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by Geoff Watt

It's kind of nice to know that some jobsstill require a craftsperson's guiding hand.

A manufacturing process will never fully replace the human touch needed to

nurture out the finest attributes of a natural product. Acoustic guitar building by an

artisan called a Luthier, is one such job. It is a craft where choosing the woods,

then planing and shaping them into a musical instrument is what one might call a

transformation of sorts.

From a tree comes an acoustic guitar. Making the tree's wood sing and bring forth feelings in the hearts of people - now that's

quite a story!

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thelifestyle winter 2016 165

It's kind of nice to know that some jobs still require a craftsperson's guiding hand. A manufacturing process will never fully replace the human touch needed to nurture out the finest attributes of a natural product. Acoustic guitar building by an artisan called a Luthier, is one such job. It is a craft where choosing the woods, then planing and shaping them into a musical instrument is what one might call a transformation of sorts. From a tree comes an acoustic guitar. Making the tree's wood sing and bring forth feelings in the hearts of people - now that's quite a story!

Born in The Netherlands and trained in Belgium at the International Lutherie School of Antwerp, a Luthier has found his home here in Gippsland. His name is Ernstjan van Geest, better known as EJ and as so often happens in life, the reason EJ finds himself half way around the world in Wonthaggi is love. But it's not quite the standard story of people falling in love with someone from another part of the world and then moving to the other's country. EJ's beautiful wife Soetkin is from Belgium.

Growing up she always wanted to come to Australia and when she finally visited, she fell in love with our country and was determined to come back and live here and EJ met her shortly before she was coming over again. He had been planning on riding a recumbent bike around the world but I guess maybe he can do that some other time! He and Soetkin now live in Wonthaggi with their daughter Nyah and they have permanent residency, so they aren't going anywhere soon - they just love the coastal lifestyle of Gippsland.

I was lucky enough to sit down at his workshop in Wonthaggi and chat with EJ about his love of acoustic stringed instruments. When did it all start? "I guess my love for stringed instruments started around the age of eight. I grew up in Holland in a small town about 15 kilometres

from Rotterdam and mum had an old guitar that she had kept of her Dad's - a real dodgy old guitar just sitting in the lounge and I loved fooling around and seeing what sounds I could make. My parents didn't play themselves but they always encouraged me. Later they sent me to music school and what I really loved was working out songs I heard on the radio, things like Dire Straits and Eric Clapton.

When I was about 16, my guitar teacher said to me "Why don't you start playing electric guitar?" It sounded like a great idea, but there was a slight problem - EJ didn't have an electric guitar! "My teacher told me there was a music store in Rotterdam that sold electric guitar parts and said, "Why don't you buy the parts and make your own?" That was the beginning of my love of making guitars." (That was the guitar that changed EJ's life but.......it is still half finished back in Belgium!)

When EJ was 18 he had a decision to make with regard to a career: "I was 18, I had to go to Uni and I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I ended up doing one year of an Industrial Design Course at The Hague, but it wasn't for me. I saw in a Course Guide in the Netherlands that there was a guitar building course in Antwerp, so I did the Luthier course for 3 years. After I had finished, I did guitar building and repairs as a side business because I realised it would be very difficult to make a full time living out of it. I went back to University to study as a medical scientist and did Histology as my day job."

"After about four years I started building Lutes, which have a real market in Europe because they are handmade. They are a European Renaissance instrument that has a lot of popularity over there and are becoming more popular here in Australia, which now has it's own Lute Society." (Hobart has an annual Lute Festival).

One gets the feeling that guitar building is something very special to EJ. So what about it does he love? "I love working with my hands and I find it fascinating working with the different woods. When I did my studies we used all the standard woods - European woods and of course South American Rosewood, North American (Sitka) Spruce as well as Ebony from India.

Ernstjan van Geest

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166 thelifestyle winter 2016

When I was completing my third year at Antwerp, I was building a Lute and I got into the older more traditional use of woods. In the Middle Ages they just couldn't go to India to get a piece of Ebony so they used apple, pear - all kinds of fruit woods."

I asked EJ if he finds the process of working with the woods meditative: "Yes, in a way and when I'm working with a wood - scraping it or sanding it - I love smelling its distinct aroma. Like music does, the aroma of the wood can certainly bring back memories of places and times from your past. I also love the way each wood has a different density and grain, which produces a unique tone to the finished instrument. It has been great to come to Australia and work with the various native timbers here."

Becoming very popular in the past few years are cigar box guitars and biscuit tin guitars. They go by these names because, well that's what they are - literally discarded packaging recycled to create a musical instrument. Now that's recycling! A much different sound but

nevertheless, the metallic edge to the notes produced by these guitars play an important role in a good blues or roots music sound. EJ has also embraced the building of these instruments, which is something that will be further developed when his new workshop is finished.

Originally a guitarist, EJ is now playing banjo after a friend back in Belgium started playing Dobro. He reckoned that if EJ bought a banjo, they could start playing together. EJ obliged and bought a banjo kit and assembled his own. His classical guitar training had taught him great finger picking technique and EJ fell in love with the instrument. He now plays banjo in a band called The Bed of Embers, which you can catch playing around the Bass Coast and South Gippsland areas.

Photographs by Wildwood Photography

van Geest Guitars for all stringed instrument repairs and restorations (guitars, banjos, mandolins, lutes, ukuleles, violins) as wellas quality bespoke builds.www.vangeest.guitarsMob: 0476557017

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