page_title: William R. Cumpiano
section_title: Master guitarmaker
hierarchical_section_title: William R. Cumpiano / Master guitarmaker
caption_attribution_description: English: I took this picture of a William Cumpiano Cuatro in his workshop in Boston.
context_page_description: William Richard Cumpiano is a builder of stringed musical instruments and is known for his writing and teaching of the art of luthiery. He has been involved in the preservation and understanding of the fading musical and musical craft traditions of his native Puerto Rico. Cumpiano was instrumental in the development of the first feature-length documentary about the cuatro and its music, Our Cuatro: The Puerto Ricans and Stringed Instruments, Volumes 1 and 2.
context_section_description: Cumpiano met master guitarmaker Michael Gurian in 1969, and under Gurian's mentoring he began his training in the craft of guitarmaking. Cumpiano left his job and went to work in Gurian's guitarmaking shop in New Hampshire. In Gurian's guitarmaking shop he met and befriended Gurian's shop foreman, Michael Millard. Eventually Cumpiano and Millard established a shop together named "Froggy Bottom Guitars", where Cumpiano completed his training in guitarmaking.  In 1974, Cumpiano left to establish his first private guitarmaking studio in Williamstown, Massachusetts. During the next twenty-five years he would move his workshop to North Adams, Leeds and then to Amherst, Massachusetts. In 1997, Cumpiano moved his studio to Easthampton Road in Northampton where it currently resides.
  Cumpiano's career spans almost forty years of hand-crafting all sorts of fretted stringed instruments from the North American, European and Latin American traditions. In 1985, his interests turned to the stringed instrument traditions of his native Puerto Rico and over the years Cumpiano became an authority on the craft and traditions that surround the "national instrument" of Puerto Rico, the ten string cuatro.  He has built numerous cuatros for musicians in the United States and also has crafted cuatro variants of his own design: he developed a "seis", or six course (twelve string) cuatro that can be tuned in the same string intervals as a guitar. He also developed the "thinline" cuatro with a body depth of only two inches instead of the traditional three.
  Among his customers are Arlo Guthrie, Michael Lorimer, John Abercrombie, Country Joe MacDonald, the Todd Rundgren band, June Millington, and Joel Zoss.
  Cumpiano has taught his craft for over twenty years out of his studio, in schools, during workshops and lectures and through numerous publications. He has taught cuatro making to young Puerto Rican artisans under grants originating from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) through various regional arts organizations.
caption: A "Thinline" Cumpiano Cuatro
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