TESTIMONIALS

LARS JACOBSEN

"...Scott's instruments are exceptional in beauty and sound, I don't think I've ever seen a tambura quite like it and I'm anxiously awaiting to see his sitars!"

PAUL LIVINGSTONE

Having worked with Jay Scott for over 15 years I can say that his committment to excellence & innovation in both creative lutherie and instrument repair of Indian and other instruments is world class! Having seen all kinds of world strings (and otherworldy ones as well) get new life as well as being born themselves out of his shop I entrusted him with the construction of my 'Ragaphone' double neck guitar. We designed this two headed monster together and it was a joy to see it come to life and now to play it of course. I know that this unique combination of the steel string 9 string fretless and a nylon string fretted guitar would have proved impossible or disastrous in lesser hands. www.tanpura.com

NASIR SYED

"... Thank you for the Tambura....The balance of the different strings takes my breath away every time. Physically, acoustically and emotionally -- an enchanted instrument."

ALOK DASGUPTA

Scott Hackleman has been servicing my and my student's instruments for years. He is master at Djawari (very sophisticated technique for bridge work on sitar). He knows
my insight and can bring just the sound I want. As Yehudi Menuhin said "there are
many good violin players but seldom do we have a violin maker/craftsman like Stradivarius or Guarneri". It is our privilege to have Scott Hackleman in the USA.
I highly recommend Scott Hackleman for any work for sitar.
-Aloke Dasgupta
www. ragaranjani.org

ALLAN TAMM

Scott artistically applies the traditional crafts he has mastered to restore musical instruments from India, and patiently attends to every detail of an instrument's anatomy. He repaired my beautiful old tambura's numerous cracks, its broken gourd and some water damage to the finish. He adjusted the jawari and installed a different kind of string for the low Sa. Now the pitch of the low Sa is more stable and penetrating, and an overtone in the high Sa is much stronger and emerges like an additional tone above all the others. The instrument's sound can be heard resonating in the second gourd. He also demonstrated the correct playing technique.
Thanks to Scott, I am a keeper of tamburas no more; I am now a player.
 

C. ROYDS

 My Hiren Roy was badly in need of a jawari overhaul. One Saturday when I showed up to my sitar lesson, Scott was there, working on my teacher's sitars. He was very kind and agreed to work on my jawari while I took my lesson. A while later he came back and handed me my sitar. It had the most fantastic Pandit Ravi Shankar style "open"
jawari. It was amazingly smooth and buzzy. I totally loved it; BUT I felt I wanted a slightly more Nikhil Banerjee sound. My teacher thought I was crazy to change such a beautiful sounding jawari but I am a Nikhil Banerjee freak. Scott let me watch as he scraped, carved, and fiddled to dial back the buzz and fine tuned my sitar's sound. When he was finished my sitar sounded better than it has ever sounded, and the jawari was very Nikhil Banerjee. It was truly perfect!!!
Months later it is still singing. Scott is a super nice, down to earth man with incredible skills. I am telling you, Scott ROCKS!!!

CHRIS RAEL

My Radha Krishna Sharma sitar was custom made in Calcutta in 1991 as an order for my Varanasi-based guruji. Despite a solid case, the instrument split almost cleanly in
half at the join during a flight in '07. Scott Hackleman masterfully reconstructed it. His care and eye for detail helped retain many of the instrument's original magical qualities. Only a focused, learned eye could ever see what a severeinjury it had once sustained.
 

SUDAMA MARK KENNEDY

"...Statement yet to come."