Guitar Bench
December 20, 2022 | Author: Anonymous | Category: N/A
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GUITARBENCH
A C O U S T I C & C L A S S I C A L
Issue 9 2014
C O N T T E N T S I N T E R R V I E W S 28-113
Ervin Somogyi
L E S S S O N S
Celtic Guitar Masterclass | Anton Emery
22-27
Artistryy of the Guitar | Ken Bonfield 114-117 Artistr Fretboard Fre tboard Mastery | Jose Bernardo 118-121
T H E
I N T E R V I E W: E R V I N N S O M O G Y I
Tank you so much or speaking to us, Ervin. A lot o us look up to you as a pioneer in lutherie and I was wondering i you could give us a sense o how you got started and how things were or you at that time?
I was born in Hungary; my amily and I immigrated to this country in 1959. As immigrants, my parents had the common high aspirations o social and educational achievement or their son. Tey accordingly planned an academic-proessional career or me, preerably a medical one. An interest in making guitars would have been incomprehensible incomprehensible to them. Indeed, when I turned my attention to this work in my twenties it baffled them completely. completely. I I had told them that I’d decided to raise rabbits in Siberia it could not have conused them more; we had never known anyone who had had the slightest connection with instrument making. As things turned out, I alllllmmossst allll lmmossst made it to medical school; i I had then you and I would not be having this conver conversation. sation. I dropped out o that track at the last moment, however. I had a crisis in my ourth year o college, which
led me to drop out o the pre-med track and ocus on Humanities studies. I graduated rom college with a Bachelor’s degree iin n English. Tere ollowed a ew years o comparative aimlessness or me, during which I did the dance o finding something that made personal sense, and having “a normal lie”. Tat dance is done between the worlds o having everything decided or one and the world o having nothing decided or one, and I think most young people do this dance d ance in one orm or another. another. Unstructured time can be hell or some people, and I certainly experienced doubts and misgivings in this period. perio d. It was a blessing in disguise in my case, however: I’ I’d d never in my previous lie really had completely ree, unstructured time. Having always been conscious o other people’s needs and priorities, I did not have a clear sense o whether these, or which o these, were actually my own. It was within this matrix o unstructured time that I built my first guitar. I did it as a hobby project, and thereore thereore it is truthul to say that t hat my career in lutherie was accidental and unplanned.
O course, that would have been true o anyone in those days: guitar making by individuals simply did not exist in any orm, much less as a goal to strive or. Tat first guitar making project o mine didn’t come out o a vacuum, though. It had its roots in the act that a lot o my childhood had been (or various reasons that I had no control o) rather ull o isolation and solitude, in which I’d spent a great deal o time being my own entertainment and source o stimulation. sti mulation. I read books, built models mo dels and kits, worked in modeling clay, whittled and carved wood, assembled things with an erector set, made plaster casts, collected stamps and coins and things, used woodburning tools, etc. I used the manual skills that I’d learned as a boy, to build that first guitar. And, in doing so, I ound a way whereby I could apply apply those early skills to an occupation that offered some things I couldn couldn’t ’t find in one package anywhere else: a haven. Besides being a personal haven, guitar making is genuinely challenging, and it offers the satisaction o creating something tangible. It also offers some really interesting mental and conceptual challenges that pull rom woodworking, history, physics, acoustics, music, engineering, art, design, one’ one’ss sense o spatial relationships, and even spirituality. In addition, lutherie offers a remarkably ree rein
Tose difficult times also include having depressions. (Te reasons or these are deep inside me, and I continue to suffer rom them. For anyone who’s interested, I’ve touched on these matters more ully in other writings that can be ound in the “articles “articles”” section o my
to one’s imagination; the work has no creative ceiling and you can improve your work orever i you want to; and, as with b being eing an author author,, one can do this by one’s sel.
website.) As I said above, making guitars has also been a reuge rom the world that I could withdraw into when it has become too to o much or me.
Tere’s more. I one likes to teach and write, lutherie offers lots o things to write about and otherwise share. And it does these t hese things pretty much without the world o academia, business, or bureaucracy’s bureaucracy’s infighting infig hting and resistance to lateral thinking -- which I’d already seen a bit o. Finally, lutherie has held my interest even
On the other hand, since making guitars by hand made no sense to my parents, there was also a way in which it was problematic or me. What I mean is that, all the personal satisactions aside, no real history or context or such work existed then. Not in this country. With the exception o the oddball crafsman
though some very difficult times when there was no money and I elt completely bewildered by repeated ailures.
who made a ew instruments -- mostly violins, but also a ew guitars and mandolins -- guitars were the domain o the actory ac tory..
Tere were no American guitar making schools s chools or teachers, no lutherie books, no guitar magazines, no plenitude o guitar gu itar players, no guitar making organizations, no instructional videotapes or DVDs, no internet, no discussion orums, no really good American guitars to emulate or copy, no guitar shows or estivals, and there were very ew other guitar makers who knew anything or would share their knowledge with you. Tings got a real boost in the early 1970s with the ormation o the Guild o American Luthiers. Tis organization was a lie-saver or us young woodworkers: it became the nucleus or those o us crazy enough to do this oddball work to coalesce some s ome sense o proessional identity around (I have posted an article about the history o the G.A.L., and my relationship relationship with it, on my website or anyone who is interested in that topic). On the other hand, i making guitars was something that I simply liked doing, I believe that a lot o us in those t hose early days were doing it or much the same reason. Tis actor is significant, I think. Te phenomenon o young men doing something that “they liked” very likely arose out o the singular act that, or the first time in many generations, generations, there was a lack (at least in the middle-class population) o overwhelming need to struggle or economic survival. Aside rom any instruments that had been be en made in some s ome exotic workshop in Europe (which has a centuries-long tradition o handcrafsmanship) every guitar any American had ever heard o came off the t he production floor o the Martin, Gibson, Guild, Harmony, Fender, Stella, or Epip Epiphone hone companies.
For young white urban men, at least, there was a sense that we wouldn wouldn’t ’t starve regardless o what we did: the social and economic outlook o post-world-war-2 American middle-class culture seemed bright and ull o confidence.
I have become a pioneer, teacher, and authority in this work based in the things I’ve learned in the orty-plus years that have passed since I began, but I certainly didn’t know what I was doing then. And, unlike un like the situation today, there was no lutherie awareness or culture to help with that.
And non-European lutherie would never have been born.
