You just have to see the world to know where you plug it in. [Leader #4] You're always kinda  tweaking the dials. Nature's got that figured out perfectly. That's kind of the ultimate  role model, I think, of how something can work. It's like in the phase of life you guys are in, I think if we just emulate nature, you know, nature will go in one direction, and if it's not working it'll just turn a little bit. Start pursuing something and if its a fit, keep at it, and if its not, you know, don't shackle yourselves. [Leader#2] I've done things that I really  didn't want and I knew, "This is not quite a fit for me." And I kept doing it and I kept doing it. And the more I kept trying to do it, the worse I was at it because I was fighting against my instinct. The conversations have been unbelievable, they've been so good. There's been so much content, that it's hard to process it all. [Martha] So we're going to talk to Glynn Washington. Who is the radio host of Snap Judgement. Which is this really cool storytelling podcast. Glynn Washington's story telling is really about people and about the different stories that people have to tell and what that says about the culture that they live in or the society and how like different pockets of the world influence how we live. Hey, I'm Martha. [Glynn]  Hey, Martha. [Martha]  It's nice to meet you. [Glynn]  Nice to meet you as well. Hi! [Glynn]  Hey, Sofaya. [Ben]  I'm Ben. [Glynn]  Hey, Ben. [Martha] Where were you when you were 22, 23? Or... Tell your story. Yeah. I was feeling  pretty lost. And it wasn't till my late teens that I kind of got out of it. I ended up living in Japan for a year. It's the best thing I could possibly have done. Because it gave me some time and some space. And it opened up my eyes to a lot of different things that I just didn't know about. Just in a lot of ways revealed just how ignorant I was, um, about everything. [Martha] I'm curious what you learned when you were traveling in that kind of early stage. Do you remember? [Glynn] I learned how to live outside a comfort zone. And being at ease with not knowing what's going to happen next. Yeah. That's awesome. Cuz we're kind of experiencing that right now. It's kind of reassuring. [Martha]  What do you mean? I mean, I'm not entirely  the most comfortable getting on an RV for seven weeks. [Martha]  Oh yeah, yeah. You know, and talking to people I've never met in cities I've never been to. I'll tell you a story about my own background. I was 19 when I moved  to Japan. And the first day I was there, I had to go and get some groceries. And there's, I've got this group of maybe seven or eight older women, they've never seen a foreigner before. And most certainly never seen a black dude before. And they're running around, they're "hehehe," they're laughing at every single thing I do. You know I'm just trying to put stuff in the car. And at one point, it's like, "All right, crazy lady, I've had enough," right? I take my little stuff, and I'm in my apartment unloading my groceries, knock on the door I open the door, it's a ittle woman from the grocery store. Comes in my house, comes into my kitchen, and she grabs  this bag of stuff. And she's pointing at this little dog that's on this package. And I'm like, "Oh she likes little doggies." Right? And then I'm like, "oh no no no no no. This is for doggies." She's trying to stop me from eating dog food. "Thanks a lot! Good tip! Appreciate it, right?" And then she's got a translation book. And somehow she manages  to say, "She needs to teach me the  soul of Japan." What's that? What's that? What's the soul? And she's like, "The soul of Japan is in the tea." And she goes through this book and she asks me, "Do I wanna learn?" All right, let's do it. I came to Japan for a reason. Let's do this. And so, I started learning Japanese tea ceremony where I think you'll go, and drink some tea. No no no no no. First you  [sniffing noise] smell. And you hold the cup, then you turn the cup, then you put in the powder, then you stir the powder. And you use the language, and you pour the water, and you turn the cup again. And finally, at long last, [sipping noise] you sip. Put it back down. Stir. Turn. The language. Again. "NO! You've done it wrong! NO! Do it again!" And the whole while I'm sitting and I'm like down on my knees in this crazy like yoga pose I can barely maintain. I wanna scream the whole time, and every week she'd scream at me. I'm not holding it right, I'm not sitting right, I'm not pouring it right. Whatever it would be, she was really very, very adamant that I get this whole thing, this the soul of Japan is in these arts. The soul of Japan. And then a few months  in, we go to a fair. And she asks me to go sit down at a table and have some tea. And I'm like, "Cool." And I notice it's a bunch of older people at this table. And I'm like, "I know what's going on here. This is a tea ceremony." So I do my little stir. My little turn. My pour. My smell. My classic Japanese language. And the next day, she tells me that I'm one of the only foreigners to have made an apprentice status in a book. It's the first time they're going to print a name in English in this book that she has of tea ceremony practitioners. And I'm thinking, "Wow!" And finally, I was going to leave. It was time for me to go home back to Michigan. And she came to say goodbye. The lower