Searching for Content in GAL Publications

This “Search Article Abstracts” section of our website is meant to help members and others find individual descriptions (abstracts) of every article ever printed by the GAL in our over forty years of publication. That’s a wealth of lutherie information, the vast majority of which (contained in American Lutherie back issues, anthology books, and full-scale instrument plans), is currently available in print and can be purchased through this site. (See links above.) Do you remember an article from ten years ago that was helpful, but can’t remember what issue it’s in? Are you looking for information on a particular topic and wondering which book or back issue would be the most useful? If we published it, you can find where to locate it here.

How to Find the Abstract of a Particular Article in GAL Publications

Here are some hints for locating articles of interest:

SEARCH
The tools in the right side-bar will help you locate any article we have published since the beginning of the GAL in 1973 in our early magazines (from 1973 through 1984) and quarterly journal American Lutherie (from 1985 onward). Most articles from pre-2006 publications also appear in our ten hardback anthology books: Lutherie Tools, Lutherie Woods, the seven volumes of the Big Red Book of American Lutherie, and Historical Lute Construction.

“Search for Anything” does exactly what it says. Search for any word that may appear in the title or abstract; any name; or the standard abbreviation of any GAL publication. For example, search for the word “banjo” and all articles with the word “banjo” in the title or in the content of the abstract are listed. Or search for “#100” to see all the article that appear in American Lutherie #100. Search for “D’Aquisto” to see all the articles by James D’Aquisto, about James D’Aquisto or his work, or that mention D’Aquisto in the abstract.

“Pick a topic” lets you search all article abstracts by topics and subtopics that we have assigned. If a topic is chosen, the results will also include all its subtopics. If a subtopic is chosen, only those results will be shown. (The subtopics are indented on the list.)

“Pick an author” allows you to search articles by the author. Search results will include an author bio (if available), and a list of articles by or about them.

Search results will include the article title, original publication date, original publication issue and page number, book and page number (if applicable), author(s) name, and a brief abstract of the article.

TACTICS
You can put multiple terms in the “search” box, and the search will return those article that fulfill all the terms. For example, search for “Brune Torres” to get a list of article by R.E. Brune in which he talks about Antonio Torres.

Sometimes you will get a ton of results when you pick a certain author or topic. For instance, pick the top “guitar” from the topic list and you will see hundreds of articles. Now bring up your browser’s search tool (usually ^F) and use it to search for an author’s name within these results.

Use this search tool as an index for your collection of GAL publications. For instance, to see a list of all articles in American Lutherie #120, search for “AL#120”. See a list of all data sheets by searching for “DS#”. (The “hashtag” appears in all the Data Sheet listings, so it won’t return terms which simply contain the letters “ds”.

AMERICAN LUTHERIE PREVIEWS
Try browsing through our American Lutherie previews to see photos and info on current or back issues of American Lutherie (back to AL #73). On the back issues page, you’ll see a thumbnail image of each issue’s cover. Click a cover to see the issue preview which includes a short description of each article. Click on photos see larger versions. You can browse through more issue previews by clicking “previous” and “next.”

PLANS
Follow this link to see our plans presented in order of subject, starting with steel string flattop guitars. You can scroll down through the list. A small image of each plan is shown, and if you click on the thumbnail, it will take you to a larger image. When you find the one you want, you can add it to your cart and buy it. We will ship it as a rolled, full-scale paper print.