{"id":993,"date":"2023-01-07T19:52:33","date_gmt":"2023-01-07T19:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/?p=993"},"modified":"2023-01-07T19:58:21","modified_gmt":"2023-01-07T19:58:21","slug":"conversations-with-ananda-ch-16-tim-kretzmann-craftsman-luthier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/conversations-with-ananda-ch-16-tim-kretzmann-craftsman-luthier\/","title":{"rendered":"Conversations With Ananda — Ch. 16, Tim Kretzmann, Craftsman & Luthier"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Tim Kretzmann at the cabinet shop, Ananda Village, late 1980s. Click the image to enlarge.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tim Kretzmann managed Ananda Woodworking<\/strong> for many years together with his partner, Rick Toles. Their primary products were fine hammer dulcimers, autoharps, and meditation benches. But what Tim and Rick really sold was something else entirely.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> How did you get involved in the business of making fine musical instruments and meditation benches?<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> When I first came to Ananda in 1978, I had read about the cabinet shop, and I felt that working there would be fun. We\u2019d been living in Arkansas where we had homesteaded for a couple of years. Then the place we\u2019d built burned down in an arson fire and we rebuilt it, but it completely drained our energy for homesteading, as well as our resources. So I moved to Fayetteville and Mary and I got together there and bought a house. We owned it for about a year, and then we sold it to come to Ananda.<\/p>\n

When we arrived, the money we\u2019d gotten for the house turned out to be very little by California standards, and we did whatever we could to make ends meet. It happened that there was a job opening in the cabinet shop, and it was offered to me. Then a year and a half later Roy left the cabinet shop and I was the boss, so it was a fast apprenticeship. [Laughs.]<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> How did it work out for you? Did you feel competent to take over the shop?<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> No, I felt completely incapable of doing it. Roy had donated the shop to the community, and the community needed someone to run it, and there was essentially no one else, but I didn\u2019t feel capable, and I told them so. But then I met with Seva, the community treasurer, and she said, \u201cWell, if you\u2019re not, who is?\u201d [Laughs.] So I did it.<\/p>\n

Shortly thereafter, we had a recession and there was no cabinet work at all, so the shop closed and Mary and I moved to town. But when Mary got pregnant with Peter, things started happening. The building trades were picking up, and people were asking if I was still doing cabinetwork, so we decided to move back to the community, and I had enough work to keep us going.<\/p>\n

When the Ananda Builders Guild was in its prime, about half of my work came from them. All along, we\u2019ve been making meditation benches, and it\u2019s been the steadiest source of income for us. At first we were selling five or six benches a month in the boutique at Ananda\u2019s guest retreat, The Expanding Light. But today and tomorrow morning I\u2019ll finish an order for 120 benches.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> From a mail order company?<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> Yes, we\u2019re selling primarily through The Ananda Collection. It was too much for us to do the shipping, so Ananda Collection does the distribution and sales, and we just manufacture the benches.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> They\u2019re next door \u2013 that seems to have worked out conveniently for you.<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> Yes, and I never had to do sales, so it\u2019s been good for them and it\u2019s been great for us.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> That\u2019s a \u201ccommunity story,\u201d isn\u2019t it, of linking hands within the community.<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> Yes. We were making about thirty benches a month, but since we turned over the distribution to them, it\u2019s grown exponentially.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Let\u2019s hope people keep learning to meditate. But I\u2019m surprised to learn that the meditation benches are such a big part of your business. How does it compare to the hammer dulcimers?<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> Monetarily, in the last month we\u2019ve sold probably eight musical instruments at an average price of $550\u2011600 apiece, so that\u2019s a lot more. We\u2019re talking somewhere around $4000, whereas 120 meditation benches, that\u2019s in the range of $2000.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Is that how many hammer dulcimers you make in an average month?<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> We can make more. We\u2019re trying to figure out a plan for marketing them. Until just a few months ago we were still coming up with the models we were happiest with, and learning to produce them fast enough so we could make a living. With the hammer dulcimers, we\u2019re very confident. We\u2019re also making autoharps, but that\u2019s a newer product.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Do you have distributors for the instruments?<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> No, we go to craft and music shows, and we\u2019ve gotten them into a couple of music stores.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Does your interest in traditional instruments go back to when you lived in Arkansas?<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> Actually, it doesn\u2019t. The sound always attracted me. Living out here, I would occasionally hear them, and I had a couple of tapes. And then one day I went to a music store in town, and a guy was playing one, and it was the first time I\u2019d ever seen one, and I bought it. [Laughs.]<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Did you teach yourself to play?<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> Pretty much, and then I got some instructional recordings. It\u2019s an easy instrument to pick up, and it sounds good even if you don\u2019t know very much.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> How did you learn to build them?<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> My partner, Rick Toles, came along in 1988 or 1989. He was scrambling around, doing odd jobs, and for a while he worked for the Builders Guild, but he didn\u2019t want to be doing that work full time. He wanted to repair musical instruments, so I let him set up in a corner\u00a0of the cabinet shop, and jobs would come up that I could use him on, so I started hiring him part time, and he would do his instrument repair, and pretty soon he was working here full time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Ananda Woodworking guys, Ananda Village, late 1980s.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rick is a musician. He found out that I had a hammer dulcimer, and I brought it in and we started fooling around, playing, and he said, \u201cYou know, I bet we could make one of these that would sound better and look nicer.\u201d<\/p>\n