Had this not been the case, all o us would certainly have gotten “regular” “regular” jobs with which to support our amilies . . . just as our own parents had, and their parents beore them had.
Lutherie has moved on by leaps and bounds b ounds since your early days in this work -- especially especia lly with educators like yoursel. Can you say something about what you’re doing now with your book and workshops?
My book (it’s (it’s actually a two-volume set) is not selling in large numbers, but it is selling steadily.. It seems to be generally well regarded; steadily I’vee packed orty-plus years o le I’v learning arning and inormation into it about the ins and outs o making guitars, and I get a air amount o email acknowledging how useul my explanations are toward clearing up various aspects o the work that people have ound conusing.
“the act is that guitar making is rather like making automobiles in that there are so many aspects o that work that one can ocus on” on” I think it’s it’s a big help that I use everyday language and give down-to-earth examples o things that other books report on with sometimes obscure and technical language. Outside o that, my book is expensive and represents much more o an investment than the average book does; it’ it’ss priced very much like a college textbook. But then again, it is precisely a textbook. I’m writing a third volume, by the way. I’m finding that there’s always one more thing to think about, or write about, or ask questions about, or even re-think. In mentioning my workshops, I think you’re reerring to my annual voicing classes. I seem to have put mysel in the unique position o becoming a guide in the voicing o the guitar -as compared with the building and assembling o it.
My interest interest in this level o gguitar uitar making work has been at the t he ront and center o my thinking or many years now; the act is that guitar making is rather like making automobiles automob iles in that there are so many aspects o that work that one can ocus on: one can be primarily concerned with the challenges o efficiency in production; or the demands o ergonomic design; or the problem problemss o u uel el efficiency; or the t he concerns o suspension and driver comort; or the problems o brand recognition, brand loyalty, and market share; or the problems o mechanics, engineering, power and maneuverability; or the problems o impact saety . . . you get the point.
But within that context I, personally, seem to have been most ascinated by the problems o sound -- and also the problems o artistry/ aesthetics. I’ve never been ascinated by the t he problemss o how many guitars I can produce problem within a given span o time; I’ve been making guitars since 1970 197 0 and I’m presently working on guitar No. 445 (in total), so you can do some math and figure out my rate o production – ar less than one a month i you actor in the manhours, considering that I have appr apprentices entices and helpers who are part o my production process. You’ll have to take my word about my successes in the tone department, but the artistry and aesthetics are viewable on my website, or anyone anyone who is curious about how my guitars look. Despite the act that I’v I’vee written about seven hundred pages worth o inormation about different ways o coaxing sound out o a soundbox, the gist o it is: dare to make your construction light. Most guitars that are made these days are seriously overbuilt. However However,, the guitar does not need to be b e over-con over-constructed structed in the same way that bridges and buildings need to be sturdily built. Te guitar is a unique engineered construct that does have to be tough and durable in specific places (it has to hold together), yet it must be responsive and thereore delicately, It’s the same with guitars: one can be primarily interested in wrestling with the problems o how-many-guitars-can-I-crank-out-in-amonth or year (and all the puzzles one has to solve in order to succeed); or with the problems how-good-are-they? (and all the puzzles one has to solve in order to get a handle on that); or the challenges o how unique do I want my guitars to look, as opposed to making clones o someone else’s instruments; and so on. With both cars and guitars, o course, all o these concerns are subsets o the larger problem o economic survival.
and comparatively comparatively flimsily, built in others (it has to have a voice). In my voicing class I show my students how and where to attend to these opposite mechanical and tonal needs o the soundbox. And my students aren’t the only ones who learn in my classes. One learns new things by teaching and working with inquiring minds. So my class benefits rom that in that I keep on including new inormation and new perspectives.
As players we tend to be obsessive with our instruments, dings and cracks. By building light and having that difficult balance between light construction and durability durability,, do you encounter more cracks or propensity or the instrument to more ragile? And are cracks even that bad? Finding the optimal balance point between tonal openness (ragility o construction) and durability is indeed tricky – but it does do es not occur in a theoretical vacuum. It occurs within the context o how one designs, makes, and handles one’s guitar in real lie.
What I mean is that while cracks and damage are always real dangers with anything that is delicately constructed, there is an expectation expect ation on the parts o both the t he maker and the player that anything that is valuable and delicate will wi ll be handled with care – no differently than how one would treat their t heir automobile, expensive camera, valuable collectible, or fine china. O course, not all players are obsessive in caring or their instruments. Te most obvious example is Willie Nelson’s guitar, which has had a big chunk o its ace literally worn away by years o use. For Andres Segovia: cracks, bad. For Willie Nelson: cracks? What cracks?
Tere are our principal actors that affect structural integrity o a guitar. guitar. First, is how delicately it was made to begin with. Some S ome guitars – especially commercially made ones – are as close to being indestructible as the manuacturers can get away with: they don’t want to be inundated with warrantee work, afer all. Second, as I just said, is how careully or carelessly one handles one’s instrument. Most guitars are not misused but damage occurs o ccurs when a guitar is bumped into something, or when it alls over, over, or when it is subject so some unusual stress – as when the strings are over over-tightened, or the cat knocks it over, or someone orgets the guitar is on the couch and then sits on it. But, as a rule, i something is handled careully it will last a long time. Tird is temperature and humidity; cracks and de-laminations are likely i one’s guitar is exposed to environmen environmental tal extremes and consequently heats up and/or dries out past the abilities o the glue joints and wood fibers to hold together. Here, too, prudent care o the instrument is high on the priorities list. Te final actor is not so much one o outright damage as it is o physical distortion o a delicately built soundbox rom the effects o torque and string pull.
Such distortions, settling-in o the woods, imprinting o the bracing into the soundboard, etc., are normal and not usually significant in anything other than an aesthetic way. way. On the other hand, i there are actual cracks in the wood, or i the neck has bent orward so much rom the pull o the strings that playability is affected, then a visit to the repairman is in order. Small cracks, i they occur, are dangerous in that they might grow g row into larger cracks; but also, they represent a weakening o the guitar’s sound-producing membrane and one might notice a change in the instrument’s sound as a result o that. I mean, imagine playing a drum and then having someone poke a hole into it; how can it not respond differently i its principal vibrating diaphragm has been perorated? Most cracks ollow the grain o the wood and are easy to fix. I there’s cross-grain racturing, racturing, however,, that however t hat constitutes more serious damage; actual patching (insertion o new wood) may be needed, especially i a hole has been punched into the instrument. Tere are also little-discussed cultural and commercial actors o attitude that are involved in the care that we treat our possessions with.
