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Michael
F. Lazar Biography and Lutherie Background
Painting by Thomas Love I am a Canadian, born and raised in a small community in the province of Saskatchewan. Upon completing high school, I was recruited by a local bank and so began a successful career in banking that spanned 43 years until my retirement in the year 2000. I live with my wife, Gaylene and our son Tyler in St. Albert, Alberta. |
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Early Years After joining the bank, but while still in my teens, I discovered the guitar and there began a passion that thrives to this day. From the beginning my passion for playing guitar sparked a never ending quest for better instruments. My earliest concepts of a great guitar were shaped by the instruments owned by my teachers, friends and professional guitarists. |
Formative Years In 1980, I discovered a book entitled "Classic Guitar Construction" by Irving Sloane. In addition to clear instructions for building guitars, Sloane provided some details regarding the Bouchet designs. I had some basic woodworking and modeling experience so I decided to try building my first guitar based upon the Bouchet top bracing designs. |
Education
In the summer of 2001, I received an invitation from the American School of Lutherie to attend a guitar making master class being conducted by Gregory Byers. Something moved me to take this seriously and it didn't take me long to find Byers' web site where I learned that he had studied with two renowned luthiers namely, Jose Romanillos and John Gilbert. |
New Directions In the fall of 2004, I began a systematic research of features and innovations I was seeing in "modern" classical guitars. One by one I considered features such as elevated fret boards, lattice and other top bracing designs, double tops, acoustic ports, bridge designs and a variety of other innovative approaches and concepts. |
