In his bright woodshop/studio adjacent to his home in Lyme, New Hampshire, Eric designs and hand-builds acoustic guitars. He crafts every instrument individually, selecting each piece of wood for its musical qualities and meticulously shaping it for its specific place.

“I want my instruments to be responsive to a light touch and balanced across the strings, but more importantly I want them to inspire creativity. To that end I am always seeking to create instruments with their own voice and sound,” says Eric. “Music is art, and art is about individuality and expression. I build the instruments, but you get to explore the possibilities and make the music,” he notes.

Busy Hands and an Eye for Detail

Eric’s path to becoming a luthier—a maker of stringed instruments—had its roots in his childhood. Living in old houses growing up, there were abundant projects to do with wood and tools. 

“I was always doing little things with my hands,” he recalls. He developed a fondness for hand tools, evident in the planes, chisels, files, and other devices he uses in his work, and the antique tools that reside on upper shelves in his shop.

College and graduate school took him to academia. As professors of economics, Eric and his wife both taught at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville for many years. Thirteen years ago, they relocated to New Hampshire, where they both have deep ties. 

“The seeds planted early germinated and I realized that I needed to be working with my hands,” Eric says. He had continued woodworking through the years, but renewed his focus on it, particularly in crafting fine furniture.

Federal, Shaker, mid-century, and Japanese styles inform his designs, but, “I take my own interpretations and use different details where I think they belong,” he says. A distinctive feature in much of his work is his light but striking touch with contrasts. These design details have carried over to his guitar work. In an exquisite desk, nearly black wenge wood on the drawer front and tips of the tapered legs contrasts with pale flame birch. A whiskey cabinet has a mid-century feel with his geometric composition of the colors and grains of butternut, spalted maple, and walnut.

In both his furniture and guitar creations, Eric notes, “I think my academic background helps, being detail oriented and fastidious.” He adds that when he recognizes that it’s not good enough, “it goes in the stove.”

Honing His Skills

Eric played guitar when he was young. With woodworking, he was drawn to the instruments by the challenge. Guitars offered opportunity to make “the thinnest, lightest, most delicate things I could think of.” His first instrument, completed in 2023, he describes as a “campfire guitar.” It is not premium tonewood, he explains; he crafted it from an old doorframe and scraps that he had in his workshop. He had no forms for it. The soundboard is flat rather than curved. “I learned a lot. I learn everything the hard way,” he says.

With its satisfying mellow sound, the guitar was a resounding success, opening the door to the instruments he makes these days. Building his expertise—and also his own forms and jigs—Eric is self-taught. He has honed his skills through his practice, online resources, and with input from musicians and established luthiers, including taking a couple of classes from acclaimed New Hampshire luthier Alan Carruth, who has been making instruments for over 50 years.

Building a guitar that is beautiful to play, hear, handle, and see is a complex project. “It’s got to be lightweight and resonant. It’s got to look like a million bucks and it’s got to sound good,” Eric explains.

Guitar design, Eric notes, “is intriguing and incredibly challenging. It’s always a puzzle and you can always tweak it. It is really interesting to hear how little things make a difference.” Every guitar component affects its vibration and sound. When a string is plucked, its vibration transmits from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, resonating through the air in the body, which then produces sound waves. The shape and bracing of the body of the instrument, the quality of the joinery affects a guitar’s sound. The cellular structure of the wood makes a difference.

All About the Wood

Red spruce is a favored material for the guitar top, the soundboard. Dense hardwood is preferred for the sides and back. Tropical hardwoods have long been popular for these components, prized for their tonal qualities and the dramatic visual contrast of their dark color. Among these, Brazilian rosewood and several others are now endangered due to overharvesting.

Ethically harvested tropical woods are available for guitars, but luthiers including Eric also value the quality of several domestic, including regional, hardwoods. “You can build excellent guitars out of oak,” Eric says, noting that black locust, cherry, and walnut are other domestic woods well suited to guitars.

Tailoring bespoke guitars, Eric works with clients’ preferences: the guitar player’s style and touch, their preferred materials, even their hand size. He customizes each instrument with unique inlay. Superb materials, skilled craftsmanship, and a lot of hours of labor come together in a kind of alchemy in creating a high-quality custom guitar. “There’s some art there, there’s some science there, there is experience there,” Eric says.

Eric Furstenberg

74 Flint Hill Road

Lyme, NH

(603) 678-1778

www.ericfurstenberg.com
[email protected]