Hill Guitar Company

<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#CC9900" ALINK="#FFCC00" VLINK="#996600"> <SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript" SRC="scripts/javascripts/css_sniffer.js"></script> <CENTER> <TABLE BORDER="0" WIDTH="500" CELLSPACING="10" CELLPADDING="0" ALIGN="center"> <TR> <TD ALIGN="left"><P ALIGN="center" CLASS="title">THE HILL GUITAR COMPANY</P> <P ALIGN="center" CLASS="small"><B>- an American classical guitar company for more than 30 years -</B></P> <BR> <P><B>The Hill Guitar Co.</B>, owned and operated by luthier musician Kenny Hill, builds beautiful handmade Spanish classical and flamenco guitars from the finest materials in the highest tradition of lutherie.</P> <P>One of the most talented and experienced guitar builders in the country today, Kenny Hill divides his professional time between building handmade custom guitars, directing HILL GUITAR COMPANY, teaching guitarmaking, performing, and writing for various national guitar magazines.</P> <HR ALIGN="center"> <P CLASS="title"><B>MASTER SERIES</B></P> <P>HILL GUITAR COMPANY produces a line of guitars called the Master Series; beautiful hand made classical and flamenco guitars based on works of the finest historical guitar makers. These are hand made in California by a small team of craftsmen trained and supervised by Kenny Hill. They are made from the finest all solid woods available.</P> <P>The designs of old masters such as Hauser, Fleta, Torres, Rodriguez, and others insure results that have been tried and proven by generations of luthiers and concert artists. It is an intriguing challenge to study the details of these instruments, searching for minutia offering clues to methods, reasoning and instincts that produce the unique results from each builder's style. Sometimes doing this kind of copy involves mimicking details that are counter intuitive, or at least contrary to experience. It's not until we've made many of a given design that the overall effect settles into place.</P> <P>The Master Series offers the player a chance to own an instrument with musical and design characteristics that might otherwise be unavailable because of scarcity or cost. Through these various models we are able to offer instruments of an interesting range of musical and aesthetic personalities. They are excellent concert guitars at very reasonable prices.</P> <P CLASS="title"><B>SIGNATURE MODEL</B></P> <P>The current HILL SIGNATURE MODEL features a "double top" as first practiced by Damman, Wagner, and others. It is a sandwich of Nomex, an ultra light cell structure, between two very thin layers of cedar or spruce. This makes an extremely light sound board, but is also quite stiff, in a good way. Outwardly it seems just like a normal cedar sound board. This techinque is borrowed from ultra light aviation technology. This guitar is braced fairly traditionally, with a bracing pattern similar to Miguel Rodriguez. The SIGNATURE MODEL also features optional sound ports in the upper shoulders, as influenced on me by Robert Ruck. This is a feature I have grow to love (maybe addicted to is more like it); a guitar without these ports seems incomplete to me. The design works very well with or without the ports, but they would be two very different guitars.</P> <P>The other materials are Brazilian or Indian rosewood back and sides, traditional Spanish cedar neck and ebony fingerboard. I use a double action truss rod in the neck, so the string action can always be kept at optimum adjustment, regardless of changes in climate, etc. The truss rod has no negative effect on the guitar. I try to make the neck play perfectly.</P> <P>This design and construction creates a very loud guitar, but not just loud -- beautiful. The dynamic range is wide and very easy to control, and the color palette is also very wide and extra easy to control. I've watched many fine players with these guitars, and their reaction is similar to mine, that is: it's great, and IT'S ADDICTIVE! There are certainly worse vices in the world.</P> <P>The HILL SIGNATURE MODEL is the top of the line, best guitar I know how to make. Or at least it's my favorite. It represents the most up-to-date methods I know, and has a sound and a feel I absolutely love... and can't be found in any other guitar I know of. It is always evolving, according to what ever has been working the best in pursuit of excellence, so I can only assume it will continue to evolve as long as I'm making guitars.</P> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Kenny Hill</P> </BLOCKQUOTE> <HR ALIGN="center"> <P CLASS="title"><B>CONTACT US</B></P> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="5"> <TR> <TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><UL TYPE="disc"><LI><B>PHONE</B></LI></UL></TD> <TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><I>Toll Free:</I> (800) 262-8858<BR><I>Local:</I> (831) 335-0442</TD> </TR> <TR> <TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><UL TYPE="disc"><LI><B>FAX</B></LI></UL> </TD> <TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">(831) 335-3602</TD> </TR> <TR> <TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><UL TYPE="disc"><LI><B>EMAIL</B></LI></UL> </TD> <TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mailto:khill@hillguitar.com" ONMOUSEOVER="self.status='send an email to Kenny Hill'; return true" ONMOUSEOUT="self.status='';">khill@hillguitar.com</A></TD> </TR> <TR> <TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><UL TYPE="disc"><LI><B>MAIL</B></LI></UL> </TD> <TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">Hill Guitar Company<BR> 5905 Highway 9<BR> Felton, CA 95018<BR> USA </TD> </TR> </TABLE> <HR ALIGN="center"> <P><FONT COLOR="#990000"><B>We're sorry</B> .........</FONT></P> <P><FONT COLOR="#990000">If you are viewing this web page it means that your browser does not support FRAMES. </FONT></P> <P>Since we have built our site to take advantage of the frames attribute you will not be able to visit our web site. Please update your browser and visit again. <I><B>Thanks.</B></I></P> <HR ALIGN="center"> <P ALIGN="center"><A HREF="website/catalog/catalog_intro.html">CATALOG</A> - <A HREF="showroom/index.html">SHOWROOM</A> - <A HREF="website/dealers/dealers.html">DEALERS</A> - <A HREF="website/players/players_intro.html">PLAYERS</A> - <A HREF="website/news/news_intro.html">NEWS</A> - <A HREF="website/luthier/luthier_intro.html">LUTHIER</A></P> <P> </P></TD> </TR> </TABLE> </CENTER> </BODY>