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Guitar shop rocks new location

After relocating from downtown Williamsport, Guitarley’s has opened at its new location at 611 Oliver St.

Owner and musician Sean Farley opened the original location almost ten years ago, realizing there was a need in the area for custom guitar building and repair that was open to the public.

The move was a matter of wanting a bigger space and happening across a real estate listing he thought would make a good investment property. The new shop is three times larger and has a performance and lounge area.

Farley is a musician at heart.

“The first part of this is staying a musician and figuring out a secondary business that ties in,” said Farley.

His love of the guitar led him to learn about it as a physical instrument and how to make and maintain them.

Farley is a certified luthier — someone who crafts, repairs, services and restores stringed instruments. Farley’s specialty is instruments with frets like electric or acoustic guitars, ukuleles and banjos. He attended the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery in Phoenix, Arizona, and returns to the midwest every March for a month-long music tour.

Services at Guitarley’s range from a simple string repair to a completely original guitar build and everything in between.

“When you buy a new guitar, the accuracy isn’t as good as it could be in almost every case,” said Farley. He can create the optimum setup for a new guitar. “I tell everybody, bring your guitar down, we’ll look at it. “

Farley likes collaborating with future guitar owners when he is working on a custom build.

“We design it together in the sense that, what do you want it to sound like, what do you want it to look like, what kind of buttons and knobs and controls do you like,” he said.

Farley has a variety of guitars available in his shop, including consignment guitars and guitars he built himself.

The time it takes to build a custom guitar can vary widely because Farley is spreading his time among builds, repair work and his music.

Farley is very active in the regional and local music scenes and plays a wide variety of venues. His mix of original songs and covers favor the blues genre. “I got a little twangy from the desert and little spacier from the colors and landscapes that are out there,” he said.

He says there is an ebb and flow to balancing the business and performing. “I spend my days interacting with musicians and helping them get their instruments in the best shape they can be and at night I play gigs,” said Farley.

He says closing the shop every March to go on tour helps him refresh and he comes back with new ideas for guitar builds. In turn, spending time on builds helps him come up with new ideas for music.

The new location required extensive renovations and Farley says it could not have come together without the help of family and friends. “It takes a village for this to happen, especially in the timeline it did,” he said.

Guitarley’s can be reached at 570-220-6085 or via the Facebook page. You can listen to Farley’s music and see upcoming shows on his website

seanfarleymusic.com.

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