you bow to someone, the more respect you're showing them in Japan. And she came and I bowed very, very deep to her. And she bowed lower than me. And I was like, "Hell no!" I bowed lower and she bowed lower again. And I put my forehead on the ground. And I said, "No." "You have been my teacher and I appreciate everything that you've done." And I cried and she cried. I told her I would remember what she did for me forever. And I do. I told her I saw from a distance the soul of Japan, and I did. And I told her, "I would never drink coffee. But I will always drink tea." And I do. [Ben]  A story to learn from for sure. And I've said this before. I got into this whole thing with a lot of hesitancy, like, you guys are going to force me out of my comfort zone. We tend towards a retreat into the comfortable. And traveling in that way didn't allow for that. When you get to a foreign environment that essentially reduces you to like infantile status, you take in the world in a whole different way. You see everything different ways. You realize things that you thought were normal, things that you thought were, "Oh this is just the way people do stuff. This is the way people operate." No that's the way you operate. And that just, it just reduces you and allows you to pull yourself back up again. [Ben] It's a step into that uncertainty and like I have no idea what I'm getting into for 49 days. Like, I barely know these people, I've never been to any of these places, I've never met any of these leaders before, but I've got an excuse to go do it right now. I always grew up with music. So that was always an interest of mine, a passion, a hobby of mine. Santa Cruz Guitar Company, it looked like a small enough of a company, that I could pick up the phone and get somebody on the phone. Not only did I get somebody on the phone, I got the founder of Santa Cruz Guitars on the phone. Hi, Richard! My name's Ben. Nice to talk to you. I'm actually calling to see if you'd be around in mid-June. Richard was more than accommodating in setting it up, and it worked out perfectly. Thank you so much. I'm really excited to meet you. Yeah, definitely, I'll talk to you soon. Yes! We're all kinda on this trip because we're looking for the next step in our life. Whether it's career and like where to go. [Richard]  Yeah, that's inspiring. What a beautiful place to be. [Ben]  It's incredible. Yeah. So maybe we can hear your story a little bit? Like how you started. [Richard]  Well, I love everything about guitar. I was sitting on the curb one day waiting for my girlfriend to come back to our house after school, and I went, "How the heck do they make these?" Ya know? And it didn't take more than a fraction of a second for me to go into the garage and start taking it apart. I was performing at that time. On track to be the next Bob Dylan so I thought. And uh my guitar got stolen. And I went to this storefront finance place where you give a ring or whatever and they loan you money. And the guy that was managing it built guitars as a hobby. It was complete serendipity. So what he did is he took a night out of his week, he had kids to raise, a job to do, and he taught me guitar building. I used to take him a six pack of beer, or movie tickets or whatever. And finally he sat me down and he says, "I'm not doing this for what you bring in. In fact it makes me uncomfortable that you think you have to pay me. You can pay me back by doing the same thing for other people." So there's the beginning of the philosophy of this company which is you always get more than you give, you know? You really can't give stuff away. So that's how I began. I took my guitar apart. I looked at other instruments. I began the process of assembling the team that you see today. And with that, we pooled our savings and bought an ad  that was about this big. It was a picture of one guitar and a phone number, you know? And the address. The response to that was minimal, but one of them was a letter from Eric Clapton. [Ben]  Really? [Richard] Yeah. [Ben] Incredible. [Richard] Yeah, so selling guitars was really hard, but once Eric Clapton bought a guitar, then it became okay. So in a real short period of time we had instant credibility. Yeah. [Richard]  And an audience  and a format. So we got a reputation for doing custom sounding guitars, and that really wasn't available. Nobody was doing that. So, it actually created a niche in the market. So from a marketing standpoint and a branding standpoint, Eric Clapton started it off. Um, Eric Clapton was big, but it could've stopped there. It really could've stopped there. I get billed as a master luthier, but really what I train myself to be is a master coach. Nobody's ever made a Santa Cruz Guitar on their own. It's always been a team effort. And me personally, I've only made under 20 instruments completely start to finish by myself. But I've done the components hundreds and hundreds of times here and there  as a team. [Martha]  It's interesting, these conversations. It's cool to see that even the most creative people aren't just saying, "This is my brilliant idea that I thought of." And that it really takes dedication and being willing to dig in to whatever you're interested in. [Richard] My legacy is what everybody here will do. And that's very satisfying for me. When this is polished, under bright light it'll look like a