The Work

Bezard Guitars is an authored body of work.

I do not believe that a guitar becomes more meaningful simply because more choices have been given to the person buying it. In fact, I have increasingly come to believe the opposite.

The modern custom guitar can easily become an accumulation of preferences: a body shape from one place, a neck specification from another, a particular wood, a particular color, a particular pickup, another instrument used as a reference. Enough individual choices can eventually obscure the point of view of the person actually making the guitar.

That is not what I want Bezard Guitars to be.

A Point of View

Each Bezard begins privately, as an exploration of form, sound, material, proportion, function, and feel.

I decide what the instrument needs to become.

That may mean pursuing an unusual scale length, developing a particular relationship between materials, refining a detail far beyond what is commercially necessary, or simply following an idea because I find it compelling.

These guitars are intentionally self-indulgent.

By that I do not mean extravagant for the sake of extravagance. I mean that I allow myself to care deeply about things that may have no value on a specification sheet. I allow an instrument to become specific, opinionated, and occasionally strange. I follow the idea until I believe it is complete.

I am not trying to make a guitar for everyone.

I am trying to make one guitar completely.

The Instrument

I have spent most of my life around guitars—as a player, builder, repairman, teacher, student of the craft, and obsessive appreciator of the instrument.

A Bezard guitar is my answer, at that particular moment, to what I believe a guitar can be.

If you purchase one, you are not purchasing access to a list of options or asking me to interpret your idea of the perfect guitar. You are purchasing one of mine.

It is something I would want to own myself.

Something I would want to discover over years of playing. Something with enough character that it asks something of the person holding it rather than disappearing into neutrality.

Above everything else, however, it has to be an instrument.

The most important relationship a guitar has is not with a showroom, a photograph, or a specification sheet. It is the private relationship between the instrument and the person playing it.

There is a particular moment when the outside world falls away—when you stop evaluating the guitar, stop thinking about equipment, and simply disappear into playing.

That is the moment I care about.

I want each instrument to feel like a small world unto itself: something you can enter, explore, become absorbed in, and lose yourself inside.

The craftsmanship, materials, design, sound, ergonomics, and obsessive details exist in service of that experience.

How the Work Exists

Bezard Guitars no longer accepts commissioned builds.

I make instruments when I have an idea that I believe deserves to exist. They are designed and completed independently, without a customer brief, and offered only when I believe the work is finished.

Completed instruments may be available directly through Bezard Guitars, presented at selected guitar shows, or offered through my dealer.

There is no configuration process and no waiting list for a custom instrument.

The work comes first.

Then it finds its player.