Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery

The Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery is an Arizona accredited school located in Phoenix, Arizona. It has graduated over 1200 students in its over 35 years of operation. Graduates can be found all across the music industry from guitar repairmen to upper management and owners of large musical instrument manufacturers. Roberto-Venn is considered one of the top schools of its kind in the United States.

History

The idea for a guitar making school grew out of an apprenticeship program that John Roberts (1921 - 1999) started back in 1969 called the Juan Roberto Guitar Works. Before this, John found himself in the jungles of Nicaragua, flying airplanes for a wood import company. Much of the rosewood and mahogany used at the school was collected with the help of the Miskito Indians and shipped to Phoenix where John began his guitar making endeavor. John Roberts died in the summer of 1999.

Robert Venn (1926 - 1991) joined with John in 1973, and brought custom electric guitar making expertise to the guitar partnership. Bob was one a handful of guitar makers in the 1950's and 60's to wind his own pickups and use wooden pickup covers aesthetically matched with the highly figured hardwoods he used in the body and neck of his instruments. Bob built or repaired for fine guitarists such as Phil Baugh, Maurice Anderson, Tom Morrell, Bud Isaacs, Norm Hamlet, and Tiny Moore.

William Eaton apprenticed with John Roberts in 1971. He wrote a business plan for a guitar making school in 1974, while acquiring an MBA degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. The plan became the blueprint for the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery, which John, Bob, William, and Bruce Scotten incorporated and founded in 1975. William added new elements of stringed instrument design and innovations, creating multi-stringed, one-of-a-kind instruments at the school since 1976. Presently, William is the Director of Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery.

Curriculum

The Guitar Making and Repair Course consists of practical and theoretical training in acoustic and electric guitar construction and repair. The course runs for five months, 880 hours of class time. Students attend lectures and demonstrations on every phase of building, as they construct one acoustic and one electric guitar or bass.The finest air-dried woods are made available for the students' instruments. They may choose from mahogany, rosewood, ebony, maple, walnut, spruce, cedar, redwood, koa, and other woods.

The Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery is an Arizona accredited school located in Phoenix, Arizona. It has graduated over 1200 students in its over 35 years of operation. Graduates can be found all across the music industry from guitar repairmen to upper management and owners of large musical instrument manufacturers. Roberto-Venn is considered one of the top schools of its kind in the United States.