European instrument making has come out o a centuries-long tradition o hand crafsmanship; care o the things that are made is part o that. Te American tradition is based in commercial manuacturing o products or a mass market. Care o the things made is thereore not generally emphasized so much. And speaking o balancing acts (as I spoke o above), the prototypical manuacturer’s balancing act is carried out around considerations o making things be sturdy sturdy,, combined with an industrial i ndustrial imperative to planned obsolescence. No, I’m not making that up. Consider the blanket plenitude o things that Americans KNOW will sooner or later become obsolete: the current generation o cars and airplanes; military weapons systems; businesses and markets o all kinds; trends and ashions; all electronic, mechanical, manuacturing, agricultural, and chemical technology; and, finally,, buildings, roads, and bridges. finally I mean, i anything goes wrong, we we’ll ’ll buy a replacementt o the ailed one or de replacemen develop velop a better one. In Europe, on the other hand, there are bridges, roads, and cathedrals that are many centuries old. Tereore, as ar as guitars go, the human mindset and culture play their part just as much as the weather and our cats do.
“cultures are reflected in the approaches to the work ” Do you think this difference in cultures between Europe and the US is reflected in the building philosophies? I notice a lot more Spanish heel construction even on steel strings in Europe, or example....
has great staying power. One might say that tradition is a specific application; culture is the general rule; as such, it’s in the driver’s seat. As ar as a culture’s expressing itsel in lutherie (or any other kind o work) goes, one path to an
Yes, the cultures are reflected in the approaches to the work -- although it’s not a matter o a straight one-to-one correlation. Basically Basical ly,, b both oth European and American luthiers have to do the mating ritual (i I can call ca ll it that) o artistic sensibility vs. economic reality, which sets the ground rules or survival. But on the whole I do think there are different philosophies in play.
understanding this is and to look t he history the behind it -- andoEurope the at United States have markedly different histories.
Beore jumping into this topic, let’s start by acknowledging that there is a difference between culture and tradition. radi radition tion is “this is how we’ve been doing it, and how we continue to do it”, but not much more than that. And tradition is changeable. Culture, Culture, on the other hand, is subtle, all-pervasive, and
Basically, Europe has a millennia-old history Basically, o rise and all o empires/ empires/cultures cultures -- political, military, religious, philosophical (the Arabs had the first scientific one), and mercan mercantile tile ones -- with all the wars, exploration, trade, royalty royalty,, religious and political actioning, dynasties, languages, conquests, revolutions, advances, deeats, intellectual and artistic flowerings, ethnocentrisms, and slow erosions that come with all that. Te United States, States, on the other hand, has a history that is exactly 237 years old at the time
o this writing. Having deeated German Germanyy and Japan militarily, militarily, the Soviet Union politically and economically, economically, and the world electronically, electronically, the United States can today lay claim to being the world’s leading military, financial and technological empire/culture empire/culture -- at least or the time being. India and China are catching up, and the Soviet Union is making a comeback.
“histories present a younger generation with differentt models to ollow ” differen
Tis isn’t a primer on American culture, but I just wanted to say that American social and economic culture has been based in (or ( or at the least decisively influenced by) the spiritual, social, and economic imperatives o two o the dominant intellectual/spiritual paradigms o the modern age -- both b oth o which came over rom Europe. Te first o these is the Industrial Revolution. Re volution. Te United States has been more about massproducing consumer goods or a mass market than Europe ever was or most o its history. Te second is the Protestant Work Ethic; this came over in drips and drabs, but got a HUGE impetus with what has been called the Protestant and/or Celtic Migration -- the arrival into this country o hordes o [Scottish, Irish, Welsh, and other Northern European] people who brought with them an energy and a genius particularly adapted to technical inventiveness. A great many o the ounding athers athers o American capitalism and productive enterprise belonged to this pool. Fed by the raw and almost limitless commercial possibilities offered by this new land, these people very largely produced American culture -- which is deficient, i in anything, in long-standing traditions o its own in i n art and crafsmanship. And regardless o how long-standing or not American aesthetic culture is, it is deficient in -- or reed rom the constraints o, i you preer -- a sense o classical proportion as derived rom the contours o natural objects and the t he
Okay, we’re coming to the end o this lecture now.. But the act is that these histories present now a younger generation with different models to ollow. In this regard, in lutherie, Europe offers makers such as Maler Maler,, Du Duiffenprucha iffenprucharr, Flet Fleta, a, Hauser,, R Hauser Ramirez, amirez, Simplicio, Bernabe, Santos Hernandez, Monch, Monch, Friedrich, Romanillos, Contreras, Conde, Esteso, Van der Waals, Wagner, Dammann, and a host o other talented individuals.
organicity o the human body; this is not called “the new land” or nothing. And I’ll come back to this point a bit urther u rther on, as it has something to do with guitar making.
In the United States, on the other hand, the models have traditionally been manuacturer manuacturers: s: Martin, Gibson, Rickenbacker, Fender, Mossman, aylor, Collings, Epiphone, Stella,
I mean, these are the names that people know.
