After our 3-day Milan trip, Friday was a morning to sleep in, then spend a leisurely afternoon, whilst Franco and company were off preparing for the 5pm concert & lecture which Franco had conceived to mark the 75th anniversary of Taraffo’s death.  The program (at left) was designed to celebrate his legacy, but especially to [...]

In 2010, Jaci and I made an unprecedented trip (for us) to Genoa, guests of Franco Ghisalberti (my Taraffo collaborator) and his fellow philanthropist friend Alberto Basso.  It was part vacation, part harp guitar “work,” and all fun.  Truly as spectacular and emotional a 10 days as I could ever hope for – I hope [...]

I’ve been meaning to write about this for some time, but it took awhile to finish the new Stauffer & Co. book.  Not so much reading it, but absorbing it. Lots to digest here – so many new instruments and information! Copies are available direct from Stauffer & Co., and now in the States from [...]

Here is a special piece that has been in the works since a short teaser I did in October, 2010, in a blog entitled “A Two Person Trio?”. I closed that little oxymoronic mystery with a promise of the unveiling of a unique harp guitar…and here it is! The unprecedented instrument  is part of a [...]

Fellow Gibson historian Paul Fox recently unearthed some important rare documents: 2 issues of The Sounding Board.  This was an in-house magazine (later more appropriately called The Sounding Board Salesman) published mainly for the army of Gibson teacher/agents, who were out making Gibsons the most popular instruments of their day.  One is the very first [...]

You’ve now heard four recordings of Taraffo transcriptions by the amazing Christian Saggese, as presented on my blogs of Sept 25 and Nov 15, and now archived on the site. It’s quite another to see it in performance.  From private footage and audio supplied by Franco, I have finished editing and posting the Cavalleria Rusticana [...]

Continuing Saturday’s story on Joe and Linda Morgan’s visit to the Martin factory (photos are theirs)…. I imagine that the public must invariably be surprised (shocked, more likely) by the strange harp guitar displayed with all the normal Martin 6-strings.  It was originally shown in a curious 1-page story on page 214 of the original [...]

I’m happy to report continuing interest in the great Pasquale Taraffo; three recent events in fact. First, I’m proud to present a brand new 8000-word analysis of Taraffo’s musical role in Genoa and beyond, written by Giorgio De Martino, a prolific and respected Italian writer and lecturer on the world of opera.  His remarkable, introspective [...]

Unlike last month’s major (and serious) blog on Christian Saggese, this is of course a light-hearted knockoff title meant to illustrate that this particular artist is decidedly not the “second coming” of Mario Maccaferri. That would be me.  My only claim to fame is owning one of his personal harp guitars (at left).  This very [...]

Check it out!  Here is an obscure guitarist with an even more obscure instrument. His name is Antonio Montaño, who I learned from Marco Bazzoti (good friend to Harpguitars.net in Milan) was a (Spanish, or Portuguese?) blind singer and famous player of the “guitarra-tiorba,” author of songs and poeta repentista (improvisational poet), who died in [...]