Harana (Travel) Guitars from Cebu

by Junx Muana

Harana TG200DN, a travel size or mini dreadnought design © Junx Muana

Harana guitars officially started in November of 1999 when I hired a full time workman to build guitars of my own designs using techniques borrowed from the western model of lutherie and the use of local materials and methods from the local guitar making industry.

Building guitars seemed a natural consequence for someone obsessed with guitars all his life. I started playing guitar at thirteen and went thru a succession of high school garage bands. Even thru college, marriage, kids and career there would always be a guitars and guitar music around the house. To feed the soul I would always say. In 1994 I went through a medical crises that left me with a lot of time on my hands and a totally changed outlook in life. I vowed to take it easy and focus more on things that I loved to do and music was high up on that list. I took up playing the guitar again, eventually building a recording studio and forming a band. The renewed interest in music also awakened a dormant dream I had to learn to build guitars, really good acoustic guitars. I started reading and researching whatever I could about it, embarking on a quest to build the perfect guitar that even now eludes me.

Armed with William R. Cumpiano’s book, Guitar building: tradition and technology and with a set of full scale plans from Stewart Macdonalds for reference, I set out to build the first prototypes myself, laboring for months, working nights and weekends fleshing out my ideas on how a guitar should look and sound. Although happy with the tone and playability (the workmanship left much to be desired) I realized I would have to hire a full time guitar maker to execute my ideas and designs if I had to fast track it’s development and hopefully make it a viable business enterprise. Looking in Mactan Island, the epicenter of the guitar industry in the Philippines, I found my man in Valentino “balodoy” Amistad, a veteran guitar craftsman with a keen eye for detail, infinite patience and a willingness to try new techniques and ideas.

Although the first guitars we produced sounded and played great. Numerous difficulties presented themselves early on. Foremost of these was the availability of materials particularly tone wood. Traditionally, wood for the guitar top would be a light, stiff wood from a conifer tree such as Spruce (with only a few species suitable for guitar making), Cedar and occasionally Redwood. Unfortunately these trees grow in temperate countries and had to be imported at great cost, way beyond my meager resources. Eventually though, after much research, trial and error and scrounging around lumber yards I did find suitable substitutes that often, to my surprise, sounded just as good or even better than traditional tone woods. A few years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Spanish- Filipino Flamenco guitarist and luthier Adolfo Toyoda Timuat who had just purchased a house on Mactan and was subcontracting some guitar parts to local factories. He was gracious enough to share his vast knowledge of guitar building and to supply quality, reasonably priced tone wood like spruce, cedar and Indian rosewood to Cebu’s guitar building industry.

Other problems we encountered were the effect (damage) of humidity on the instrument before and after assembly, availability of guitar parts such as: tuning machines, truss rods, frets etc. and most of all convincing customers that a locally built handcrafted instrument was far superior than those Chinese made “cookie cutter” factory guitars with their shiny polyurethane finish hanging at the music store in one of the malls. Eventually though we managed to overcome these problems and produce a line of fine steel string and nylon string guitars ranging from a dreadnought (the quintessential “folk” guitar) to a diminutive parlor to Classical and flamenco guitars.

On a trip to the USA I had bought a Martin “Backpacker” guitar, which essentially was a very compact, lightweight guitar, shaped like a paddle, which you could bring backpacking, camping or traveling. Being an outdoorsman and an avid traveler myself I immediately saw the appeal of these guitars and decided to build my own travel guitar. The first model I developed was based loosely on the Martin Backpacker, which immediately became a hit among the more adventurous guitarists or should I say, the more musically inclined adventurers!

The Harana Travel Guitar line grew from that backpacker inspired model which I called “trekker” to the widely popular compact yet more guitar like “Traveler”, to the mini dreadnought called “Nomad”, a full bodied but compact parlor guitar called “Wayfarer” and a travel sized classical guitar the “Minstrel”. All Harana Travel guitars are compact, lightweight and robust with a full, rich tone that belies it’s diminutive size. It has a full size 24” scale length and comes with a padded cordura carrying case made by Habagat Outdoor Equipment.

Today Harana is still essentially a custom shop with three key personnel: myself, Jerry (replacing Balodoy who has since retired) and my brother Adrian who does the finishing work. At one point because of financial difficulties and the emotional strain, I had actually closed shop and just given up and abandoned my dream. But with the encouragement and support of my family, and satisfied Harana owners. I decided to give it another try. This time with the acquisition of more power tools, jigs, molds and a larger workspace. We have since increased our production, improved quality and consistency and have been receiving more orders, this without losing sight of the vision that set me off on this quest in the first place. To build world class guitars with an understated elegance, possessing a unique but exquisite tone and built with impeccable craftsmanship that is affordable for the Filipino musician.

A tall order I know, but we are getting there.