Harmony, Guild, etc. Te only individuals anyone can name in pre-1970 American lutherie (as opposed to manuacturing, that is) are the Larson brothers and John D’Angelico. Finally,, I should point out that the classical Finally guitar is a European inven invention tion and the steel string guitar is an American invention. A lot ollows rom this, as each o these versions o the guitar carries a different cultural load -- and this is precisely our topic. One interesting example o the resultant differences in building philosophies – even beore anyone picks up a tool or a piece o wood -- is how guitars are named and even expected to be named. Every luthier-m luthier-made ade Spanish (i.e., nylon or gut strung) guitar carries the name o its maker on its label; such instruments are assumed to come out o a crafsman’s tradition which someone wants to take individual credit or -- and to do otherwise other wise is unthinkable. But many individual American steel string guitar makers, in labeling their guitars, seem se em to aspire to the cachet o being associated with a manuacturing tradition. Or, at least, they seem to preer to identiy their work with a brand name rather than to identiy own names with their products. At the time o this writing Froggy Bottom, rue North, Running Dog, Nashville Guitar Co., Shanti, Moonstone, Bear Creek, Bear Mountain, Evergr Evergreen een Mountain, imeless, Golden Wood, Wood, etc. guitars are all made by individual luthiers but you’d never know it. And no one thinks anything o this because it’s it’s so culturally ingrained. Also, these names themselves carry a particular spin o culture. It cannot be an accident that t hat so many o them have the whiff o nature, the land-in-process-o-being-conq land-in-process-o-being-conqueredueredand-tamed, the Midwest and the Rockies, the mountain men and the wilderness, the great outdoors, etc. Can you imagine a guitar brand with any urban-sounding name such as Fifh Avenue, Boston Harbor, Subway, West Side, Main Street, Codfish, Te Stockyards, Wall Street, Gold Rush, Founding Fathers,
Te Cotton Mill, Vaquero’s Choice, Urban Landscape, Cape Canaveral, Fort Knox, Assembly Line, Sioux Nation, or Walla Walla Washington Guitar Co.? Interestingly, and undoubtedly undoubted ly b because ecause o John D’A Angelico’s ngelico’s influence, and because he was making guitars whose was inormed by the European culturedesign o violin-making, using anything other than their own names seems unthinkable to archtop arch top luthiers. Even the pioneering Larson brothers made guitars under many commercial names. I mentioned a deficiency in long-standing artistic traditions, above, and you mentioned differences in guitar heel design. desig n. W Well, ell, the Spanish guitar heel (by the way way,, the nylonstring guitar is ormally called the Spanish guitar regardless it’straditions made) is ayou good example o o thewhere artistic asked about: it is lovely in lines, proportions and crispness o execution; it looks pretty pretty.. Te industrial version o that tradition (i.e,
the American way o doing this) is to stick something hurriedly shaped onto an equally hastily crafed guitar. Remember: the cultural cu ltural mindset that inorms this work is that o mass production; and I’m not criticizing this: I’ I’m m describing it neutrally. Te heel will thereore be more pragmatically shaped than lovely; the crispness will be gone, and the curves cur ves and contours will be what the tooling can most efficiently produce. Period. In contrast, as I said, the inner curve cur ve o a nicely made classical guitar’ guitar’ss heel (where it blends into the back o the neck) is lovely . . . and it’s organic, like the curve o a woman’s breast. Te guitar is enhanced by it. Tese curves cur ves are all a little bit different, rom maker to maker. In part, this is because that curve is made by hand, but also because it is a subtle but proprietary part o the crafsman’s style. On the other hand, I dey you to find a modern steel string guitar neck in which its transition into the heel is NO a our-inch-diameter curve that looks lo oks compass-drawn. Tey’ Tey’re re all the same, even on the expensive guitars. Tat curve is the size o the ront roller o any o today’s belt sanders – which tool is usually used to produce that contour. Te same actors o efficiency vs. whateverelse-it-is-that-those-Europeans-do else-it-is-that-those-European s-do underlie the design o the bridge, the rosette, the peghead, peg head, and the choice o material or the binding. Tese are all very visible parts o the guitar. But there are a great many less visible differences di fferences as well. Altogether, Altogether, these things touch on two o the basic philosophical/cultural differences between these lutherie traditions: the reliance on the use o hand tools vs. power tools, and artistry. And these themselves rely on a third and massively underappreciated underappreciated quantity: the general level o hand skills in the community -- another thing that American culture is deficient in. I bring this up because I used the word “efficiency” “efficiency” a ew sentences ago; it is true that actories can produce hundreds o guitars
a month and that individual luthiers can can’t ’t do that. But I know Mexican luthiers who can produce two complete, nicer-looking-thanactory-guitars, and good-sounding hand made guitars per week (except or the finishing, which is done by a third party), and no American luthier I know o can compete with that. We lack the skill level. Period. Tere’s much more to say about all this but I think there’s a limit to how long my answer to your question can get. I will say s ay that the culture o guitar making today is, in addition to all the above, an outgrowth o the cultures o the musical networks that play the various kinds o guitars that we make. Tat too is bit too complicated complica ted to go into right here, but I reer interested readers to my website and invite them to read my essay on Te Challenges to the Luthier in Mastering Both Steel String and Classical Guitar Making. I think it’ it’ss worth a ew minutes o one’s time to look up and read.
“It seems that Japanese culture does not allow people to survive sur vive by doing doing work with their hands.” And somehow to my eyes anyway, the Japan lie somewhere in between, extreme efficiency with enormous respect or hand skills? Aferall, I have noticed you have a number o Japanese appren apprentices... tices...
embody certain Japanese cultural attitudes. First, the Japanese are ully as productive in a non-hand-skill way as any other industrialized country: witness their automotive and electronics industries.
You’ve identified a popular stereotype. Te truth is not quite so simple. Te Japanese Japanese approach appr oach their various strengths, lie challenges, and limitations differently than the rest o us do and I will say say,, in admiration o them, that they have a work ethic and a loyaltyto-the-team ethic that puts Americans’ versions o these to shame. As I said eearlier arlier,, such versions o lie-strategies lie-strategies come out o a national history,, and also out o a broader cu history culture, lture, and in no small part the parenting styles that are
Second, Japan is a small, crowded, and geographically isolated country with ew natural resources: thereore thereore the stru struggle ggle or survival – i.e., how hard one has to work in order to survive – is intense. Te culture is ocused on working hard – to the point that it is accepted that people die o it. Tey even have a name or that: karoshi: it means death rom overwork.
part o these respective cultures.
