Healdsburg Guitar Festival 2007: Bryant Trenier

August 27th, 2007

Bryant Trenier builds his fine archtops up in Seattle in a workshop that’s not much bigger than a walk-in closet. He said that he regards Jimmy D’Aquisto as the finest luthier ever, at least when it comes to archtops, and you can see definitely see that influence on Trenier’s work. Trenier likes to build purely acoustic guitars, although he will install a floating pickup if the customer requests it. The empty stand on the left was where he parked the first guitar he built with a pickup mounted in the top. I’d show you what it looked like but every time I stopped by to photograph it someone was trying it out in one of the quiet rooms. Trenier also offered a very nicely produced DVD that showed his building technique and guitarist named Tim Lerch playing the guitars built during the course of the filming. He said it wasn’t expensive to produce and I have to say it really illuminated Trenier’s building philosophy and the care he puts into each guitar he builds much more clearly than a paper catalog could. I hope more builders consider doing this.-MJS

Entry Filed under: Guitar, Movies, Healdsburg 2007