Sun, Jun 10, 2007 page9

• Saving increasingly scarce trees is music to guitar makers' ears

  Some of the world's most famous guitar makers have joined in an unlikely alliance to conserve the distinctive wood required for high-quality guitars

  • By Glenn Rifkin / NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
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  Christian Martin IV is the sixth generation to run his family's renowned guitar-making business, C.F. Martin & Co. But he is surely the first to worry about the availability of the distinctive woods needed to build Martin guitars, the choice of musicians like Sting, Paul Simon and Jimmy Buffett.

  As old growth forests have been razed and several species of tropical woods like mahogany, ebony and rosewood have become much scarcer, guitar makers like Martin, Taylor, Fender and Gibson have had to rethink the idea that there is an inexhaustible supply of the desired woods to make their instruments.

  As small, privately held companies, these instrument makers have banded together to join the burgeoning corporate social responsibility movement, not just to appear politically correct but to ensure their survival.

  "If I use up all the good wood, I'm out of business," Martin said. "I have a two-year-old daughter, Claire Frances Martin, and she can be the seventh generation C.F. Martin. I want her to be able to get materials she'll need, just as my ancestors and I have over the past 174 years."

  Though they are fierce competitors for a small but vibrant marketplace, the companies have become aware of the significant changes in the availability and price of the best woods. In an unusual alliance, the four guitar makers have joined with Greenpeace in one of many efforts to bring attention to forest management and sustainability.

  Bob Taylor, president and co-founder of Taylor Guitars in El Cajon, California, says that he has observed vital wood species become unavailable in the 35 years he has been in business.

  "I used to buy Brazilian rosewood back in the 1970s at the lumber yard for US$2 a square foot [0.09m2]," Taylor said. "Now it's impossible for us to make a guitar out of it and ship it outside the US. If we do get a little bit of it, it's extremely expensive. The cutting of it has all but halted."

  He added that "Adirondack spruce is unavailable. Mahogany was so plentiful it was a commodity. Now only specialty cutters are getting it and the prices have gone through the roof. All these things happened just in my lifetime."

  Greenpeace headed the Musicwood Coalition, as it is called, in January last year, to promote better logging practices, particularly in the rain forest region in southeast Alaska. Because of its unique geography -- a thin strip of land in the Alaska panhandle with the ocean on one side, huge mountains on the other -- this temperate forest is considered one of the rarest on the planet.

  Its majestic trees -- Sitka spruce that are hundreds of years old -- have been clear cut by private timber companies. Greenpeace has encouraged landowners to try new approaches that would help preserve the ancient forests.

  Specifically, Greenpeace wants the private logging companies to apply for certification by the Forest Stewardship Council, an environmental organization that would require the adoption of different logging practices. Scott Paul, the forest campaign coordinator for Greenpeace, said that if the current practices continued, the last old-growth Sitka spruce trees would be gone in just six or seven years.

  "This scared the hell out of them," Paul said of the guitar makers.

  For them, Sitka spruce is a precious commodity, a tonal wood used for the soundboards in acoustic guitars and pianos. To achieve the sound that guitarists cherish, Sitka spruce that is at least 250 years old has long been a required material.

  Paul said that the amount of Sitka spruce used by guitar manufacturers is a tiny fraction of the total shipped. As few as 150 logs are enough to supply the whole industry each year. Nearly 80 percent of the spruce cut in Alaska is shipped to Asia, primarily Japan, for home building.

  "These 400-year-old trees are getting buried in the walls of homes in Japan," Paul said.

  But while researching the customer list of Sealaska, the largest private logging company in the area, he noticed the names of well-known instrument makers and decided to get them involved to create public awareness of the issue.

  Paul approached Henry Juszkiewicz, the chief executive of Gibson Guitar. Juszkiewicz was an early supporter of the Rain Forest Alliance on whose board he sits and helped start the SmartWood program, which monitors the poaching of endangered wood species. Over the last decade, illegal poaching of old-growth trees has become a serious problem, particularly in the Pacific Northwest.

  He rallied his competitors to join the Greenpeace effort.

  "This is both a public relations effort and an effort to do the right thing for our kids," Juszkiewicz said.

  Though the market for guitars is small -- Martin estimates that 3 million acoustic and electric guitars are sold in the US each year -- it is growing again, especially among serious amateurs willing to pay US$2,000 and up for a quality instrument.

  The guitar makers are looking for alternative woods that are more plentiful and cheaper, but everyone agrees that buyers who spend a lot of money for an instrument are looking for a distinctive sound as well as the characteristic look and feel of traditional woods.

  "In many cases, alternative species of woods will deliver a consumer a great instrument," Juszkiewicz said. "From a marketing standpoint though, it's a different story."

  His view is echoed by Brian Berk, editor-in-chief of the Music and Sound Retailer, an industry trade publication.

  "It's going to be difficult for this effort to make a major impact on the industry because the sound is so important to the end user," Berk said.

  "There are definitely replacement woods that are sustainable for making guitars. But will they sound great?" he asked.

  Rock stars like Sting and Dave Matthews, among others, are lending their names to the effort.

  Orianthi, a 22-year-old Australian protegee of Carlos Santana who recently signed with Geffen Records, bought a new US$3,000 Martin made of red birch and cherry, both sustainable woods.

  "Guitars made from alternative woods generally don't sound very good," she said. "But when I started playing this one, it sounded amazing, as good as the traditional instruments. I'm using it to record my new album."

  For the dealers, however, the buyers of high-end guitars continue to crave Brazilian rosewood and mahogany.

  "People are looking for investment-grade guitars," said Joe Caruso, co-owner of the Music Emporium in Lexington, Massachusetts.

  "I've got guitars for US$25,000 and that upper-tier market has really blossomed over the last 10 years," he said.

  Caruso noted that all guitar makers, including smaller specialty manufacturers are charging more for guitars made from the great tonal woods.

  "The idea is simple: Let's treat this resource for what it is -- a really valuable, really scarce material," Caruso said. "If you want it, pay for it."

  Martin, as with his counterparts, is seeking compromise solutions for better forest management instead of a complete stop to logging in those forests. He is wary of telling the people of indigenous cultures how to run their businesses, but he doesn't want shortsighted economic goals to endanger the future of his craft.

  "None of us," he said, "want to cut the last tree."
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