AND GUITARS TOO!
Shown:
The Bean guitar from 1998 - will be revised and revived for 2025 as the “Sundance.”
D’AQUILA GUITARS began in 2010. More about these on the D’AQUILA GUITARS page.
A Birdsong guitar from the 20-teens. Yes, guitars happened too, but short-scale basses have always been the focus. (www.birdsongguitars.com)
Scott began tinkering with his guitars in the 1980s, built his first original designs out of a music shop in Massachusetts in the late ‘90s, founded Birdsong in Texas and launched it in 2004, and still manages the company, taking orders and talking with clients. From his own workshop in rural New York, he offers his line of “pocket basses” and a few guitars in a Signature Series with hand signed headstocks.
The SIGNATURE Guitars:
The Harmony Hill is a beautiful, simple, single pickup rhythm machine or deep lead voice for electric jazz or wherever your sonic explorations take you.
JUNIPER RIDGE model (coming in 2025!) A fancier bodied version of the Harmony Hill.
SUNDANCE model (also coming in 2025) A revived & revised version of Scott’s original Bean guitar from the 1990s. “Something I’ve wanted to revisit for years, on this side of decades of building. What will these eyes and hands bring to that design I started with?” Stay tuned!
On GUITARS:
”Guitars! The word still excites me 40+ years later. They’ve become my life, really - playing, repairing, modifying, and eventually building them. Walking into a guitar shop for me? I still feel the magic. Over time they’ve become as much talisman as tool, part of my spiritual path, and brought me to (and to me) just about everything in my life. Tools for much greater things than I had ever imagined back at the start of the journey when music was just my ticket out of the hometown and a way to feel like I belonged. Here are some firsts from the path and then some links… like all I share, it’s less about me and more about inspiring you. If you’re called to music, make something happen. Give it space and feel it bloom - even if it isn’t destined to be your path, or even widely known. Give it breath. See where it takes you. Thanks for stopping in!” ~S.
My first electric guitar, a 1982 Cort Model X I got for Christmas. It was truly the first day of the rest of my life.
At 17 with the used BC Rich I scored not working out of some dude’s attic. I felt in its bevels that it was hand carved, and a lightbulb went off.
The Scottocaster, a 1988 Strat copy I bought new and began to modify. The first guitar I tinkered with - swapping necks and pickups, refinishing.
The first guitar I built that wasn’t just bolting together Strat parts. My taste of sawdust. Rough but a beginning - the Blues Dawg, from 1997.
And, the very first Birdsong. Not a bass! A guitar with a story, and where crudeness refined into craft, and a brand that would change my life.
(Coming links - this site is a work in progress, please keep checking in.)
Scott Guitars 1997-2000
The Guitars of John Kirtland 2002-2007
The Birdsong Guitars Story
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