I knew we could make one that would look better, because mine just wasn\u2019t all that nice \u2013 the guy who\u2019d made it was a rookie at woodwork, and it showed. But at the time I just wanted to learn to play. Anyway, we started fooling around, experimenting, and we got some materials for building instruments, and from these materials that we\u2019d gathered we learned how not<\/em> to build a hammer dulcimer. [Laughs.]<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> You built a really bad one?<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> Oh, we built more than one really bad one! [Laughs.] At the time, I wasn\u2019t as disappointed with them as I was later, because all I had to compare them with was the one I owned, which was truly bad. But we knew we were moving in the right direction, and we just kept experimenting. A little less than a year ago we made the final modifications to the ones we\u2019re selling now. We\u2019re real happy with them, because they have a great sound, and they look great. Everybody likes them, and everybody\u2019s impressed, even the people who know hammer dulcimers.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Is there anything about the work that you particularly enjoy?<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> With the instruments, the part I find I\u2019m really enjoying most is going out and getting direct feedback from people, seeing people\u2019s reaction to the instruments. It\u2019s a very light-sounding instrument. It\u2019s been on the planet for thousands of years. It\u2019s originally from the Middle East \u2013 it\u2019s mentioned in the Old Testament, and from there it spread around the world.<\/p>\n

We had a couple up here yesterday who bought an instrument. She was from the Middle East and she had a samtur with her, which is what they\u2019re called there. And of course, we got out a mirror and looked inside, seeing how it was put together, checking it out and seeing how it sounded. It was a completely different sound. It was a lot thinner, instead of the real light, open, rich sound that we\u2019re shooting for. And that\u2019s actually what most of the instruments we\u2019ve seen sound like.<\/p>\n

We made a tape called \u201cEarly In the Morning,\u201d and a Christmas tape. People tell us they\u2019ll put on \u201cEarly in the Morning\u201d and it will lift their mood. It\u2019s a real light, happy sound, even though it\u2019s not overtly \u201cspiritual.\u201d We didn\u2019t put any chants on it, or any of Swami\u2019s music, but it\u2019s the sound and the feeling we tried to put into it, which is why we call ourselves Joyful Strings, because it\u2019s a joyful, uplifting sound.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Could you talk about how you interact with your customers and your partner?<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> I would say that there are times in business when clearly the last person you want to think about is the customer. [Laughs.] When things are tight financially, or stressed in the shop or at home, the last thing you want to do is think of somebody else. Yet a large part of the spiritual path is getting outside of yourself and thinking of the other person, and dealing with that aspect of your life, too.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> It\u2019s challenging to know what will make you happy, and not want to do it at the same time!<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> [Laughs.] Yes, that\u2019s right, it\u2019s a hard thing. Yet I feel, because of my spiritual background, that it\u2019s one of the most important things we\u2019re doing. Whenever anybody buys an instrument from us, we tell them, \u201cIf you ever have a problem with it, even if you ever have a problem learning it, stay in touch with us, because we want to help you. We\u2019re not selling you this instrument merely so we can make money. Obviously that\u2019s part of it, but we want you to learn to play it, for what it will do for you.\u201d And in return it does more for us.<\/p>\n

That isn\u2019t something I would have thought of, but we\u2019re seeing that it\u2019s how it works, and that once people get into playing, they don\u2019t want to keep it to themselves. Your friends are going to come over and see this thing sitting in the corner, and they\u2019ll say \u201cWhat is that? Show me what it does.\u201d So they\u2019ll hear it, and they\u2019ll try to play it, and whoa, they like it.<\/p>\n

