Unique and stunning: The Quan Yin mother of pearl and paua shell inlay feature on a guitar neck.

Launching a new guitar company at the Montreal Jazz Festival is certainly backing a long shot.  

When the guitars come from a backyard workshop in Bali, made by a man who had never learned to play the guitar, the risk becomes a quantum leap into the unknown.

Master carver, Wayan Tuges, found himself in just this position back in 2007 when he joined founder of Blueberry guitars, Canadian Danny Fonfeder, later joined by master luthier, George Morris from Vermont in the US and Canadian broadcaster, Mark D. Goldman.

Their Montreal long shot paid off and the new company sold 20 of the handmade guitars that have an astonishingly rich and long lasting tone coupled with the great beauty of fine carving and mother of pearl inlay.

This is where Tuges comes in. Finding your way through a neighbor’s yard in the small village of Guwang, Sukawati, “down past the outdoor bathroom”, you hear the gentle tap tapping of the carver’s art. Seated under an open shed are a group of local carvers working not on the local Balinese sculptures as expected, but on the high-end Blueberry guitars.

“I started carving at five years of age and then some years ago Danny [Fonfeder] walked into my studio carrying a cheap guitar he had bought in Denpasar. He said he believed I could build him a guitar. I did not know if I could, but other people can build them so I felt I could learn. We broke open the guitar and looked inside, but it was such low quality that I could not learn anything from it,” says Tuges of his first taste of life as a luthier.

Fonfeder ordered six carved guitars and Tuges suddenly found himself in a new business.

“In the beginning, I did not know what Danny wanted. I thought he just wanted a carved guitar for display. I just made what I could – it’s like a block of wood. I still have that first guitar. It’s good for a museum,” laughs Tuges sitting amid racks of guitars in the process of being constructed.

The Blueberry website says that when Fonfeder returned to Bali some months later Tuges had carved two of the most beautiful guitars he had ever seen, however the sound was “abysmal”. It was time to hunt out a luthier with a matching vision of bringing western instrument making together with the eastern philosophy of beauty and balance. The Blueberry was born when master luthier George Morris joined the team.

Several years on and these musical instruments are works or art in sound and style. Made of imported rose wood, Canadian spruce and ebony and local Koh and white Angel wood, the guitars are carved and inlaid with bird and dragon forms, flowers and goddesses; others have shell like grooves carved throughout the entire body.

“With this grooved carving technique on ‘The Groove’ model we can thin the bodies even further, adding to the resonance and true tone of a Blueberry,” explains Tuges, who, following his first “block of wood guitar”, is passionate to create only the very finest instruments that he hopes can be compared to a CF Martin with inlay by the famed William Laskin, a guitar style that will set you back a good hundred thousand dollars, says Tuges.

Blueberry guitars come in at less than one tenth of that figure and one customer, Paul Huisman, is in the workshop to pick up his first Blueberry. He has waited excitedly for the past six weeks to collect the instrument that joins his collection including a D35 and his Limited Edition Takamine.

“The Takamine is a new school guitar with a cool tube that does not heat up when amplified. The Blueberry is an old school style guitar that is just acoustic with much greater sound,” says Paul. His wife Tess, adds she feels the Blueberry is special because “I think one of the most beautiful factors is that at this factory the guitars are still all handmade. Where else in the world can you find this?,” she asks.

There are other fully handmade guitar workshops, one in Germany the couple know of. “Their guitars start at ¤10,000,” says Paul gently strumming his “new baby”, the Blueberry he has watched develop during its building process.

“A friend ordered one of the German guitars. When I played it I felt it had a bigger sound than from a machine-made guitar. When I play a Blueberry, I have that same feeling and sound,” says Paul who has been playing guitar for many years, and says the experience of a custom-made guitar is exhilarating.

“It’s been really exciting. I would wake up every morning and think about the guitar being made and visit the workshop and discuss ideas with Wayan Tuges. I joked that I was not coming so often to see my guitar being built, but because he makes great coffee.”

Paul’s guitar is number 700. Each Blueberry takes at least 50 to 60 days to create, according to Tuges who has trained each of his staff – including his son, also named Wayan like him.

“So in three years we can only make 700 guitars with 47 staff,” says Tuges who has come a long way since his first effort.

“That first guitar was just a big block of wood. Our luthier George Morris has had a luthier school for more than 25 years. He taught me to build real guitars. I studied under him for 18 months then in June 2007 we launched the Blueberry at the Montreal Jazz Festival. Next month we will have them at the Miami Jazz Festival.

“Blueberry has been invited which is an honor, because normally at jazz festivals there are too many luthiers and everyone is asking ‘but where are the buyers,’ it’s a joke we have,” says Tuges of the esoteric world of fine instruments and music making.

Due to the Balinese carving style and his choice of inlay design, Tuges says it was women who first appreciated the Blueberry for both its true tones and its physical beauty. “I have one customer who has six Blueberries, because she believes the price will keep going up and because the greater number of Blueberry buyers in the beginning were mostly women who appreciated the feminine designs with flowers and other motifs. Now we do a Lucifer design, dragons, animals and more masculine designs in the carving,” says Tuges.

Paul has chosen a Grand Concert Blueberry with the Chinese Goddess Quan Yin carved into the back and the Goddess also inlaid with Mother of Pearl and New Zealand Paua shell running the length of the neck and riding above carved and inlaid lotus flowers.

Tuges is now planning to use Javanese stone and fossils in his inlays that are just a millimeter thick. “I am interested in thinking about the energy in the stone,” he explains.

Over the past four years, he has developed an obsession with his guitars.  Tuges says he is up at 5 a.m. daily and at the workshop by 7:30 a.m., always thinking how to create a better, more beautiful and playable guitar. He dreams guitars.

“I have developed a few changes such as a tapered body that makes the guitar easier to hold, I put in leg rests and arm rests into the body and also a fret indicator along the back of the neck, so the guitar can be played in the dark, and its ideal for blind players,” says Tuges who has an international patent pending for his innovative fret indicator.

He explains that as a non-playing luthier, he is perhaps more open to experimentation with guitar design.

“My teacher George [Morris] is really traditional, but I want to revolutionize guitar building. At the moment I can build a nice guitar and at least I have the basic knowledge so we can improve. I spent months studying the fan fret technique where the frets lie at an angle. That’s what Balawan plays,” says Tuges of one of Blueberry’s two Indonesian players, the virtuoso Balawan who plays a double neck Blueberry and the awesomely gifted Dewa Budjana.

Tuges explains that building a double neck guitar is particularly demanding, due to the balance and strength needed, while maintaining perfect sound.

“Blueberry is far better known in the States and Canada than here in Indonesia,” adds Tuges who lists the Little Texas Band, Dino Bradley, Rick Monroe and Leslie Kimbrel among the more famous musicians that chose Blueberry as their instrument.

On the home front, Tuges says he would like to see more Indonesians playing a Blueberry, starting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

“I’ve seen him playing on a plain guitar on TV. Why not the carved Blueberry? I can carve in the symbol of Indonesia for him. Remember buatan anak negeri [made in Indonesia]. I would be proud when my guitars are held and played by SBY,” says Tuges.

As to the name Blueberry? “It comes from my partner, Danny. His third daughter’s middle name is Blueberry,” says Tuges again tap tapping fine carvings into fine sounding guitars.

— Photos by JP/J.B. Djwan

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