An Interview with Luthier Dan Koentopp
I had the chance to meet Dan Koentopp at the WIU guitar festival. He’s a great guy, and his passion for building guitars comes through in the videos below. You can connect with Dan on Facebook, Flickr, and Youtube. Dan is pretty new to the luthier game, but I’m predicting a bright future.
Part One
- Why and when Dan started building guitars
- A bit about his archtop guitars
Part Two
- When Dan got into building classical guitars
- About his classical guitar design
- How archtop building has influenced his classical building
Trying Some Guitars
Here’s a video of Thomas Clippert playing some Villa-Lobos on one of Dan’s guitars. Much better quality than my video above.
PAUL ANTICICH
HOW DOES ONE KNOW WHEN TO CHANGE STRINGS ? IT IS EASY WHEN A STRING BREAKS OR A BASS STRING IS STARTING TO FALL APART TO CHANGE ALL THE STRINGS SO UNTIL THEN IS IT BEST JUST TO LEAVE THEM ALONE ?
THE STRINGS ONES I HAVE ON ARE ABOUT 9 MONTHS OLD AND ARE FINE THEY HAVE HAD 10 HOURS PER WEEK
Christopher Davis
Paul, you change strings when they start to sound “dead” or feel strange to play. At least once per month is a good rule of thumb.