century that a lot o the respect or tradition, hand tools, etc. is pretty much outda outdated ted and romanticized roman ticized lip sservice. ervice. It is a metaphor o this that the crane, that traditional icon whose
I want to make our points p oints beore going on to talking about ab out how my Japanese appren apprentices tices
Tird, Japan has changed so much in the last
image is so common and evocative o Japaneseness, is virtually extinct in Japan. Tere does exist a culture o reverenc reverencee or traditional masters o Japanese artistic craf, who are considered to be national treasures. But this culture o reverence is disappearing. Te national treasures are all very old and young people are not replacing them; the young are seduced by everything that t hat is modern and have very little interest in doing anything anything the old way. Fourth (and related to the third): there is in Japanese culture, on an everyday level, a deficiency o using hand tools. In the United States one can walk into any hardware store and buy a cordless drill, files, saws, s aws, and other hand tools with which to do home projects or repairs, automotive repairs, gardening, or even more ambitious projects; most adult Americans have basic tools in their garage or basement. But when I was in Japan I noticed an absence o such easily available hand tools; they could o course be obtained in specialty specia lty stores, and they were on the expensive side; but you couldn’t
just pick them up anywhere anywhere like you can here. here. Likewise, in looking looki ng around to buy presents to give to my riends when I returned, I noticed an absence o inexpensive handmade things to buy – such as one can find in any crafs store in many American cities. Tere were plenty o electronic things to buy, o course, and things made o plastic . . . but very little made o wood or bamboo, handmade jewelry, or things like tie-dyed or batik teeshirts, or any o the gif items made by own cottage-industry culture that tourists buy when in the U.S. to take back to their countries. It seems that Japanese culture does not allow people to survive by doing work with their hands. A ew artists and crafsmen undoubtedly do, but they will be highly trained o this or that art orm; they are not mere crafsmen in the Western sense o the word. Te exceptions to this are the crafscommunities o Kamakura, oyama, and others. Like the town o Paracho in Mexico, Mexico, in which the main industry is guitar making,
GUIARBENCH MAGAZINE ISSUE 7 PAGE 43
these are centers where the main industry is artistic woodworking (or other kind o working): the things they produce are beautiul, skillully executed, and expensive. And these are certainly cert ainly not within most people’s easy reach. Te point I’m I’m making is that use o hand tools – in this case home-workshop woodworking tools, and also automotive repair tools, home improvement tools, gardening tools, etc. – are not much part o the Japanese domestic landscape.
“Japanese apprentices do bring with them that nonJapanese lack, is a reverence or their teachers.” o work with them is specialized activity. I should add that the average Ja Japanese panese home or apartment is small. Tere are ew garages and basements, and there’s little space or tools, work space, storage, and such. Tis is not a do-ityoursel culture in the way that t hat American culture has traditionally been; at least, I think this rom what I’ve seen. Finally, with such unamiliarity unamili arity with common hand tools being the case, rom where would the average Japanese learn personal respect or hand tools and hand work? Tere is obviously some appreciation appreciation or institutional and cultural hand work – as seen in their temples, art, calligraphy, calligraphy, and such – but this is not the same as knowing and doing hand work personally. Finally, I should add that the culture o amiliarity Finally, with hand tools and hand skills seems to be likewise disappearing rom the American scene. When I was young and had a flat tire I jacked the car up and changed the tire. Most Americans now have never changed a tire. Young Americans are perhaps computer savvy but I have a strong impression that they have no idea o how their cars, washing machines, aucets, door hinges, most other mechanical/electrical/ hydrological hydro logical tthings, hings, urniture, or appliances work.
I’ve had three Japanese apprentices and am presently training my ourth one. All went to University Univ ersity – which by its itsel el sets them apart rom the average person. And, interestingly enough, despite the act that they have turned to making guitars, three o them have degrees in engineering o one kind or another, and the ourth has a degree in physics (and then went into engineering work afer graduation). Tis suggests to me that their initial attraction to the work is the engineering and technical aspects o it, but combined with a certain element o plasticity or lack o rigidity rigidity.. Otherwise, what Japanese apprentices apprentices do bring with them that non-Japanese lack, is a reverence or their teachers. Westerners are unwilling to subordinate themselves so completely complete ly to the will o authority figures. And these different attitudes are rooted in deeply ingrained cultural values.
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Let’s switch a bit and get your take on the Let’s various tonewoods..... Brazilian is still very popular or you I gather?
rosewood (or something else), that’s what people would expect me now. It’s illogical, but that’s how it is.
Well, in case a one-word answer isn’t sufficient, let me say a ew other things.
Tird, as ar as use o rosewoods in guitars goes, Dalbergia Nigra has been the traditional “Holyy Grail” rosewood o flat-top guitar “Hol making woods. And or good reason. Besides tradition, this Brazilian rosewood is prized or its pleasing aroma, good working properties, sheer colorul beauty b eauty,, very high “Q” (i.e.,
First, I really do love Brazilian rosewood, particularly the traditional (and most soughts oughtafer) Dalbergia Nigra variety. I’ I’ve ve always loved it. It’s beautiul to look at: it has exquisite sunset colors and visual depth. It isn’ sounds better than most other woods. And it isn’t t called rosewood or nothing: it really smells like a rosy perume. peru me. Second, one o the things no one thinks thin ks o in guitar making is that t hat when one is first establishing one’s sel, whatever it is that they do at first that “catches on” is exactly what they’ll be known or -- and that’s what people will want rom them. In my case, since it’s my Brazilian rosewood guitars that people know about, that’s the wood people want rom me. What I’m I’m saying is that regardless o Brazilian rosewood’s good qualities, i the guitars that I’d made that originally ound acceptance in the market had been constructed with East Indian
liveness o tone) . . and costthe and, these days, rarity. rarity . Tis .last has also to doitswith act that while it was once plentiul, it has been logged out. Tere may be a ew trees o this species spe cies lef, but no one (other than poachers, which is another story) is cutting them down. Due to its endangered status, Dalbergia Nigra was CIES-listed on Nov. 6 1992 in Appendix I (i.e., the most protected), and illegal to trade in. What is lef o this wood is presently hoarded hoarded in warehouses, and resides in old buildings that are being demolished, and their building materials recycled. More on this a bit urther urther below.
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But first, to give one an idea o how plentiul this beautiul and ragrant wood used to be, consider that it used to grow in a territory measured in thousands o square miles. Consider also that when American warships were decommissioned afer World War II and put into mothballs, they were o course stripped o anything useul.
Brazil is itsel almost as large as the United States’ land mass (the areas o United States and Brazil are 3.8 million square miles and 3.3 million square miles mi les respectively, respectively, so I’ I’m m not exaggerating much), and it’s understandable that various species o its rosewoods would have grown and thrived in its different di fferent regions in consonance with their various climates, clay/loam composition o the soil, its minerals
Shipboard mess-hall table tops weren’t considered useul, and three-inch thick slabs o Brazilian rosewood that had been table and counter tops were stacked up in huge piles in various East Coast naval docks -- where the wood sat in the rain, baked in the sun, and rotted. Pioneering American guitar maker ony Murray, who used to have a shop in San Francisco, told me that a lot o the East Coast luthiers (and suppliers) raided those piles o wood or their lutherie needs. No one else wanted them; they were military surplus right
contentt and pH, rainal conten rainall,l, etc.
alongside unneeded mosquito netting, rain tarps, canteens, and helmets.
as “Brazilian rosewood” -- which o course they are. Rosewood stumps o a different species, rom thousands o square miles o the decadesago-cut-down rosewood fields (rom the yet more southern Brazilian state o Sao Paulo), have been being harvested and imported into this country.
