“Eventually, you can tell whether it will make a good-sounding guitar.” When he is lucky enough to find a piece that’s perfect, he builds a guitar to make the most of it, adding his finest finishing details. Huipe is featured in a three-hour DVD on classical and flamenco guitar making produced by the anthropologist and guitar expert Ron Fernandez, and he built guitars in Los Angeles for many years before returning to his home town. After we knock on the door, Huipe, now 71, invites us in. The small room is lined with glass cases displaying several gleaming, handmade guitars. Under exclusive license to Craftsmanship, LLC. He started teaching at DU in 1983 and became Chair of the Guitar and Harp Department, Artist-In-Residence and Distinguished University Professor in Music. Ernesto Lecuona (1896-1963): A Cuban concert pianist and composer for both stage and screen. He is best known for his eight operas, performed by major companies around the world. “A lot longer than previously,” he says. These works were inspired by traditional Brazilian folk music and by the European classical tradition in which he was trained. When Guillermo finally takes a break, Peter says he likes the first guitar but is eager to try another. He wrote primarily for piano, guitar, and orchestra. While Peter already has several guitars with different functions (the jazz guitar, the electric, the travel version), he doesn’t have one to play bossa nova; and for that, apparently, you need a classical, nylon-stringed guitar–preferably one made by hand. The various parts of a guitar each require different “tone woods.” On the top, for example, spruce is a common choice because it is sturdy and light, yet produces powerful, clear sounds. So we braved the Mexican roads and spent a fretful night in Uruapan—a city with a lovely waterfall park and an unfortunate recent history as a center for heroin trafficking and cartel violence—before arriving in Paracho, a peaceful town 45 minutes away that is adorned with the region’s signature adobe white houses and red-tiled roofs. These guitars may not last forever, and their sound has none of the resonance of Guillermo’s guitars. Gabriela Lena Frank (1972-): A native of California, Frank draws on her mother’s Peruvian heritage and tries to recreate the sound of traditional Peruvian instruments like a charango guitar with orchestral instruments, like cleverly arranged string pizzicato. Ángel Romero is a Spanish classical guitarist, conductor and former member of the guitar quartet Los Romeros. This last one took him two and a half months. Long before people went loco for “Coco,” and Mexicans began selling knock-off white guitars in souvenir shops, Paracho was steadily making musical instruments. After the owners welcome us, an elderly man gingerly gets up from a stool to offer me his seat. He trained at the National Conservatory of Music and worked alongside Carlos Chávez as director of the Mexico National Symphony Orchestra. Sierra’s works, which range from orchestral and chamber to a bongo concerto, have been performed worldwide. When Huipe moved to Los Angeles, in the 1960s, he got a job repairing guitars in the Valdez Guitar Shop in West Hollywood. P.O. Struggling to make his choice, he asks Guillermo nit-picky questions about the spacing of the frets and how well each guitar will hold a tune. All rights reserved. Laura Fraser is an author and journalist whose books include the memoirs All Over the Map, The Risotto Guru, and An Italian Affair, which was a New York Times bestseller. According to family legend, Paracho townspeople began making guitars not long before that, perhaps around 1880, though everyone in the shop argues about the exact dates. Making a guitar involves countless measurements; among other things, the wood must be planed to incredibly precise thicknesses. His arrangements and compositions include classical and contemporary Latin American, European and American works for himself and his brother, Odair Assad. For six years, we have brought you Craftsmanship Quarterly free of charge. So he relied on the tools of his indigenous ancestors—primarily a simple, curved knife. Why Paracho has been called the “guitar center of the world” is immediately clear. We’re very tempted to stay for a concert in the evening that is part of the guitar festival, but Guillermo warns us that we need to depart before sunset, because there are bandits on the roads between here and Uruapan. He gradually built a clientele, who appreciated what one musician called the “intimate, emotional sound” of his instruments. The “Coco” movie has had a much greater effect on the town than painting its guitar statue white; it has revitalized the local economy through a new demand for guitars. Paracho is a humid place; as we speak, clouds are already gathering for the daily tropical deluge. It’s a nice shop, but given Paracho’s prodigious offerings, we walk on, eventually stopping to visit Benito Huipe and Sons. “Lots of them.” But today, unfortunately, he has no guitars to sell. It also has a granadillo bridge, a Japanese sycamore rosette, and ebony pegheads. Inside the shop, three classical guitarists who are competing at the festival take turns playing pieces on different guitars. And the Paracho guitar makers were happy to comply. This list may not reflect recent changes . When he emerges, he hands Peter his most expensive guitar. 2” on their 2007 tour of Europe and the U.S., attention turned to his other music, and he is since considered one of the most popular living Mexican composers. Eventually he opened his own shop, working nights as a banquet waiter at a hotel in Beverly Hills.