Joni Mitchell's Custom Klein   

Steve Klein built this amazing and beautiful guitar in 1977. Klein, along with Richard Schneider , was one of the first proponents of the guitar bracing theories of Dr. Michael Kasha, a biochemist with a long and deep interest in the guitar. Kasha sees the guitar top as a mechanical impedance-transforming device and thus proposes coupling bass to treble string vibrations in differing ways to match the strings to the top more efficiently. His theories have been a matter of some controversy in the lutherie world but have gradually been gaining acceptance.

This guitar was built for Joni Mitchell, and it is a great example of what can happen when a musical and visual artist teams up with a luthier. It was designed for Mitchell's low open tunings, and the removable soundhole rosette/ring allows the guitar's air resonance to be tuned accordingly for different amounts of bass. Mitchell collaborated on concepts for the inlays, which include I Ching symbols in the fingerboard and around the soundhole; the I Ching's hexagram number 56, the Wanderer, graces the face and the upper bout. Don Juan's crow flies on the peghead, and the wandering theme continues on with the mountains and the road.

Klein built the body of Brazilian rosewood and German spruce, and the neck of ebony and rosewood with holly accents. The inlays are ivory (from before the ban), holly, and mother-of-pearl. The instrument has an unusual sliding neck joint that allows neck angle adjustment as well as individual saddles for each string.