Jeffrey Yong
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Jeffrey Yong | |
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![]() Jeffrey Yong playing the Seismic 10-string guitar | |
Background information | |
Birth name | Jeffrey Yong |
Born | Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia | 29 November 1958
Occupation(s) | Luthier |
Instrument(s) | Guitar, harpguitar, ukulele, sapelele, bass guitar |
Years active | 1985–present |
Website | Official website |
Jeffrey Yong (born 29 November 1958) is a Malaysian luthier noted for using local Malaysian wood in his instruments and for his innovative designs. Yong has exhibited at conventions in the United States, Canada, Japan, Russia and China. He was the founder of the Guitar Institute of Malaysia.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/32/Jeffrey_Yong_Seismic.jpeg/220px-Jeffrey_Yong_Seismic.jpeg)
History
[edit]Yong was born in 1958 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He started his career as a guitar instructor and examiner in 1976. He built his first guitar in 1985 from a DIY kit, and traveled abroad to improve his guitar-making skills.
After a luthier asked why he was sourcing material from overseas when Malaysia exported good quality wood, Yong looked into the possibility of using local, non-traditional timber, such as monkeypod, rengas, mango, rambutan, and Malaysian blackwood[disambiguation needed], for building musical instruments. He continued to innovate and gained extensive knowledge of different kinds of timber, especially those from tropical regions.
Yong founded the Guitar Institute Malaysia (GIM) in 1993, specializing in teaching different genres of guitar playing and guitar construction. He also taught at the Luthier School International in California. His skills in luthiery were mostly self-taught. He has published articles on guitar-making in several newspapers over an eight-year period, and has appeared at guitar maker conventions in the United States, Canada Japan, Russia, China and Malaysia.
Yong's guitars have been exhibited at Healdsburg Guitar Festival, Shanghai Music Festival, and Montreal Guitar Show. At the Montreal show in 2011 he introduced his "JJ Blackie" and his innovative "Seismic", a JJ-shaped 10-string acoustic guitar with Monkeywood body and Blackwood fingerboard (see pictures, right) which featured in Premier Guitar Magazine. The guitar's D and G strings had octave pairs and the B and high E had unison strings.[1]
Yong introduced Malaysian Blackwood to other guitar makers during the 1998 GAL convention in Tacoma, Washington, USA. He also pioneered Monkeypod as a tonewood and saw it adopted by other luthiers.[2] Using Monkeypod wood (Samanea sama or Rain Tree), formerly known as Albizia saman to build guitars was not new, but it had not been regarded as a premium tonewood and had previously only been used for aesthetic purposes.
Yong built almost an entire guitar of Monkeypod, and in 2006 it won the Blind Listening Test at the Guild of American Luthier's convention. It was judged to be the best-sounding instrument in terms of tonality, timbre and sustain. Yong was competing against notable luthiers such as Erwin Somogyi, and two of his guitars were ranked in the top three
Instruments built in Yong's workshop were made by hand with 99 percent local woods, mostly Monkeywood, the remaining one percent being the maple veneer used in the bindings. His bracing design and layout were influenced by Martin's X-scalloped patterns, Torres fan bracing and Smallman lattice bracing.
Artists who use Yong's guitars have included Don Alder, Farid Ali, Kent Nishimura, Hiroshi Masuda, Shun Ng, Wayan Balawan, Dan LaVoie and Okapi.