Thinking of the other person kind of goes along with the sound and the feeling of the music we play, and the sound we\u2019re trying to get our instruments\u00a0to make. And then getting them into the hands of other people, and helping them do the same thing \u2013 it\u2019s got a real nice flow to it. I feel the basis of it is taking that spirit of joy and sending it out to others.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> It sounds like you\u2019re dealing with more than just the nuts and bolts of doing business.<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> I can get Catherine to do my books. [Laughs.] [Catherine Rice is an accountant who lives in the Ananda community.] Of course, there\u2019s the nuts and bolts of ordering materials and instruction booklets, inventory, and all of that. I find that part is real easy to do. It\u2019s the stuff I do first thing in the morning, making sure the bills are paid and that we have everything moving, whether it\u2019s materials coming in or instruments going out. Just seeing where the business needs energy.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> How do you make decisions like how many instruments to build and what you\u2019ll do next? Do you talk it over with Rick?<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> Again, it\u2019s pretty much a nuts\u2011and\u2011bolts approach. We know what will sell the most, and we know how to make the instruments efficiently. As far as selling, it\u2019s a balance between spending our time going to shows and contacting music stores. There are bluegrass festivals all over the state, and the instruments tend to sell well there.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> How is the contact at the shows?<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> It\u2019s one of the fun aspects for me, because people like the sound, and they like our energy. That\u2019s real rewarding, because for years I was doing cabinets and I would see maybe one customer a month, so it was kind of isolating. Sometimes they would complain and I would have to go back and fix this and that, and the relationship would be a little testy.<\/p>\n

Over time I learned that it\u2019s the nature of the cabinetmaking business, whereas with the instruments people pick the one they like. They like the sound, they like the look, they like the feel, and they buy it. They know what they\u2019re buying, rather than in the cabinet shop, where the plans are on paper, and the customer has something in their mind and you try to get it into your mind and manifest it. With the musical instruments, it\u2019s more clear\u2011cut.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> What about the aspect\u00a0of craftsmanship? Do you try to improve the quality of the instruments?<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> We\u2019re always experimenting. We made a dulcimer two weeks ago that sounded a big step nicer than anything we\u2019d made before. Of course, we immediately wanted to take it apart and look at it and try to figure out why. As far as we could tell, we hadn\u2019t done anything different, so we couldn\u2019t figure out why it was better. Three days later, a guy came in and wanted to buy an instrument. We kept pulling them out, and finally we pulled out that one and played it, and he said, \u201cThat\u2019s it!!\u201d And we said, \u201cDrat!\u201d [Laughs.] We wanted to keep it, but somebody waved money, and that was that. We told him what we thought about the instrument, and he said he felt the same way. He said, \u201cI have never heard anything this good.\u201d Usually, once you break them in, they get even mellower and richer, so we really want to keep in touch, to hear it once in awhile, and maybe take it apart and look at it.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Was it something about the wood?<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> There\u2019s a good chance. I think it was a real nice, tight grain of wood that we used on the sounding board. It\u2019s hard to say. Wood is a material that\u2019s never the same. Even within certain species, there will be hard pockets and soft pockets. Our instruments come with a lifetime warranty. They\u2019re truly unique. You look close, and even within a single model, they\u2019re all unique.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Has the craftsmanship evolved?<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> Oh, yes. We\u2019ve changed a lot. This instrument here is one we\u2019ve been making for almost two years, and six months ago we radically changed how we were putting it together. It didn\u2019t affect the sound, but it\u2019s a lot faster to make now, and it\u2019s a better\u2011built instrument.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Is there an area where the spiritual life and business intersect?<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> Yes, there is. They really blend together. Not every time, maybe, but many times at the end of a meditation I\u2019ll hold up my whole livelihood and everything I\u2019m doing, and I\u2019ll say \u201cIs this right? Is this what You want me to be doing? And if not, please let me know.\u201d Or I\u2019ll pray, \u201cInfuse it with Your energy, with Your light, and help me manifest Your light more clearly in whatever it is that You want me to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

If it wasn\u2019t for that, I wouldn\u2019t be doing what I\u2019m doing. It\u2019s taking woodworking and putting energy into it and getting it out, you know? At Ananda, it was really fun doing cabinets because you could interact with your fellow devotees, and it was a fun process. I never had a bad experience. But if you get outside the community, and you put a certain spiritual energy into your business, they don\u2019t always see it and feel it, so they\u2019re not going to appreciate it. And then it gets down to \u201cWell, you know, I\u2019d use you again for this job, but you\u2019re $200 higher, so it\u2019s not worth it.\u201d And that\u2019s fine. I mean, that\u2019s the reality of the world. But it\u2019s nice to be putting energy into something where people can feel it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tim Kretzmann managed Ananda Woodworking for many years together with his partner, Rick Toles. Their primary products were fine hammer dulcimers, autoharps, and meditation benches. But what Tim and Rick really sold was something else entirely. Q: How did you get involved in the business of making fine musical instruments and meditation benches? Tim: When … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nConversations With Ananda — Ch. 16, Tim Kretzmann, Craftsman & Luthier - Swami Kriyananda: Lightbearer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda shares his experiences making fine cabinetry and musical instruments.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/conversations-with-ananda-ch-16-tim-kretzmann-craftsman-luthier\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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