Pierre Favino history....

The burn I got from touching the hot bending-iron in my father’s workshop at the age of four was my first contact with the art of guitar-making. My mother, who went to help out in the workshop from time to time would take me with her. When I was little, the guitars seemed enormous and hand-calluses today have replaced the blisters of my childhood. When I was 13, I was given a Christmas present of …a classical guitar. “Here you are, this is just what you want. You start the guitar course on Saturday with M. Garcia the guitar teacher.
If one day you become a guitar-maker, you’ll thank me.” I am still thanking you!!

After year 11 at the lycée Jacques Decourt, I studied from age 16 to 20 in the college of Applied Arts, also helping at the workshop at 9 rue de Clignancourt, and in the end I was steeped in the pleasure of playing and making guitars, the two things being very closely linked for me. I tried my hand at all guitar styles, encouraged by the music I heard. Musical notes replaced lessons in class for me.

Every Thursday and Saturday from 1968 to 1972 I made guitar parts: sawing mahogany and rosewood to make the bodies, strengthening bars, struts for the harmony table or bottom, gluing the sides together. “Remember, this is half of your apprenticeship done”. I was grateful for this moment of encouragement. I helped with the finishing touches before varnishing and, little by little, started to put together classical guitar frames, guitars for beginners. “I’ll show you how we do this, and after you’ll find your own way”. I am grateful for this freedom given to me early in my career. Working with others has been, I know, an immense shared pleasure.
 
Three pairs of eyes watched me… The work was shared between my uncle Gino Papiri, Ugo Terraneo and my father Jacques Favino, who also trusted me with the repairs which I could do, on all and every make of guitar which the customers brought to us. I learned to find solutions to problems, because each repair is different, working out the structures and understanding the mechanisms. This was a good school. Ugo and Gino were always behind me, more so than my father. The boss’s son got away with nothing and I am grateful for it.

From time to time they sent me to deliver classical or jazz guitars to music shops; Vincent Génod, rue de Rome, was the last retailer we supplied. Japanese, Korean, and then Chinese imports have in a large part taken the place of artisan productions; this nevertheless played a role in making the guitar more accessible to a wider public: cheap, mass-produced guitars allowed beginners to start playing the instrument, which was always more expensive when bought from a local guitar-maker. If the player improves as much in his listening as in his playing technique he will want a better quality instrument, and will decide to buy himself his own guitar, specially designed for him by a specialist guitar maker (stringed-instrument maker).

Most of the classical guitars we were producing for study or concerts were destined for students from the music conservatory or studio musicians. Teachers or concert artists were supplied by specialist classical guitar makers as our reputation as jazz guitar makers discouraged them.

I had, and still have, more than enough energy, so I had to learn to be patient. I would lose my temper when I got a piece of work wrong. “Pay attention to what you are doing!” adding a bit later: “Don’t worry; only people who don’t attempt a job will not make mistakes”. My father was able to make a bridge by one simple gesture, producing one wood shaving, whereas for a similar operation I needed ten gestures and as many wood shavings. I often suggested trying a new method of assembly for the guitar. “Do it! I also experimented and found ways to do things. You will find your own solutions”. At the end of 1973 I became part of the team; then the adventure really started.

Friends and customers popped in and out, amateurs, beginners or professionals, all passionate about the guitar. They often came together for a jam session and to try out the new guitars. If they spoke different languages, they played with a look of complicity and without a word. We listened to guitar music while we worked. I listened to them chatting, asking their questions of my father, who, at the same time, watched their style of play, memorising their position, suggestions and remarks and noting each of their requirements in an order-book. “In fact it is the musicians who’ll teach you the job”.




I am grateful for this broad-minded attitude. This atmosphere familiarised me with the ways of the wood workers.
 
We would speak about velvety, round, warm, clear, incisive, precise and distinct sounds; one can say that a guitar is seasoned, an expression which in fact can be used of nearly all crafted instruments. They mature, if they are played, that is, and improve like good wine! Maurice Ferret said to us one day: “Wow! Isn’t this one bold!” He was talking about a guitar. So many words only to speak of one thing: the sound.
 
To hear and to watch the guitarist, with his instrument in his arms, is basic to understanding what he wants; play the guitar, play on a guitar, play with a guitar are the many attitudes of the guitarist. In winter, when we arrived at 8 o’clock, the temperature of the workshop was the same as outside. It took about two hours for the stove to start giving out some warmth and for the more arduous physical tasks to make us feel comfortable. Working under a glass roof is a blessing because of the light it lets in… From April to July, the sun turned us into tropical plants!

Pushing the front door open would produce a tinkle from the bell and the spiral staircase would take you to the workshop on the first floor. After hearing the bell, we often heard a series of swear words about “that damn steep staircase”. It meant that our visitor was Colette Magny. When she arrived at last, she would sing for us whatever she had just composed: she made the windows shake. Her voice was past its best, we remember it at its best. The tinkle of the bell can still be heard, too.

Accustomed from childhood to famous visitors, I wasn’t a bit shy. To me they were musicians and nothing more. And yet, the first time I saw Brassens turn up in the workshop, it was different. The man whose songs had provided a background for the whole of my generation was there, in the flesh, and smiling at me. After my “Hello, Monsieur Brassens, Sir”, he said, “You just call me George, like everyone else”. Like everyone else, except that he and my father always stood on ceremony with each other, increasing their mutual respect and shyness by their formality. They only started calling each other ‘Georges’ and ‘Jacques’ shortly before being separated by death.

