Adams and Miller Kids... Martin Guitar Factory

Making the Adams family our first stop on the North American Odyssey is setting ourselves up for disappointment.  We know this.  There is nothing for entertainment like watching two year old Tucker spend an evening poking plastic letters, bits of plastic toys  and other flotsam into the hole in the front of his sixteen year old brother’s guitar, all the while carrying a whole Dorito chip wedged into his over bite like a giant orange fang.  Well, maybe there is… watching Caleb shake the above treasures out of the resonance chamber of his beloved instrument, muttering at his toddler worshiper and making witty comments like, “This guitar brought to you by the letter j,” is almost as amusing.  Watching Melissa whisper yell at the little man, she’s lost her voice, and chase him out of the room as he laughs is pretty funny too.  Last night’s guitar antics were the inspiration for today’s field trip:  a visit to the Martin guitar factory in Nazereth, PA.

high tech guitar clamping

Nothing says “home school” like ten kids between 1 and 13 in the middle of a Monday afternoon.  It was a fascinating tour.  The children asked a million questions.  They peered into the machines, wondered about where the “eyes” were on the robotic polishing machine and how often it dropped a guitar.  The process is fascinating: from careful wood selection, milling and matching, to bending, sanding, gluing, more sanding, fret and finger board construction, embellishing, finishing, polishing and more.  The full time luthiers were obviously master craftsmen and nothing short of perfection leaves the factory floor.  I, for one, had no appreciation for the layers of art and science that blend themselves into a myriad of tonal qualities and aesthetic considerations.

pearl inlay work

Perhaps the most fabulous of all was the fellow painstakingly cutting paper thin sheets of abalone, mother of pearl and other lovely shiny embellishments into stars, leaves, and geometric shapes to create a one of a kind guitar for some lucky person.  “How much does THAT cost?” Asked Gabe.  “You can have one of those guitars, with your own signature on it in mother of pearl for about $10,000,” said our gracious guide, Beth.  Gabe’s eyes got big.  That’s a lot of wood to stack at fifty cents a box.

the machine Tucker's tag became lodged in

No home school field trip is complete without some fiasco.  This was no exception.  The children all walked within the yellow lines.  There was no running.  Everyone listened respectfully, asked good questions and none of the boys started a fist fight.  Tucker was tightly strapped into his stroller, where he could do no damage… or so we thought… until, from the observation deck over the milling floor we saw a green object floating, rather like a leaf, back and forth down through the air.  It landed gracefully, wedged into the center of a pressing machine as we realized what it was:  Tucker’s name tag.  He’d lobbed it over the hand rail, just to see what would happen.  The kids found it quite amusing to watch Daddy try to direct the man on the floor to the location of the foreign object, which, once retrieved, Melissa did not hand back to the baby.

playing Martin guitars

We wandered the museum, purchased authentic “Martin” guitar picks and postcards to mail to our musician friends. The highlight, by far, was in the last ten minutes, when the children discovered that the guitars lining the walls across from the album covers from artists who use Martins, were for playing.  Gabe’s eyes got big as he carefully chose an expensive Martin guitar and sat down on a stool to play.  Hannah quickly joined him.  They played everything they knew.  Hannah lamented leaving her fiddle at home, or they could have REALLY played.  Melissa and I quietly enjoyed the moment, our whole bunch of babies enjoying the afternoon, playing their music, making another layer of memories on another continent… so glad we cycled into their yard as complete strangers in the Czech a year and a half ago.