The Center For Music and Arts Entrepuenership

In a student workshop at Loyola University, New Orleans, Professor Jerry Goolsby teaches the basics of building an acoustic guitar, including wood selection and body shape, proper bracing and brace placement, constructing the neck and fretboard, decorating and inlaying, and more.

Jerry Goolsby of Loyola University, New Orleans discusses with an audience of students how he got his start building guitars, as a preface to a workshop on how to construct an acoustic steel-stringed guitar.

In a student workshop at Loyola University, New Orleans, Professor Jerry Goolsby teaches the basics of building an acoustic guitar. In this section he discusses the acoustic properties of some important guitar woods, and demonstrates how the pieces of the body are shaped and assembled.

In a student workshop at Loyola University, New Orleans, Professor Jerry Goolsby teaches the basics of building an acoustic guitar. In this section, he discusses the effect of body cavity size and shape on the sound of an acoustic guitar.

In a student workshop at Loyola University, New Orleans, Professor Jerry Goolsby teaches the basics of building an acoustic guitar. In this section he demonstrates building the top of an acoustic steel-stringed guitar selecting wood, cutting and placing braces, and the properties of various adhesives used in construction, and how these all contribute to the sound of the finished instrument.

In a student workshop at Loyola University, New Orleans, Professor Jerry Goolsby teaches the basics of building an acoustic guitar. In this section he discusses the construction of the neck and fretboard of a guitar, from which woods to use to how to inlay a neck with decorative mother-of-pearl.

In a student workshop at Loyola University, New Orleans, Professor Jerry Goolsby teaches the basics of building an acoustic guitar. In this section he discusses binding and decorating acoustic guitars using materials from simple plastic to abalone.

In a student workshop at Loyola University, New Orleans, Professor Jerry Goolsby teaches the basics of building an acoustic guitar. In this section he discusses finishing a guitar what finish does, why its necessary, and what it does for the wood of a guitar.

In a student workshop at Loyola University, New Orleans, Professor Jerry Goolsby teaches the basics of building an acoustic guitar. In this section, he answers a student question about selecting and placing a pickguard.

In a student workshop at Loyola University, New Orleans, Professor Jerry Goolsby teaches the basics of building an acoustic guitar. In this final section, he answers student questions about how to obtain rare, exotic, and finest quality woods, and about the environmental impact of timber harvests and tree farming.