Fourth: as ar as the current cur rent rosewood situation goes, you should know that several different “Brazilian rosewoods” exist -- that is, trees o the genus Dalbergia that grow in that country.
Dalbergia Nigra trees used to grow in the region o the Atlantic-side orests o Bahia and Minas Gerais -- at the southern tip o which Rio de Janeiro is located. But as I said, Dalbergia Nigra has been pretty much harvested to extinction and most o its habitat has been converted to armland. In recent years other Brazilian rosewoods besides the Nigra species have been marketed
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Tis wood, which is as I said a genuine Brazilian rosewood, is variously reerred to as stumpwood stumpw ood or Santos rosewood rosewood*. *. It is in many cases ully as live as the best Dalbergia Nigra, but not as colorul. Whereas Dalbergia Nigra has vivid sunset colors o black, green, orange, brown, purple, and red-orange tints, the stump rosewood is more uniormly reddish-orang reddish-orangeebrown. Also, because the stumps will have been the lowest part o the tree, t ree, and under compression rom the weight o the tree above it, much o this wood is wavy, curvy curvy,, and crazy-grained -- and thereor thereoree comparatively dimensionally unstable. Te straighter-grained tree trunks that grew above the stumps were cut down decades ago. As a matter o aesthetic preerence, American customers are drawn to the wild and crazy grain in wood; woo d; Japanese customers are drawn to the spare, straight-grained look -- such as they have learned to appreciate in their legendary rock gardens.
*Interestingly, no one I’ve spoken with knows what species the stumpwood is. Allied Lutherie, a prominent supplier supplier which used to sell it, got in touch with the Madison Forest Products Lab in order to find exactly whatcould they tell were selling; the lab’s replyout was that they that it was a Dalbergia, but not more than that. In order to find a tree’s taxonomic niche, they said, they needed to see tthe he trees’ nu nuts, ts, leaves, bark, etc.; o course, none o these were available because the trees had been cut down decades ago. o urther obscure the issue, the lab reported that stemwood in general has different morphological qualities than stumpwood; stumpwood; since the stemwood in this instance disappeared when the trees were cut down, likely. proper identification became even less
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Even more o late, late, a third species o Brazilian rosewood, Dalbergia Spruceana -- which species can be identified because b ecause there are still standing trees available to study -- has been being logged and imported rom arther up North. While Dalbergia Spruceana can be as live as Dalbergia Nigra, to the eye it looks comparatively compara tively waxy, pale, and less appealing. Te soils o Brazil have generously yielded their riches to many exploiters over the years; besides the rosewoods rom Rio, Bahia and Minas Gerais, the state o Pernambuco Pernambuco (at Brazil’ss Eastern tip) is o course amous or Brazil’ having given the violin world the exotic wood o that name, and which is so prized or the making o the best violin bows.
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Fifh,Tere is one new supply o Dalbergia Nigra that has been entering the market o late -- along with an equally “new” supply o the other Brazilian rosewoods, o course: it is rom reclaimed timbers rom old buildings, dams, and other structures. Recycling these woods has become quite a thriving and competitive business, actually actually.. Contractors bid on demolition jobs and the winner gets to
In cases o doubt, these old timbers are subject to modern carbon-dating, which will give an approximate approximate time o when the tree died. Nonetheless, all o this timber has been in old and abandoned buildings or decades now in any event, so questions about its age are technicalities that are probably most useul toward stopping stopping po poachers achers rom “laundering” more recently elled -- and thereore illegal --
dismantle the structure and sell off the timbers, flooring, beams, etc. Tese are all legitimate pre-Cites woods, so as long as one has the requisite demolition permits it’s it’s not iillegal llegal to own them.
timbers. Te fly in the ointment is that while it is not illegal to own these materials, it is -- thanks to the CIES and LACEY acts -- illegal to ship them across national boundaries without permits.
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Tis is a whole other can o worms. Because B ecause there is potentially so much money involv involved ed (i.e., high demand with limited supply), the processes or applying and being given permits are complicated, complicated, expensive, and not a little corrupt -- and there are controver controversies sies and conusions as to which sets o documents do cuments are actually legal, and which are not. As I said, there’s money to be made here.
places, it became a moving wetlands the width o Connecticut. Tat landscape is pretty much gone; what isn’t yet gone will be gone soon. Te significance o this is that the climate in that part o the world -- and the rest o the world along with it -- is permanently changed. As continent-sized patterns and amounts o water-evaporation
Sicth, I mentioned that Dalbergia Nigra used to grow in a specific region o Brazil whose w hose climate and soil would have been simpatico to that species o tree, but that its habitat has been converted to armland and destroyed.
change, so do continent-sized patterns o wind movement. movemen t. Such changes in the ccycling ycling and recycling o airborne moisture also means changes in patterns and amounts o rainall . . . and temperature . . . and humidity . . . and climate in general.
Te phrase “its habitat has been b een destroyed” means that Dalbergia Nigra cannot ever grow there again -- regardless o what efforts were to be made to grow g row it under plantation plantation (i.e., saeguarded rom poachers) conditions. Te
Te Amazon basin has recently -- or the first time in its history -- been experiencing droughts. Te Amazon river’s levels are down. Te water level o the Marañon river (which joins with the waters o the Huallaga
ecology that made lie possible or these trees is gone. Tereore Tereore the supply is limited, as I said above, to whatever hoards have been kept in warehouses, as well as in the recycled timbers business.
to orm the Amazon) is down by fifeen eet. Navigation and fishing is made impossible. As the orest has been clear-cut, water runoff patterns will have changed as well; when there is water runoff, erosion o the soil ollows such conditions; when there is no water, water, the ssoil oil dries out. With the wholesale arrival o arming and cattle ranching the pH o the soil will o course also have been altered -- by the use o chemicals, the presence o new waste products, and the absence o the old ones. Not least, the
I want to give you an idea o what “its habitat has been destroyed” means. I lived in South American rom 1966 to 1968, and in 1967 I
took a trip through Brazil. I flew rom Rio de Janeiro to Manaus, across the length o Brazil and over the Amazon orest, in a our-p our-propeller ropeller passenger plane. Te flight took eight ei ght hours and covered a distance roughly equivalent to a trip rom San Francisco to Boston. And all that time, we flew over a solid and uninterrupted carpet o green orest below. Tat’s right: eight steady hours o green orest. Te plane also flew over vast stretches -- miles and miles wide -- o the Amazon river itsel: the land is flat, and the river was plentiul and, lacking banks in many
Amazon basin’s ecolog ecologyy o wildlie -- animals, birds, fishes, insects, and probabl probablyy even bacteria -- lie will have been disappearing as well. On top o it all, new plants will o course have been brought in with the new population and its agriculture, and they will have urther
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degraded the original environment . . . and so on. Needless to say, losing a orest almost the size o the United States has implication implicationss or the planet’s capacity to retrieve and store carbon dioxide and replenish oxygen -- which is what trees do. Dalbergia Nigra is not going to make a comeback, even with plantations set up here or there, any more than having a ew
“I do love Dalbergia Nigra -- as only a woodworker can.”
