I moved to Uganda with my wife, our four-month old baby and the desire to build a better world. I didn’t bring an electric guitar.
By day we did public health work, and by night we played music and hung out with friends. We joined a band, people started dancing, and I still needed a guitar.
On weekends I worked with chisels, spending my daughter’s nap time carving scraps of mahogany and mvule from local carpentry shops. Friends and neighbors would stop by to chat. They’d pick up some sandpaper and a soda and we’d work together. Our kitchen table was covered with soldering irons and coils of wire.
We spent late nights on the porch with angle grinders, beers, and friends. We broke a lot of things, and made our fair share of mistakes, but we learned and we kept at it. The first guitar took a year. The next five took six months. Slowly they took on their own shape becoming versatile, beautiful, and nearly bullet proof. A lifelong passion started to become a reality.
From riverside dive bars to stadium concerts for the king of Busoga, we’ve put our instruments to the test all around the world. We know a good guitar should tell a story of its own and inspire you to play with your whole heart.
Music makes us feel something. It makes us dance. It makes us cry. Most importantly, music brings us together. And for sure, if we are going to build a better world, we are going to have to work together.
Waterway Guitars was born from a love of people and a love of music. It was born from a belief that together we can build something beautiful that makes life better for people and might even help out the world.
While working in the nonprofit world I learned:
Jobs change lives. When a person has an opportunity to earn an income, they invest in education, medical care, clean water, safety for their families, and stewarding their environment. A job changes the trajectory of a family and gives them ability to live life the way they choose.
Relationships matter. Awesome things happen when you work together.
Economics matter. Fundraising is great, but producing a valuable product is more sustainable long term.
And so our model is to hire local people to sustainably and ethically source hardwoods and to invest in their own communities. Every time someone buys a guitar, a portion of the profits are invested in the community where that tree was grown. Each project is lead by local people. Every guitar makes a difference.
A hardwood tree can live for hundreds of years. Over the course of its life, a tree turns sunlight, rain and air into wood. I like to think that when you’re holding a guitar what is really in your hands is 100 years of sunshine, wind and rain.
A tree is made of a place. It’s made of time. It’s timber holds the story of that place and those times in itself.
Your music is made from you. From your soul, from your heartbreak and your joy. From the hours you spent as a kid stumbling over the notes to the song you are playing today. When you play music, it’s your life put into notes.
A Waterway Guitar is built to have a story of its own. A story of empowerment and beauty. Most importantly, it’s built to help you tell your story. The world needs your story. The world needs your song.
Now I’m back in Pennsylvania. My friends in Uganda are working every day making their communities just a little better. I’m trying to do my part to enjoy and care for the rivers and bays in my part of the world while staying connected in Uganda.
So, this is Waterway Guitars, and we are inviting you to write the story with us. We will make your guitar, you play your heart out.
~Ian
Waterway Guitars 