Greetings from O'Brien Guitars

For the last two years year I have hosted Australian luthier, Trevor Gore, in my shop for masterclasses on Modal Tuning. Trevor literally wrote the book on the subject and travels around the world teaching people his modal tuning methods to achieve the best results as you build your guitar. We just finished this year's classes. We had two separate classes with 13 students in each class. Thank you for everyone that made the effort to come to the classes.
Here are some of the things Trevor taught in the class.

How strings drive your guitar
Visualizing and understanding modes of vibration
Relating modes of vibration to guitar frequency response curves
Measuring frequency response curves
Relating frequency response curves to generic guitar types (classical, flamenco, steel string rhythm, steel string finger picking)
Introduction to theory of modal vibrations
Mechanical impedance and admittance
Targeting the “right” modal frequencies and avoiding the wrong ones
Requirements of a guitar as a static and dynamic structure
Measuring material properties so that you can make the best of the wood you have rather than wishing for the wood you would like
Bracing schemes for backs and tops
Practical tuning of guitar modes: Moving from “as built” to “to design”

Everyone had a great time and we even had fingerstyle champion Michael Chapdelaine come give us a house concert in each class.
If you are interested in coming to a future class and learning how to make a better guitar using these techniques from the master, please contact me to get your name on a list.
For those that have Trevor's books and want to understand more about the testing presented in the book, Trevor and I recorded some video of how to set up and use the hardware and software he uses to capture frequencies and run Chladni patterns. I now have to edit it and make it available, which I hope to do soon.Here is a video Trevor and I did a couple of years ago that present some of the ideas he discusses in his class.

If you are interested in learning to build guitars or just want
to see how I build my guitars then schedule a class with me.
If you are in need of a concert quality classical or steel string
guitar then let me know as I would love to build a guitar for you.

Thank you,