polar bears in zoos constitutes the polar be bear’ ar’ss making a comeback. Seventh, obviously, obviously, the mention o Brazilian rosewood brings complica complicated ted matters into any discussion; in this instance, it touches on world climate change. change. Te Amazon basin has be been en the world’s largest wetlands ever, bar none -and within my lietime what has been a VAS orest has been converted to armland the size o Western-plus-part-o-Eastern Europe. [Te land mass o Europe as a whole is 3.9 million
Finally, as I said, I do love Dalbergia Nigra Finally, -- as only a woodworker can. I am sorry sorr y that I have been part o the demand that has helped to eradicate its habitat. Yet, Yet, the use o this marvelous wood is in part responsible or how how good my guitars sound. And I haven’t used up comparatively compara tively much o this wonderul wood; my lietime use o it amounts to about one cubic meter’s worth. Tose o us who work with it know how acoustically live it is: you can pick
square miles -- but, ormally speaking, that includes part o Russia; the “line” that divides Europe rom Asia includes part o Russia. Look it up in Wikipedia.]
a piece o it up and tap it, and it will wil l ring like a gong, a bell, a marimba, or a crystal glass. Tey used to make marimbas out o it, as a matter o act: this wood sings sings..
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Tanks or the insight- word on the street is that you’re happy with Wenge too? Any other alternative woods you find to have potential?
I’ve written at length previously about how Brazilian rosewood, that traditional “Holy Grail” o fine guitar making woods, is getting scarce, expensive, and -- with legislation leg islation such as the Lacey Act coming to the ore in recent years -- problematic to have unless one has the legal paperwork to show its age, proven provenance, ance, and legality to be allowed a llowed to cross borders. Tereore, in vie Tereore, view w o severe restrictions in supply and use o traditional guitar making woods, suppliers to the guitar making industry are offering new, supposedly more sustainable guitar making woods that no one had heard o ten years ago, that come rom countries that hal o us cannot find on the map -- or or,, in the case o the Holy Grail wood, woods that are legitimate rosewoods also harvested in Brazil that are marketed as substitutes or the traditional Dalbergia Nigra. I might add -- as I didn’t previously -- that East Indian rosewood (Dalbergia Latiolia) has been a popular guitar making wood since the
beginning even though it gets precious little press in spite o its being a perectly good guitar making wood. In any event, all o these new woods that are getting commercial mention are, o course, marketed as being desirable and adequate substitutes (availability, (availability, good grain, figure, color, color, dimensional stability stability,, price, etc.) or the traditional materials. In my view, some are and some aren’t. As a guitar maker, my own preerences are or woods that are “live” “live” rather than not, regardless o their grain, figure or color color.. Te soundbox is, afer all, a sound producer and you’d think that it would do better i you filled the tank with high octane, i I can make that analogy. Forgive me or repeating some things that I’ve already mentioned, but what these things mean in practical terms is that one will be able to get a live and musical tone rom a particular slice or chunk o wood when one taps on it. Some woods can make sound on the t he order o thummmmmmmm or thimmmmmmmm, or ginnnnnnnng, or gonnnnnng, or pinnnnnnng, or ponnnnnnnng (I think you get the idea) with bell-like sustain; others go “thwick”, “dunk”, “thwack”, or “thud”.
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Tese sounds are onomatopoeic. Tis is when a word replicates replicates something o the very sound that it’s it’s identiying. identiyi ng. Onomatopoeia is useul, in spite o the act that i one overuses it one sounds like a six-year old. But in act, many “sound”” words such as bo “sound boom, om, crack, boing, thud, tap, ding-dong, smack, roar, clink, thump, clang, whap, bam, zip, moo, ruffle, oink, spank, swish, growl, tinkle, cock-a-doodle-doo, crash, squish, ack-ack, clunk, zap, z ap, snort, gulp, bip, bip, gasp, ring, shuffle, and thud are onomatopoeic. ry reading this list out loud: it’ll remind you o someone alling down a long flight o stairs and hitting some pets along the way way.. As ar as having a discussion about something like music goes, the nouns and onomatopoeics are airly straightorward; it’s it’s the adjectives or sound (smooth, liquid, smoky smoky,, complex, transparent, rough, golden, dark, even, cloying, colorul, dull, transient, ruity r uity,, present, sweet, sharp, mellow,, ull-bodied, mellow ull-bodied, dry, light, air airyy, impressive, etc.), that get us into the most trouble.
I mean, the reason some woods are called tonewoods is because they literally produce a musical note. And this quality, when used to make a guitar soundbox, will make a better and more acoustically active guitar than i using wood that makes some kind o thud or thunk when sounded. Te latter are fine or making mak ing urniture. On the other hand, i dull-sounding woods are going to be chosen, then it might mig ht well be or reasons o the visuals instead o the acoustics. Tere are “live” “live” woods that look rather plain, and there are “dead” “dead” woods that look like the Sports Illustrated magazine Swimsuit Issue in 3-D. Te flash and beauty o the latter kind o wood have an obvious appeal and many guitars get made because their visual gorgeousness will be a strong selling point. Otherwise, Otherwis e, whenever considerations o tone and appearance vie or customers and heated discussions about
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the good points o this or that combination combination o materials occur, a variety o woods will always be brought out as being bei ng “as good as”, “acoustically responsive”, “high quality”, “surprisingly good”, “improved by patented methods o treatment”, “a comparable alternative”, “now used by the so-and-so actory in their higher end guitars”, and so on.
up; and with guitar making woods sometimes s ometimes dramatically). Te thing that appeals to me about wenge is that it is very live. Tat is, when you hold a piece o it up and tap on it -- i.e., i you’re holding it in such a way that you’re not damping any o its vibrational modes -- it’ll ring like a piece o glass, plate o steel, or a crystal brandy snifer. snifer.
