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Meet Luthier Daniel Slaman

By Aad Overeem

This interview is reproduced with the kind permission of Just Jazz Guitar, Mr. Ed Benson, publisher/editor.

The interview was published in Just Jazz Guitar no. 16, August 1998

Click here for the interview in black and white for laser printing (no photo's).

The Dutch MMM Vintage Guitar Show, in Veenendaal, The Netherlands, organized by Walter Nievers, is a great meeting place for guitar addicts. During this show, I had the pleasure of meeting luthier Daniel Slaman for the first time. Daniel had two of his stunning archtops with him. Unfortunately there was a lot of noise coming from other booths, so I was not able to check them out properly. But I was certainly impressed by the great looks of the instruments, and the superb craftsmanship of Daniel. About two weeks later, during a very interesting show, (in Dutch) "De klank van hout", which means "The sound of wood", I had the opportunity of meeting Daniel again. He displayed some of his classical and flamenco guitars and two of his archtops. There, I was able to play his archtops for an hour or so, and to my ears they sounded really great.

Daniel was born in 1957 in Gouda, the Netherlands, and lived in Rotterdam for some years, where he started playing the guitar at the age of twelve. For some years he played in Pop and Blues bands and studied classical and flamenco guitar, playing the well-known Bach and Scarlatti repertoire. He built his first solid body guitar in 1978 during his high school years, and looking for more inspiration, he found a book about the construction of classical guitars. Inspired by his father, who also provided all the necessary tools, Daniel built a classical guitar, which to his amazement sounded better than expected ! Daniel's first love is playing the guitar. His second love is wood. As he states, "The most fantastic material in the world.". Fascinated by wood, much of Daniel's inspiration comes from this wonderful product of nature.

After completing his law studies he worked as a social worker for some time. During that period, besides his day job, he spent much of his time playing, building and examining lots of guitars and reading every book about guitar construction he could lay his hands on. He also did a lot of repair work on all kind of stringed instruments. In doing so, he acquired a vast knowledge of guitar construction. During 1988, after approximately ten years of building one or two classical and flamenco guitars a year, all this besides his day job, Daniel decided to study with master luthier Jose Romanillos from Spain. He was able to attend a Romanillos Masterclass for two weeks, together with about fifteen luthiers from all over Europe. It was a very intense and inspiring experience. During the masterclass, Daniel also learned a lot from his fellow students. At the same time he studied the excellent and inspiring book about the life and work of the famous luthier Antonio de Torres, written by Jose L. Romanillos. From that time on his instruments improved considerably, and nowadays he, in my opinion, builds masterpieces - especially his archtops, which highly impressed me.

During the "History of the Guitar in Rock and Jazz" exhibition, in the Musical Instrument Museum in Berlin, Germany, in 1997, Robert Benedetto and Daniel Slaman both presented well-received workshops on the construction of archtop guitars. This interview took place in Daniel's cozy workshop, housed in the medicine room of an old hospital, located in the city of The Hague. During our conversation, Daniel showed me some of his guitars in different stages of completion. I took the opportunity to play a great sounding 18" non-cutaway archtop, the "North sea Orchestra" model, Daniel built for Jean-Pierre Lienard, a well-known Freddie Green style rhythm player, from Belgium.

AO...What are you aiming at, in terms of the sound of your instruments?

DS...That starts with a certain sound I have in my head. I strive for that sound in all my instruments. The sound differs a lot, when building an archtop, a classical or a flamenco guitar. For a classical guitar, I aim for a clear well-defined sound, like in a Hauser or Romanillos guitar. For an archtop, it depends on what the customer is looking for, and of course I always discuss the desired sound and all the other aspects involved in building an instrument with the customer.

AO...what do you think about the present popularity of custom-built instruments?

DS...More and more players discover, and appreciate the possibility of having an instrument built for them which suites their very personal needs. With a very high level of quality, and often much cheaper, compared to the so-called-top-of-the-line instruments offered by the big well-known companies the customer is better off buying a custom made instrument in my opinion.

AO...When did you build your first archtop, and what inspired you to build one?

DS...I built the first one about five years ago and I still have it. I always build inspired by the things I am interested in, and I also wanted to know if I was able to build an archtop,also because building an archtop is considered the "Non Plus Ultra" for a luthier. Besides, somebody asked me if I was interested in building an archtop for him. So I started doing a lot of research. I also discovered there was a growing interest in custom built archtops. My first archtop was a 17", inspired by the Gibson L5 model, and it was rather time consuming, cause building an archtop, in terms of construction, differs a lot from building a classical guitar. I had to devise a lot of things. From a technical point of view it was a good instrument, but I was not entirely happy with the sound. The second one, I spent a lot of thought and time on, was much better. Eventually I was satisfied with the third one. Later on, after doing more research, I found out about the Benedetto book, "Making an archtop guitar". I learned a lot from this book, and I am sure it has influenced luthiers all over the world.