SKU: HL.160580
10 Setups That Will
Make Your Instrument
Louder, Better, and
Easier to Play. Music
Pro Guides. Guitar
Set-Ups & Maintenance,
String Reference.
Softcover. 114 pages.
Published by Hal Leonard
(HL.160580).
ISBN
9781495064999. UPC:
888680623746.
6.0x9.0x0.314 inches.
Chuck Traeger Music Pro
Guides.
String
musicians, know only
this: everything is
vibrating. The movement
of the spheres? A guru's
cryptic musing?
Hypersensitivity to plate
tectonics? Not quite.
This is the briefest
possible distillation of
Trager's Principle, which
states, “When a
string instrument is
being played, everything
is vibrating, from the
top of the scroll to the
tip of the endpin.â€
This simple formula, the
purest distillation of
master luthier Chuck
Traeger's lifetime of
learning, holds the key
to configuring your
instrument to your
specifications. It also
forms the crux of his
third and final book:
String Instrument Setups:
10 Setups That Will Make
Your Instrument Louder,
Better, and Easier to
Play. At the height of
the Big Band era,
Traeger, a double
bassist, performed
alongside a veritable
who's who of New York
jazz musicians including
the likes of Louie
Armstrong and Sidney
Bechet. In was in this
capacity – as
Charlie Traeger, one hip
cat and a regularly
frustrated client of
NYC's instrument repair
shops –that he
began his pursuit of
sonic perfection. In
1969, satisfied with his
abilities but devoted to
constant
self-improvement, he
opened his first repair
shop. Before he knew it,
his reputation was
preceding him, and he
found himself handling
the instruments of school
band novices and the New
York Philharmonic alike.
On his seventieth
birthday, Traeger retired
from musicianship and
devoted himself to
comprehensively
documenting all he had
learned about his craft.
Two decades later,
shortly after he put the
finishing touches on
String Instrument Setups,
Chuck Traeger passed away
on November 9, 2016.
Scarcely a month had
elapsed since the death
of his beloved wife,
June, to whom he was
married for over sixty
blissful years. Albeit
with a heavy heart, we at
Hal Leonard Books are
proud to present this
remarkable man's parting
gift to generations of
current and future
musicians. String
Instrument Setups is the
culmination of forty-five
years of acoustic
research involving
Trager's old standby, the
double bass, and, in
turn, any string
instrument with a
moveable bridge and a
moveable tailpiece, or
one that can be made
moveable. Armed with this
book, we're confident
that the average musician
can enter almost any
string instrument maker
or repair shop in the
world (the exception
being a shop that has
already read String
Instrument Setups), ask
for their best repair or
restoration, then make
that instrument sound
louder, better, and
easier to play, every
time. This is neither
braggadocio nor
hyperbole; rather, it's
the confidence instilled
by one man's extensive
research, wholehearted
devotion, and firm belief
in the sacred bond
between instrument and
musician. After reading
String Instrument Setups,
we're sure you'll feel
the same.