Schoenberg Guitars
For years Schoenberg unsuccessfully petitioned Martin to reissue the OM. Finally, in the ’70s, he convinced Martin to custom-build them for his store, the Music Emporium, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It worked well for a while, but Schoenberg wanted lighter backs, thinner bracing, hand-picked woods, and more control over neck shape--features Martin was unwilling to consider at the time. To solve the dilemma, Schoenberg formed his own company. In the beginning, he and his partners—first Dana Bourgeois, then T.J. Thompson—carefully selected the woods, bent the sides, selected and shaped the tops, made the braces, and then shipped the parts to Pennsylvania for Martin to assemble. "We were trying to get the best quality out of each piece of wood," recalls Schoenberg. "We were trying to be hand-builders and to use Martin’s factory for the rest of the parts, assembly and finishing."
The desire to further develop his original concepts, follow up with new ideas, and to improve on the quality in ways the factory wasn’t able to, led Schoenberg Guitars to the decision to go it alone. It is now a sort of cottage industry in which the work is carried out in various shops. using several top-flight craftsmen, fine tonewoods, including select red, European, Italian and Engelmann spruce for the hand-voiced tops, and hot hide glue for the construction, just as the great builders did in 1930. Schoenberg himself directs the company from his new San Francisco Bay Area shop (Schoenberg Guitars, 106 Main St., Tiburon, CA 94920; [415] 789-0846; fax [413] 604-8064; www.om28.com). He is now able to explore the possibilities for new ideas more completely and develop concepts that bring forth the qualities of the vintage instruments, adding to, mixing up and changing the old concepts, learning from the lessons of fifty years of trial and error and success, and applying them to create the ultimate new ‘vintage’ style instrument After all, the old builders didn’t think of everything!
Schoenberg guitars are offered in two basic models: the Soloist, which is the original Schoenberg OM ("OM" is actually synonamous with 14 frets to the body); and the Standard, which is the 12-fret body. All models feature scalloped braces, a 25.4-inch scale, and a standard nut width of 1 13/16 inches (although custom widths are available). They come in 000 and 00 configurations with a wide range of options, such as wood choice, cutaway, custom neck widths, inlays, and the Concert Model option which attempts to mirror the appointments of the traditional models. Prices start at $3,950.
The Schoenberg neck profile creates a good balance for fingerstyle guitarists. "It’s not just the width, but the shape of the neck that’s a big deal," explains Julius Borges, one of the luthiers building the Schoenberg guitars. "Recently there was a customer who was convinced that he couldn’t play on a 1 13/16-inch wide neck. We had him play a bunch of them. The necks were shaped differently than the ones he had been playing, and he was completely comfortable."
Richard Johnston, co-owner of Gryphon Stringed Instruments in Palo Alto, California, and a widely recognized authority on vintage instruments, sums it up by saying, "I think they have done an excellent job of honing in more accurately on what some of those early 1930 Martins were all about. Though a lot of people are making guitars that look like those, I think the Schoenberg guitars capture the actual feel of those instruments more effectively than any of the others that we’ve dealt with."
--Karl Baldrate (updated by Eric Schoenberg)
