PAUL LIVINGSTONE
Having worked with Scott for over 20 years I can say that his commitment 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 otherworldly ones as well) get new life as well as being born themselves out of his shop. 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 severe injury it had once sustained.
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!"