Guitar building class grows on campus

The guitar building class offered at ETSU has been steadily growing throughout the years. Now it is listed under multiple major curriculums, and the program continues to educate students by providing hands-on experience.

Bill Hemphill, an associate professor here at ETSU, had much to say about the acoustic guitar building class. He explained that the program started around spring break of 2012, when he was invited to Dayton, Ohio, to build his own electric guitar and keep it. This inspired the idea to incorporate guitar building into the curriculum.

“I realized that we could be vertically integrated here,” Hemphill explained. “Because we had computerized design and graphing, we had computer numerical control and we had electronics.” Hemphill went on to say that with those three things alone, you can design and build your own electric guitar.

By 2013, students were able to design, prototype, and build their own guitars. In 2019, Hemphill explored another workshop with Doug Hunt, a technology education teacher. There they worked with Taylor Guitars to get involved with acoustics. He went on to explain the funding of the program.

“The university has donated $10,000 in building guitars as a part of the curriculum,” Hemphill said.

Importantly, the grants received from the instructional development committee helped combine the engineering technology and the bluegrass old-time and roots music curriculums.

In partnership with Hemphill, graduate assistant Holger Oleson was able to share information and insights about the class. Oleson received his undergrad in manufacturing and engineering technology.

During his last semester of undergraduate studies he states, “Bill came to me and another student, and a couple of students from bluegrass and said he was trying to start up this acoustic guitar building class.”

As mentioned, at this point Hemphill was already running an electric guitar building class, but he wanted to do a trial run for the acoustic side of things. Oleson was one of the first people to participate in the guitar building class. He later decided to come back and work with Hemphill, and now the acoustic guitar building class has been in progress for two years.

The class currently includes five engineering technology students and five bluegrass old-time and roots music students. In their time taking the course, they have had access to multiple benefits.

“Everyone learns the same things in the class, but they learn differently,” Oleson noted.

Engineering and technology students gather an understanding on creating structure and how things are put together, as well as working with different types of machinery. They also experience creating prototypes through hands on work.

The bluegrass, old-time and roots music students benefit by getting to see exactly what is inside of the instruments they are playing. They get to experience what it is like to build an instrument, all while exploring the different ways things like bracing can affect sounds.

Oleson continued by talking about the aftermath. The number of guitars built depends on the amount of students, and although that number has been a little low.

“Just this semester is where we caught some really good ground, and we have all the tools and we’re actually making good progress,” Oleson stated.

This specific program for acoustic guitar building is fairly new, but now they are catching the attention of students and they have gathered all the resources they need so at least 10 guitars will be built this semester.

Oleson explained that this four-credit hour class has all the fees factored in. The guitar kits they receive are from a STEM guitar building program, and they get parts though Taylor Guitars.

“After they pay for the class, the guitar is already theirs, it just needs to be built,” Oleson said.

This guitar building class offers experience with hands-on work for all parties involved. It teaches students how to use machinery and understand instruments all while having fun creating a guitar they get to keep. Check out the classes’ progress on Facebook at ETSU Guitar Building.