The TogaMan GuitarViol story
While attending a Connecticut boarding school in the early 1980’s, Jonathan Wilson pondered the possibilities of bowed guitar after reading about Lol Creme’s Gizmotron. Oblivious to Jimmy Page’s bow wielding in Led Zeppelin, Jonathan was more interested in applying manual violin like sounds to his beloved instrument; the guitar. (i.e. Vivaldi/Paganini) Driven to those sounds (even back then), Jonathan became a master of the Stratocaster volume k**b swell technique. One of his teachers, Ron MacFarlane (Yes, Seth’s dad), commented about how he “sounded like a Cello”. Perhaps Jonathan took it literally? Combined with influences such as Uli Jon Roth (Scorpions) and later, his Sky Guitar, Jonathan was obsessed!
In 1989, While researching violins an old 1948 Encyclopedia Brittanica chapter on Violins, he stumbled upon a paragraph describing a bowed guitar by Johann Stouffer that had a short life in 1823 called the “Arpeggione”. Enraptured by this discovery, Jonathan’s life would never be the same and he was on a mission to have a modern Arpeggione of his own. A prototype was built by another builder in the early 1990’s. By the end of the decade, he was frustrated with some aspects it and decided to tackle the task of building a new one with his own hands. Being a professional guitar repairman/tech in music stores for a couple decades, building one was a natural fit. By 2002, a new TogaMan GuitarViol was a thing! In November of that same year, he received an email from a guitar player in Virginia asking if Jonathan would be willing to build an Arpeggione for him. Jonathan cobbled together a dial-up era HTML site and by the end of the year he had a couple orders! (What did he get himself into?).
Within a few months, the build queue filled up with Film/TV composers who “wanted it yesterday.” We are talking about an inherently manufacturing resistant instrument in it’s early developments! To this day, that has not stopped! From 300 to Game of Thrones, many hear TogaMan GuitarViols in media soundtracks every day! It is not uncommon for the build queue to be many months backlogged. Many advancements have happened and the TogaMan GuitarViol does not rest on past glories; it evolves to highest realization every day! High tech ViolGlide fingerboards and upcoming Carbon Fiber acoustic models are in the works! Stay tuned!
Okay, so what’s up with “TogaMan?” TogaMan was inspired by a 1500’s painting by Veronese “Noces de Cana” where a toga wearing fellow (Veronese himself) is depicted playing a Viol in a guitar like playing stance (pre dating Jimmy Page by a few centuries). A GuitarViol is essentially a 21st century Arpeggione invented by Johann Stauffer in 1823. The problem is that “Arpeggione” and “Stauffer” sound too much like frozen Italian dinner at the supermarket. “Wilson” did not work out due to namesake builders (besides sounding like sports equipment or neighbors on TV). So, TogaMan it is and has been since 2002!
