Jeff Weitzel — Eugene, OR, USA

More About Me

I am fairly new to the lutherie game, at least to banjo's. I have built archtop guitars prior, but not for a living. This banjo thing I am serious about. I rarely get very passionate about anything, but I have felt a very strong calling to make banjos recently and am pursuing it with everything I have. My prior expertise and training is not in lutherie, but in other things that lend themselves very well to it. I have been a successful sculptor, doing commissioned public cast bronze work for places as diverse as the University of Oregon, the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, and an Aquarium in Saudi Arabia. I have also worked in bronze foundries (my own cast tone rings may be coming up soon...), been the studio manager for the Oregon Copper Bowl Company, and, most recently have been the Assistant Director of the Craft Center at the University of Oregon, where we run a large woodshop, glass blowing studio, ceramics area and many other studios. I have taught sculpture, woodworking (including a bit of lutherie), and other classes for both credit and non-credit.
I am fascinated by the body that my Creator put me in. I believe that looking at this creation is the best way to learn how to better build things that mimic it. Most stringed instruments are modeled, somewhat crudely, on the our vocal chords, but the banjo more closely resembles our eardrums. I am working on design ideas that will more directly imitate the design of the eardrum in hopes of improving not just the tone, but the music it makes.
A banjo does not only speak, but it listens; and this is the quality that I aim to bring out. Guitars and violins are usually extroverted instruments who like to speak for the sake of hearing their voice. When the introverted banjo speaks, it is because it has something to say. Introverts are never as "popular" as extroverts, and this is why the banjo has never enjoyed the fame of these other friends that it often hangs out with. But to those who have gotten to know it, it is an instrument of incredible depth.
I hope, through my lutherie, to be able to share my love of our creator through those things that He created. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, and there is only one being worth imitating or flattering.