All sold out! Click here to build one yourself.
Dear customers and shuitar supporters,First off, if you feel like building your own Shuitar, I made file to help. Grab a used acoustic and click here:
Build a Shuitar
Shuitar production has come to an end. I made the first shuitar for myself in 1998. It evolved a little in sound, not too terribly much, by 2010 over about six instruments. At that point I refined the durability and standardized it for production. I built and sold shuitars from 2012-2017 (along with my friend, Chris Johnston with the B).
The point of the shuitar store was to share the idea with strangers. That has gone very well. Now a lot of really fantastic drummers are making creative music with it. Thanks very much to Jano Rix, Oliver Wood, Chris Wood, Charlie Worsham, Brad Henderson, Chris Johnston, Brit Turner, Ryan Fowler, Eric Hastings, Eric Darken, Brian Drye, Lori Bingel, Matty Zarth, and Shara Davidson for your help in making the shuitar fly.
I met so many wonderful people and had nothing but good experiences with it. Shuitars have been sold to 40 states and 11 countries. No one ever mailed one back (that the shipping company didn't smash.) I still play it and believe in it as much as ever. I played a recording session on it two days ago.
It is time to move along now to what I was doing before– messing around with ideas, playing music, staring at fixed objects, cooking food for my kids. I can still be reached through this site for customer support for a while longer.
Thanks so much to everyone! What an excellent time. Remember to follow through on the bridge and don't forget the scratch ring.
Yours,
Matt Glassmeyer
Nashville
November 2017 Read the brochure on how to play.
Here's the story:
The shuitar [/shuh tahr'/ or [/shwee' tahr/] or [/shoo' ih tahr/] or [/shih' tahr/], is a dynamic percussion instrument with a wide variety of sounds and a highly portable alternative to the drum set.
Matt Glassmeyer found a guitar on a rain-soaked junk pile in Miami in 1997. By 1998, it still didn't work as a guitar so he began beating on it in porch jams in Murfreesboro, TN. With additions, subractions, experimentation, the "shuitar" [spelling credit due to Matty Zarth], became the drumset for The Hamitups in Murfreesboro in 1998-99. From 2000-05, Matt created multiple versions of the shuitar as the drumset with The Morpholinos (NYC), the first album recording of the shuitar (Rock With You, 2005). Matt played shuitar on the 2006 Rix Glassmeyer record "24,200 mi." and on the Blues Clues kids' show.
In 2007, he began to use it with Church of Cleanliness in Nashville. (Hambone Jones, 2010.) Since 2012, Matt has played shuitar on his Meadownoise project, on European tours with Lambchop, in jams with some of Nashville's best bluegrass players, and with Charlie Worsham at the Ryman Auditorium, the Tonight Show, and his Warner Brothers release "Rubberband."
Jano Rix, Nashville drummer and longtime musical collaborator with Matt, played shuitar on tour with The Gabe Dixon Band and other Nashville songwriters during the mid-2000s. Jano continues to develop shuitar sounds and playing techniques with The Wood Brothers on tour, from Carnegie Hall to Bonnaroo. It is featured on the 2013 Wood Brothers recording, The Muse.
Many more are currently exploring the instrument's possibilities including Ryan Fowler, Eric Hastings, Charlie Worsham, and Brit Turner (Blackberry Smoke) who have helped spread the idea. Thanks, guys.