Conventions and festivals attended
[edit]Year | Conventions & Festivals | Place | Achievements |
---|---|---|---|
1993 | Guitar Institute Malaysia (GIM) | Malaysia | - Founder |
1998 | Guild of American Luthier's (GAL) Convention | Tacoma, Washington, USA | - Introduction of Malaysian Blackwood internationally |
2006 | Guild of American Luthier's (GAL) Convention [3] | Tacoma, Washington, USA | - Introduction of Monkeypod wood (Samanea saman or Rain Tree)
- OM Guitar won the Blind Listening Test - Best sounding guitar in terms of tonality, timbre, and sustain |
2011 | Montreal Guitar Show [4] | - JJ Blackie & Seismic was featured by Premier Guitar Magazine | |
2012 | Kirov Moscow International Guitar Making[5] | Moscow, Russia | - Classical Guitar Tioman III won first prize |
2012 | Sound Messe Osaka [6] | Osaka, Japan | |
2013 | Malaysian International Guitar Festival (MIGFEST) | Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia | |
2013 | Healdsburg Guitar Festival [7] | - Featured on Guitar Player Editor | |
2013 | Tokyo Handcrafted Guitar Show | Tokyo, Japan | |
2014 | Malaysian International Guitar Festival (MIGFEST) [8] | Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia | |
2014 | Guild of American Luthier's (GAL) Convention [9] | Tacoma, Washington, USA | |
2015 | Osaka Music Festival | Osaka, Japan | |
2016 | Shanghai Music Festival | Shanghai, China |
Articles published
[edit]Year | Media | Title | |
---|---|---|---|
2009 | The Star Newspaper | Jeffrey Yong promises to teach how to make a guitar in two weeks | |
2012 | The Straits Times Newspaper | Strum a Mango | |
2014 | The Star Newspaper | Guitar Gods of A Different Sort | |
2016 | Create with Malaysia | A Luthier's Song | |
2017 | Sin Chiew Newspaper | Making Musical Instrument with Non-Traditional Wood |
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/JJ_Monkey_Pod.gif/220px-JJ_Monkey_Pod.gif)
Steel String Guitars
- JJ (Jeffrey Jumbo) Guitar
- The body shape is a cross between a Jumbo and a Classical Guitar.
- OM Guitar
- Seismic Guitarat[1]
- 10-String Acoustic Guitar.
- Presented it in Montreal Guitar Show in 2011.
- Influenced by the tragic March 2011 earthquake in Japan.
- Body - Monkeypod
- Fretboard and bridge - Blackwood
- Headstock - half-slotted, half-pegged design
- Sound hole, back, and bottom strap buttons are appointed unevenly representative of a seismic shift.
- To get a chime sound, its D and G strings have octave pairs, and the B and high E have unison strings.
Classical Guitars
- Tioman I (Nylon String)
- Torres bracing and body design
- Tioman design (Nylon String)
- Torres body shape with modified lattice bracing
- Tioman III (Nylon String)
- Khono design body shape (larger body) with modified lattice bracing
JJ (Jeffrey Jumbo)
[edit]The JJ is a hybrid of a classical guitar and a jumbo. It uses scalloped "X" bracing, and has a unique bridge with more mass than the conventional bridge.
Other interesting features are:
- Cutaway bevel offers more excess to higher frets without sacrificing air mass in the body.
- Sound port to bring the in-body sound closer to the player.
- Thumb Scallop helps the player utilize the over-the-thumb technique with ease.[10]
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Masterpieces From Montreal: Montreal Guitar Show 2011". Retrieved 13 January 2018.
- ^ "Jeffrey Yong Guitars". Retrieved 13 January 2018.
- ^ "2006 GAL Convention - Exhibition". www.luth.org. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
- ^ "Masterpieces From Montreal: Montreal Guitar Show 2011". Retrieved 13 January 2018.
- ^ "Jeffrey Yong Guitars". Retrieved 13 January 2018.
- ^ "Guitaring Passionately". cadam7777777.blogspot.my. 11 October 2012. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
- ^ GuitarPlayerEditors (20 August 2013), Jeffrey Yong at the 2013 Healdsburg Guitar Festival (with Barry Cleveland), retrieved 13 January 2018
- ^ "Malaysian International Guitar Festival - MIGFEST 2014 - Classical Guitar Asia". Classical Guitar Asia. 5 November 2014. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
- ^ "Untitled Document". www.luth.org. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
- ^ "Yong the master guitar man | Malay Mail Online". Mmail.com.my. 29 September 2011. Archived from the original on 11 November 2011. Retrieved 21 October 2011.