Madurobob's Luthiery

Our goal is to build excellent sounding, excelent playing, long lasting musical intruments suitable for all ages.  We service what we sell and are very responsive to customer needs - we're not satisfied until you are.

But, making a living selling them isn't really what we're all about.  Read on...

Our Philosophy

We say it in various forms elsewhere on this site: music is inherent to the human condition.  Archeologists have found complex musical instruments that far predate civilization.  Music is coded into our DNA and it helps define who and what we are.

But, in this complex modern world we can feel isolated and overwhelmed with all the white noise thrown at us every day.  The idea of stopping to create music can be daunting, even though we feel deep down inside thats what we need to do.  Musical instruments can seem foreign and big and complex... scary, even.  Somethimes just finding them can be challenging, sending us into a foreign environment where people seem to speak a different language.

One of our primary goals here is to cut through all that white noise.  We want to show you how simple many musical instruments really are.  There is no secret magic to them, no insurmountable behemoth that only the chosen few are allowed to enjoy.  They are so simple, in fact, you can make them with odds and ends you're likely to find in your garage or your friend's barn.  You can learn to play easily and at your own pace.  You can get back in touch with your inner music making self.

We would love to sell you a guitar or kallimba or diddly-bo, etc..  But, if all we've really done is give you inspiration to build your own then we've achieved an even higher ideal.   All we ask is that you share this ideal, show others how to do what you've learned to do.

Share the music; spread the love.

Our Materials

In keeping with the idea of music as inherent to the human condition and the need for music to be accessble to everyone, we try to follow a very simple guide in sourcing materials: everything local and found is better than bought.

The advent of the cigar box guitars is a prime example of simple, accessible music.  People who couldn't afford anything, found they could fashion a crude guitar out of materials they found on the farm.

In keeping with that tradition we use only timber we harvest on our land in central North Carolina.  No exotic woods imported from fragile rainforests for us.  Our instruments are closely tied to the land and the people and the rhythms of the South and it only seems right to use wood native to the area as well.  we take sustainable harvesting to the extreme by only harvesting dead or dying trees.

This same concept extends to other parts of the guitar as well.  Our sound hole covers are often recycled plumbing fittings or cast aways from old cars or appliances.  Other functional or decorative parts come from items found in barns, basements, yard sales and flea markets.

anytime we can avoid buying someting in a pre-packaged blister pack hanging on a peg at a massive hardware store and shipped in from overseas, we count it as a good thing.  We have all we need around us already to make excellent instruments - our challenge is to find fun and unique ways to do that.