Was Lloyd Loar the luthier who invented tap tuning?
Well, there are two parts to the answser. 1) Lloyd Loar wasn’t a luthier – that is, he didn’t build instruments. Loar was a musician first and foremost, and an acoustical engineer second. He knew what he liked and he knew what to ask for. 2) Lloyd Loar didn’t invent tap tuning. As an accomplished violinist and acoustical enginneer, he learned the value of tuned instruments that the great masters employed in building instruments in the 1500s and he strived to include that art in the work he did at Gibson in the 1920s with the F5 mandolin, H5 mandola, and L5 guitar.
