Roberto Venn School

Ed Roman on the Roberto-Venn School

Ed Roman fully recommends the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery. Ed Roman Guitars has hired several graduates of this renowned institution throughout his career and currently employs 2 graduates. Ed's pal Rick Turner also utilizes alumni of the Roberto-Venn School in his guitar building shop.

Since 1975

The Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery in Phoenix, Arizona is the longest running guitar making school in the US. Since its founding in 1975, the school has trained over 1300 students from North and South America, Europe, and the Orient. Located on a three-acre site in south Phoenix, the school provides all necessary power equipment, jigs, and fixtures for guitar building.

The Program

The five-month program of Guitar Building and Repair is offered twice a year, beginning in September and February. During the first fifteen weeks, each student builds one electric and one acoustic guitar. All instruments are built from scratch, with no pre-made or kit parts. Both written material and demonstrations of all processes guide the intense work. The final five weeks are an in-depth concentration on guitar repair. Visits by guest lecturers and industry professionals augment the information presented by the staff of seven full- and part-time instructors.

The Roberto-Venn School is proud of the accomplishments of their alumni. R-V graduates can be found throughout the guitar industry: building fine custom guitars under their own names, running busy repair shops, working in instrument sales, and on the production floors and custom shops of almost every manufacturer in the country!

Fully Accredited

The Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery is accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology.

History and Founders


John Roberts	Robert Venn	William Eaton

The Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery is the longest running guitar making school in the U.S. Students have traveled from every continent except Antarctica, to attend. Since its founding in 1975, over 1000 students have graduated.

The Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery is situated on a three acre lot in the old world atmosphere of South Phoenix. A collection of buildings and sheds is the unassuming facade for the birth of finely crafted guitar art. The idea for a guitar making school grew out of an apprenticeship program that John Roberts (1921 - 1999) started back in 1969 called the Juan Roberto Guitar Works. Before this, John found himself in the jungles of Nicaragua, flying airplanes for a wood import company. Much of the rosewood and mahogany used at the school was collected with the help of the Miskito Indians and shipped to Phoenix where John began his guitar making endeavor. John Roberts passed away in the summer of 1999. We think of him daily.

Robert Venn (1926 - 1991) joined with John in 1973, and brought custom electric guitar making expertise to the guitar partnership. Bob was one a handful of guitar makers in the 1950's and 60's to wind his own pickups and use wooden pickup covers aesthetically matched with the highly figured hardwoods he used in the body and neck of his instruments. Bob built or repaired for fine guitarists such as: Phil Baugh, Maurice Anderson, Tom Morrell, Bud Isaacs, Norm Hamlet, and Tiny Moore. We miss him.

William Eaton apprenticed with John Roberts in 1971. He wrote a business plan for a guitar making school in 1974, while acquiring an MBA degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. The plan became the blueprint for the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery, which John, Bob, William, and Bruce Scotten incorporated and founded in 1975. William added new elements of stringed instrument design and innovations, creating multi-stringed, one-of-a-kind instruments at the school since 1976. Presently, William is the Director of Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery.

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