hologram. It's startling how it looks 3D. [Ben]  So is that a guitar for someone? Oh, yeah, all of them are. You said, you know you were making what you loved, or you said something along those lines. I guess I'm curious if you have any times when it was hard to kind of keep that in line with your work. [Richard]  Yeah, I did, uh. As we grew, I lost the thread. I think in living it's really hard to avoid compromises. Likewise a business required a lot of compromises. So I suffered. You know? I suffered through it. I was asleep for a long time, just busy, and worrying about stuff, and some of these things became just stuff to me. To the point I felt I was eroding my soul being in business. And I considered just quitting. Just giving up. So what motivated you to keep doing it or how did you... Now this is great. And it has a lot to do with a near death experience. You guys have heard of near death experiences and they can go, they can be instantaneous or they can last a little bit. And what this was, is a realization that I was no longer alive and I was no longer in my body. And what I can see is, everything in its place. You know? Everything good.  Everything bad. My past. My future. My relevance. And it was all exactly  the same. I knew what it looked like to be content. Everything is truly in place, and most of our consternation is the struggle trying to control it. We are so busy, and so noisy, just trying to get by, you forget. And so was that, just to go back to that image that you saw during that near death experience, was that kind of that point of quiet? [Richard] Yeah, you're asking  me to verbalize that. We've all felt this. You feel it sometimes when you're in love. You feel it sometimes when you just get overwhelmed with contentment. Something's gone really right. Or we see it in something inspirational in nature, or whatever, and you get that little second where all is right with the world. Ya know, its like "Ah its okay after all." And that's truly how it is. If I could take you up into the giant redwoods that are almost 300  feet tall, you'll see it. And you'll go "Oh. I remember." 'Cause you will remember. That's how it is. [Sofaya] Richard Hoover is just a really great sage of a wizard man. I wish I could see the world through Richard Hoover goggles. [Martha] His message of finding contentment kind of became this crescendo. And then there was this moment. And then you just needed to like reset and have a moment to really reevaluate what's important. [Ben] While we're experiencing life in regards to careers and jobs and those types of things, he kinds of just threw us this curve ball where he's like, "We're not gonna talk business." So that was really cool. It opened my mind to some other places I wasn't expecting to go to. ♪ [Leader #5] When I was at USC, somebody called the campus and said "We're looking for some young student who can come and work on this film called 'The Star Wars'." [Leader #6]  A lot of people get stuck in what they do. Take yourself out of that and go experience the rest of the world. [Ben]  Driving from San Francisco to Portland, was like, that felt like open road. [Leader #7] I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do, because I didn't fit in in engineering. I was so sure that I didn't belong. [Female narrator #4] Roadtrip Nation extends beyond the program you just watched. It's a movement that empowers students to define their own roads in life. Here's a quick snapshot of the Roadtrip Nation experience at Big Ideas Fest. [Student #1] I'm a junior and I'm at Big Ideas Fest. [Student #2] So me and some other students from San Francisco High School are here to interview people. [Student #3]  We're in Half Moon Bay. It's such a beautiful hotel, I feel like oh my gosh, I feel like I'm in a castle. At this age, a lot of us don't know what we're gonna do. When I'm older and I have a job, I don't want to have a job where I'm just miserable with my life. [Student #4] My dad always tells me, like, "You dream too much. You dream too much." I just don't want to be working. I want something bigger than that. And I feel like by those interviews, they could really help. "How did you choose what you wanted to be?" Did you know what you were gonna do when you were our age? Not even close. Not even close, no. I definitely had some phone calls home where I was like, "I'm too stupid to be here." [Leader #3] There's no one right answer. You really can't be wrong if you're just open to possibilities. [Leader #4]  Just know that, whatever decision you make, go 100% forward, whatever it is you wanna do, go for it. So I just wanna, I wish you all the best. [Student #6] To me, what they were just saying, is like, whatever makes you happy, you really should do it because it is your life, you know, and you only have one time to do it. [Student #7] I'd say, like, this is one of the greatest experiences I've had. [Student #3]  So in my life, when things get rough, if it's something I'm really passionate about, I'm not just going to give up on it, 'cause I don't give up on my dreams. [Female #1] No matter what you do. Or where you come from. You've got wisdom to pass down. [Male narrator #1] Help young people find their way by sharing the lessons  you've learned Take 15 minutes to tell us what you love to do. The doors open. We're all ears. Become a leader at shareyourroad.com 

