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Hidden Talents: Head Resident Builds New Career With Guitars

Music to his ears--Leo Hwang-Carlos strums a guitar he made himself, a hobby that the Pearsons Hall head resident hopes to turn into a business.

Leo Hwang-Carlos is a musician and grew up in a home filled with music, but he's also a writer who came to Western Massachusetts to attend the MFA program in creative writing at the University of Massachusetts. With his wife, Malia, and twin girls, he's currently head resident at Pearsons Hall and just about to finish his MFA degree. In his rare spare time Hwang-Carlos has been pursuing a new interest in guitar-building. It's become such a passion that he's just rented shop space alongside other guitar-makers in Easthampton in hopes of turning his guitar-building into a business.

"I've always been fascinated by guitars and wanted to build one," says Hwang-Carlos, who plays mostly bluegrass. "I bought a book on guitar-building and studied it. One day I started calling around local guitar shops looking to see if anyone needed an apprentice." He found Ivon Schmukler, the co-author of the book he'd bought, who also runs a school for luthiers (stringed-instrument-builders) as well as his own instrument-making and repair business. "The course with Ivon cost $1,700 which I didn't have, so I put the idea on pause. I bought tools and built my first guitar using the book. I took it in to Ivon and ended up doing a one-on-one tutorial with him by the hour. I'd work with him on a specific section or problem, then come back later with the next stage. I did this for a couple of months and evolved into being his apprentice."

Hwang-Carlos says "a hand-builder of guitars can work to make each instrument exceptional, while maybe one in a hundred mass-produced instruments comes off the line just right." His own unique product is a small guitar, a parlor-sized instrument not often built these days. "It's a tiny guitar that gives a huge sound, with a good balance between mass and energy." Hwang-Carlos hopes to build ten to twelve guitars a year once his shop is established.

"Steel-string guitars are going through a second renaissance of craftsmanship. The 1930s and 1940s were the most highly praised era for these instruments. Guitar-building went down [in quality] as factory-built models took over." Hwang-Carlos and his colleagues, who mostly sell to and service guitars for area musicians, are a part of that trend.

As for his MFA, "writing will always be a part of my life because I like to have different outlets for my creativity. I hope to work writing in somehow, maybe about guitar-building."