He would phone before coming to have one of his guitars seen to: “Tell me if this is inconvenient, but I would need to bring you a guitar. May I come?” This is what I call respect. My work is also my pleasure.
 
When Ricet Barrier brought me the 6-string folk guitar which my father had made for him in the sixties, I noticed how worn the varnish along the right-hand side of the top was, near the end of the fingerboard. “Please don’t interfere with that area”, he said. And, smiling, he told me why: “I play the strings with my thumb, and I let my fingers scrape the wood there, as an imitation of brushes on a drum. Now that I have worn the varnish off, the sound is right”. With time, the softer parts of the wood had gone, leaving ridges of harder grain, creating a miniature washboard. He demonstrated it for me with a malicious smile: fantastic!

Nobody ever talks of guitarist-makers. Yet, among those who have widely communicated a love of the guitar, Django Reinhhardt and Georges Brassens must be mentioned. All those who caught the bug from either of these two will never recover from it.

The 12-string guitar is not a 6-string guitar to which six extra strings have been added without a full overhaul of the design. It was an amateur musician, and a great lover of the 12-string, Jean-Pierre Lebarbenchon, who led me towards my greatest successes in this field. His technical skill justifies his being so exacting. My father made him his first one, in 1976, and I made the next six, between 1980 and 1989, all of the three-rosace jumbo type. Each guitar has shown an improvement on the previous one: the pitch of each string (because he plays the strings separately) and the balance between stiffness and flexibility of play are only two of the main points. I am glad he was so demanding and nevertheless trusted me.


As demanding, but with a different style, is Michel Gentils. He has made some marvellous recordings. He owns two three-rosace guitars with twelve strings, tuned sympathetically in one case. It is when you find your pride challenged that you make progress…

When you play music, all the rest disappears. Dany Brillant, a very shy man, came to see me one day about a jazz guitar he wanted to purchase. When I suggested he try out a model I had on the premises, so that I could see what he wanted, his reserve then suddenly flew away. What a musician he is! And what swing he has! If he used a guitar on stage, he would reveal that he isn’t just a singer, but also a true musician.

There are many guitarists who show promise from their very beginnings. When we meet them in the workshop, when they strike their first notes, everyone will stop work, silence will fall and knowing looks will pass from one to other, to show they understand something great is happening. Such moments make you feel happy to be making guitars. In 1978, my uncle and my father retired and another uncle, Jean Maddonini, was hired until 1980 to replace them in the team. Ugo left in late 1983.
 

The telephone introduces formality into our relationships. Matelo Ferré, who knew me before I could walk and would treat me as a kid in the workshop, would always use the polite “vous” form when speaking to me on the phone. Immediately on arrival he would try out any guitar that was lying around and utter the same invariable comment: “This little guitar has a fine sound, all right”. It must be said that when Matelo was playing it, any guitar would sound marvellous. Everyone admired his hands, his playing and his modesty.
 
During my first week on my own, I « was going nowhere » with my work, without understanding why. Then I realised that the workshop had been laid out for four people and I had to reorganise it to ergonomically suit one worker. I moved the workbenches around, found my favourite nook. Only my movements and the sound of my tools peopled this space. This went on for seven years.

Wanting to look after the constructions, repairs, settings, customer relations, management and of course answer the phone, I discovered that it was too much for one man, as they say. The solution presented itself in 1990, when I moved to Castelbiague, in the Haute-Garonne. I discovered that the silence of natural spaces was really what I was looking for.

“You have no right to be going away!” A few faithful customers were unhappy not to have me close at hand any more. The first four years were a bit hard, but, on balance, the incomparable quality of life cancels that old memory. I was able to organise my own space. I learned to slow down my movements at the workbench, to polish off the most minute details, and my work evolves in accordance with my ideas. Customers visit by appointment, and we take our time.

To dream and meditate gives you an open-mind where ideas can be developed: you just let them percolate through. That’s the real meaning of the word creation. In my opinion, we only receive what is already there. After thinking hard about it, drawing plans and possibly making a model, I produce a new type of guitar: my aim is to turn what seemed heretical into something which will be accepted generally…

Il y avait dans l'atelier parisien, un grand miroir, dans le bureau qui servait à essayer nos instruments. In the office of the Paris workshop, there used to be a large mirror in front of which the musicians would try on the guitars, as you try on a garment. When your instrument is part of your myth, it takes courage to make a change. I have always found pleasure in making the same models of guitars, because, in fact, each guitar, being built specifically for a musician, is unique. But at the same time I need to express myself in my creations. Besides two flamenco-classical guitars for Yves Duteil, I also made, at his request, a third one with 12 nylon strings. Later he told me the tunes he composed on this instrument were different. I was delighted.



I am thankful to those “original” musicians with whom I can get out of the mould of traditional guitar-making. Our collaborative experiments enrich the design of all the other models, albeit in minute details. Inquisitive minds think alike. Guitars are often swapped by professionals. Amateurs pass them down to younger members of their family. Thus the son of a guitarist sometimes asks me to overhaul a guitar which my father built for his. Or for his grandfather! This is a delight for me, for, having been played a lot; the instrument is “mature” and answers your expectations. Unless something terrible has happened to it, it needs little attention before it can be played again.

Just before I left Paris, Luc Degeorges, a violin maker and friend of mine, offered to make room for me in his shop, so that I could come and give an after-sales and customer relations service. Although some of my musical friends from Paris and abroad often come all the way to the foothills of the Pyrenees to see me, I will always be grateful to Luc for this and it is with great pleasure that I turn up at his shop at the end of every month. If you choose to come to Castelbiague (in France), you will be most welcome. I will keep an open workshop for you.
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