In Oakland, Snap Judgment host Glynn Washington tells a story of fleeing his comfort zone and moving to Japan, where he found an unexpected teacher and an unexpected calling when he accidentally bought dog food for dinner one night. Santa Cruz Guitar founder Richard Hoover shares his philosophy of teaching and service and leads the road-trippers into Santa Cruz's misty, magical redwood forest.
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<a href="http://academy.autodesk.com/"><img width="96%" height="96% style="position:left" src="http://archive.roadtripnation.com.s3.amazonaws.com/roadtrip/logo/Fueled_By_Autodesk.png"></a>

Finding Contentment

I love everything about guitar. I started playing guitar for the same reason everybody starts playing guitar. To attract the attention of a girl or boy. >> [LAUGH] >> And so I was sitting on a curb one day for waiting for my girlfriend to come back to her house after school. And I went how the heck to they make these? And it didn't take more than a fraction of a second for me to go in the garage and start taking it apart. >> Really? >> And it just, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to do. [SOUND] And you can hear each note really clearly. [MUSIC] Has to be a good one. I kinda got stuck in this thing is if we could be profitable enough, then we could always do the right thing. We could always buy the right wood. We could always treat people well and never compromise our ethics. And this was really simple. I went, oh I forgot, it's backwards. If you do the right thing, you treat people really well and you stick to your moral compass, then success will come. 

