![]() When I was around age six, he got commissioned to make a guitar and the client wanted it decorated with a child’s art. My father used to play when I was little, so I can’t remember not being aware of the guitar as an instrument. “I’m pretty lucky to have a father who’s done a lot of experimenting.”Īfter years working alongside her father, de Jonge now experiments in her own shop, which she built four years ago in the Gatineau Hills of western Québec, with her husband, luthier Patrick Hodgins-the ideal venue to talk about her journey from playing in sawdust to making world-class instruments.Īs the daughter of a noted luthier, when did you first become aware of the guitar? ![]() Perhaps the most important lessons de Jonge, now in her early 40s, learned growing up were less about specific building techniques than about a thirst for new ideas and the courage to try them out. Today, she’s renowned for combining traditional methods with modern techniques like sandwich tops, lattice bracing, and neck twists. While she calls her father her biggest influence, de Jonge also draws on her travels and the tutelage of other master builders. ![]() And her approach to guitar making has never stopped evolving. But early recognition didn’t make her complacent, and being in the family business didn’t mean staying put. Before she turned 20, she was good enough to earn a standing ovation for the guitar she presented to the judges at the 1998 Guild of American Luthiers Convention. She began her first instrument in middle school as something to do with her brothers after classes. Playtime in her father’s workshop would eventually start de Jonge on the path to becoming a world-class classical guitar maker in her own right. “As a little kid, I used to go to work with him and hang out on the floor playing-basically like driving cars in the sawdust or sanding blocks of wood.” “My dad was a guitar maker before I was born,” says de Jonge, via Zoom from her home in Québec. ![]() As the daughter of noted Canadian luthier Sergei de Jonge, the shop floor was literally the playground of her earliest memories sawdust was her sandbox. ![]() Joshia de Jonge has never known a world without the sights, smells, and sounds of guitars in the making. From the January/February 2021 issue of Acoustic Guitar | By Emile Menasché ![]()
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