Opportunity

Passion

Success

Values

Richard Hoover Highlight

I guess we're all kinda on this trip because we're looking for the next step in our life, whether it's career and where to go in that. >> Okay, that's inspiring. >> Yeah. >> It's beautiful a place to be. >> It's incredible. >> Yeah. >> So maybe we can hear your story a little bit, like how you started? >> Well, so where did I come to this? I love everything about guitar. I started playing guitar for the same reason everybody starts playing guitar. To attract the attention of a girl or a boy. [LAUGH] And so I was sitting on a curb one day, waiting for my girlfriend to come back to her house after school, and I went, how the heck do they make these? And it didn't take more than a fraction of a second for me to go in the garage and start taking it apart. >> Really? >> And it just, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to do. I was performing at that time. You know, I was on track to be the next Bob Dylan so I thought, you know? >> [LAUGH] >> And my guitar got stolen and I went to this little store front finance place where you give your ring or whatever and they loan you money. And the guy that was managing it built guitars as a hobby. That's what I wanted to do and there he was. It was complete serendipity. So what he did is he took a night out of his week. I mean, he had kids to raise, a job to do, and taught me guitar building. And I used to take a six-pack of beer, movie tickets, or whatever. And finally sat me down and he says, I'm not doing this for what you bring in. In fact, it makes me uncomfortable that you think you have to pay me. You can pay me back by doing the same thing for other people. So there's the beginning of the philosophy of this company, which is you always get more than you give. You know, the more we help other people the more we get in return, information, materials, and that kind of stuff. It's really magical and I credit this guy with it. So that's how I began. I took my guitar apart, I looked at other instruments and I began to build. But I went, you know, this is gonna take forever, so the idea of working with other people came to me and I began the process of assembling the team that you see today. >> This is just really cool to see the whole process and just to see how each panel has that tone to it. It's unbelievable. >> Certainly we make the most handmade guitar of anybody in the world. When this is polished, under bright light it'll look like a hologram. >> Wow. >> It's startling in how it looks 3-D. >> So is that a guitar for someone? >> Oh yeah, all of them are. >> Yeah, oh really, okay. >> Yeah. >> My legacy is what everybody here will do, you know, and that's very satisfying for me. Remember I was talking about our techniques in guitar making saying it's not my idea. We stand on the shoulders of giants in this, in the violin tradition of how to manipulate wooden sound. But also, philosophically with this business, we stand on the shoulders of giants. [SOUND] And you can hear each note really clearly. [SOUND] Has to be a good one. [LAUGH] So we got a reputation for doing custom sounding guitars. And that wasn't really available. And with that, we pooled our savings and bought an ad that was about this big. I can't remember what the cost was but it was a picture of one guitar and a phone number, you know, and the address. The response to that was minimal, but one of them was a letter from Eric Clapton, yeah. >> Incredible. >> A hand-written letter, cause that's how you communicated. And there it was in the mailbox and he wanted that guitar. So selling guitars was really hard. But once Eric Clapton bought a guitar. Then it became okay, you know. You could trust your perceptions and you can tell your friends, oh yeah, I got the guitar that Eric Clapton has. So in a real short period of time, we had instant credibility. >> So from a marketing standpoint and a branding standpoint, Eric Clapton started it off? >> Eric Clapton was big but it could have stopped there. So back in 2008, you guys may not remember but the world ended. The financial house of cards collapsed and everybody in the world was affected, and people weren't buying guitars. And I had to face the idea that, maybe, maybe this is it, you know, it's all over. And I kinda got stuck in this thing, is if we could be profitable enough, then we could always do the right thing. We could always buy the right wood. We could always treat people well and never compromise our ethics. >> Yeah. >> And this was really simple. I went, oh, I forgot. It's backwards. If you do the right thing, you treat people really well and you stick to your moral compass, then success will come. And that's the point, let's run the business on those principles. And our back order went from about three weeks to two years. And so that's how we do it now. >> So you said you were making what you loved and then you got busy, but you still had this kind of vision of what contentment looked like? >> Yeah, I had a pretty good idea of what contentment looked like and what it was right when everything fell into place. And it came from a near-death experience. It was this guy from the Army that was a martial arts expert. And one of the demonstrations he wanted to show was a choke hold. And being the adventurous spirit I am, I shot my hand up. I was like, yeah I'd love to get choked unconscious, that sounds very cool. And I did. And you guys have all heard of near-death experiences. And they can go, they can be instantaneous, or they can last a little bit. And what this was, is a realization that I was no longer alive and no longer my body. And what I could see is everything in it's place, you know? Everything good, everything bad. My past, my future, my relevance. And it was all exactly the same. My revelation is that everything is truly in place and most of our consternation is the struggle trying to control it. Then I went back into life. So with this experience I knew what it looked like to be content. >> So is that kind of that point of quiet? >> Yeah. >> That you, that it's really about- >> Well, it, yeah, you know, you were asking for me to verbalize that. You know, if we have some time together if I could take you up into the giant Redwoods that are like, you know, almost 300 feet tall you'll see it, you know? You'll see it. We've all felt this. You can feel it sometimes when you're in love. You feel it sometimes when you just get overwhelmed with contentment. Something's gone really right. Or we see it in something inspirational in nature or whatever. And you get that little second where all is right with the world. It's like it's okay after all. And that's truly how it is. We live in an era that's unprecedented, we have this abundance, and the opportunities we have are endless. We are so busy and so noisy, you forget. And as do I. So this is where I took the risk and I said, why not just do the right thing? It's in any religion, any spiritual doctrine. Doing the right thing is really easy. There's something in your core that'll always tell you what's right or wrong to do. So the chances of you picking the right thing based on everybody's opinion is really impossible. And you guys are gonna make great choices. You really will. You really will. You guys all have a really nice shine, you're connected. You've got everything ahead of you. So I'm not the least bit worried about you. >> [LAUGH] 

Beliefs & Faith

Choices

Inspiration

Interview

So we got a reputation for doing custom sounding guitars and that really wasn't available. And with that we pooled our savings and bought an ad that was about this big. I can't remember what the cost was, but it was a picture of one guitar and a phone number and the address. The response to that was minimal, but one of them was a letter from Eric Clapton, yeah. >> Incredible. >> A handwritten letter, cuz that's how you communicated and there it was in the mailbox and he wanted that guitar. So selling guitars was really hard, but once Eric Clapton bought a guitar then it became okay. You could trust your perceptions and you could tell your friends, oh yeah, I got the guitar that Eric Clapton has. [LAUGH] >> Yeah. 

Transitions

Eric Clapton's Guitar

So where did I come to this? I love everything about guitar. I started playing guitar for the same reason everybody starts playing guitar, to attract the attention of a girl or boy. And- >> [LAUGH] >> And so I was sitting on the curb one day waiting for my girlfriend to come back to her house after school. And I went how the heck do they make these? And it didn't take more than a fraction of a second for me to go in the garage and start taking it apart, and- >> Really? >> It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to do. 

Hobbies & Pastimes

Instincts

Love Everything About Guitar

Your true happiness comes when you make other people happy. And it's not the stuff you hear on the radio or being preached, it's just the really simple stuff. Truly, love everybody else as much as you would love your own self. That's what I was talking about. So that's the guidelines for me. And here's the practice that I had to do with it. I had to give up, I had to quit looking at things from the center of the universe, I had to stop taking things personally. If I think it's about me, I can cop a resentment, I can be dissatisfied, whatever. But even in an argument, if I realize this has probably nothing to do with me. We have no idea what burdens we each carry, and we carry plenty of burdens. And sometimes they can make you act in incomprehensible ways. I gotta be willing to forgive any behavior that can happen. So that's what I wanna do. 

Acceptance

Simplicity

True Happiness

You know, you said you were making what you loved and then you got busy, but you still had this kind of vision of what contentment looked like. >> Yeah. Yeah. I had a pretty good idea of what contentment looked like, and what it was right when everything fell into place and it came from a near death experience. It was this guy from the army that was a martial arts expert. >> Mm-hm. >> And one of the demonstrations he wanted to show was a choke hold. And being the adventurous spirit I am, I shot my hand up and said, yeah I'd love to get choked unconscious, that sounds very cool. And I did, and you guys have all heard of near death experiences. And they can go, be instantaneous or they can last a little bit, and what this was is a realization that I was no longer alive, and no longer in my body. [SOUND] And what I can see is everything in its place. Everything good, everything bad, my past, my future, my relevance, and it was all exactly the same. 

Experience

Risk

Self-Reflection

Near-Death Experience

For me the source of anxiety in making a decision, I realized mostly is when I'm worried about other people's expectations. What will my friends, or my parents, or my family, think about my decisions. And it's actually the never-ending story. There's no right answer for that because everybody has different values. And it comes to the point in making a decision, it's really impossible to keep a clear mind cuz you have every person you've ever met, their expectation, every person you've ever seen on TV, every book you've read, and everybody that's in the room. So you really can't make a clear-minded decision with all that noise. And you guys looking at a direction in life, I'm really moved by where you are right now. You guys are rich. You really, really have abundance. And what you do 10 years from now, the career path you take could change many, many times and be surprising. So my advice is don't sweat it. Yeah, plan as best you can, but keep your eyes open for what happens and don't worry about other people's expectations. 

Richard Hoover

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