My own searches have brought me to several relatively unknown woods o surprising liveness. Te first o these is wenge (pronounced when-gay). It’s a dark, purplishbrown colored colored Arican hardwood that has long been used by bowl b owl turners and cabinet/ urniture makers.
Tis quality is known as “vitreousness”, which literally means “glasslike-ness”. And wenge will make such a sound. Te second likely candidate is Padauk (usually pronounced pa-duke, although I can’t figure out how that happened). Let me tell you about these woods.
For some reason, no one seems s eems to have thought about using it or guitars gu itars yet -- so it’s relativelyy cheap (as so relativel soon on as something comes to the buying public’ public’ss notice the price goes
Wenge’s and padauk’s vitreousness is a unction o these woods’ being brittle on the level o its cellular structure. In act, it’s that very ver y brittleness that makes the vibrational action, and the sound that this produces, possible.
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Te brittleness that is a plus or sound has a mechanical downside, o sorts, in that the wood cracks easily i it’s mishandled (just as glass does), and it gives one splinters i one is careless with it. It can also take more patience to bend, because brittle woods woo ds don don’t ’t want to bend easily easily.. I repeat, however, however, that it is this very potential or cracking that puts wenge and padauk in the same category as that most prized o traditional guitar making woods, Brazilian rosewood. Lovely,, alluring, and live though this “holy Lovely grail” wood is, it has also als o earned a reputation or being subject to cracking. Sound vs. ragility: ragility: it’s a trade tradeoff off or which there are ew solutions so long as one wishes to use that material -- and the solutions involve (1) overbuilding so as to minimize ragility -which comes at the expense o tonal response -- or (2) mindul treatment and care care in the making, in the handling, and in the using. Te ormer gives you structural stability and less sound; the latter gives you structural ragility ragi lity and much more sound.
Padauk is a beautiul red hardwood that has long ago been discovered by cabinetmakers. Its proper name is Andaman padauk, as it grows only on the Andaman islands that lie halway between India and Malaysia in the Indian Ocean. Padauk is, in act, the islands’ only resource o any commercial interest and it has an interesting history. Years ago, when England had a worldwide empire,, the British established a penal colony empire on these sweltering tropical islands whose sole work was the logging and harvesting o this special wood. Commercial logging o padauk is no longer done with convict labor, but it’s hard or me to see a plank o this lovely material without thinking o the poor creatures who were once orced to sweat out their lives in cutting it. Also, it makes me think that other woods we use must have interesting stories behind them, too. Te Andaman Islands have lef a small
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ootnote in literature as well as in i n woodwork, in that the villain in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story Te Sign O Te Four was an Andaman Island native; in proper
Finally, I should mention that making Finally, successul guitars using wenge or padauk, or any other suitable wood or the back and sides, will not be b e as much o an impediment to
colonial ashion, he was described by the author as being savage, brutish, short, and ugly. I’vee ound padauk to be a bit easier to work I’v than wenge. But be that all a ll as it may, may, these are both woods that one can build a better-thanaverage sounding guitar with i one uses them intelligently.
younger guitar makers who are still establishing their reputations and their styles as it is or someone like me.
Now or the bad news. While it’s all good and fine or me to tell you which woods I like li ke and that the acoustic properties o a given wood might make it a joy or a guitar maker to work with, marketing any new wood can be tricky tri cky.. No one will have heard o it, much less had experience with it; the buying public will be be suspicious o, and resistant to, accepting it. It’s a bit o an uphill slog until it “catches on”.
I repeat: they’re they’re good woods, needing only a good advertising campaign behind them. But it is the more established guitar makers such as mysel who, already a lready having reputations or using this wood or that wood, or having a certain by-now-amiliar style or eature associated with their work, who meet the greatest resistance to anything new. In my case, everybody wants me to make the same things or them that I’ve been making or my other clients; the traditional woods and designs, afer all, have their good track records.
Tis has certainly been b een my experience. I’ve made a ew padauk guitars and am at the moment working on my sixth wenge one. As I said: they’r t hey’ree wonderully live; but most o my customers still want Brazilian rosewood. Tere’s nothing wrong with that; but wenge
An example o this actor would be that I’d expect to have a hard time selling a guitar gu itar (that I made) that looked like Grit Laskin’s work, well executed though it might be; why would anyone buy a Laskin knock-off rom me when they can get an original rom him? And I’d expect Mr. Laskin to have an equally equal ly hard time
and padauk a really good alternative or any anyone one who is willing to be open-minded. And they bypass the problems o the cost o Brazilian rosewood.
selling a guitar that looked like my work; why would anyone buy buy a Somog Somogyi yi knock-off when they can get an original rom me? Just so with woods and other departures rom rom our norms.
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“choices o top and back wood are the most important ones” ones”
But back and sides only play a part par t in generating tone- what about top woods?
Well, the top woo woods ds play the other part. Just kidding. I know you’d want a longer answer; but I was just reading one o Alan Dundes’ books on the humor and olklore o Eastern Europe. One o the ones that appealed to me was the ollowing one, which prompted my above answer: wo Bulgarian men are talking. One asks, “is it true that hal the Communist Party Presidium’s members are idiots?” Te other replies, “No,, not at al “No all.l. Hal the Communist Party Presidium’s members are NO idiots”. Anyway, I got a chuckle out o that. But, back to the more mundate topic o guitar top woods. I don’t think I can answer this question quickly. I might add that I address this topic in detail detai l in several chapt chapters ers o my book Te Responsive Guitar.. Some o you reading this mig Guitar might ht want to get a copy o it o your own (it’s available through my website,www website,www.esomogyi.com). .esomogyi.com).
Let’s start with the act that Let’s t hat behind everything that has ever been said or written about the guitar, it is at bottom, nothing more than an air pump. As such, the air pumping efficiency o its design and materials is the t he single most important practical actor a maker needs to consider in his work. (Harry Fleishman makes a point o this in his article in issue #4 o Guitar Bench.) Everything else -- the guitar’ guitar’ss history, its design aesthetic, its ornamentation, the romance, the art, the science, the techniques o its construction, the expensiveness o its materials, the ame o its makers, its commercial price or even its mystical allure a llure -is secondary s econdary.. Structurally, the guitar consists o a vibrating Structurally, top and a vibrating back that t hat are separated by a set o non-vibrating sides, and a non-soundproducing neck. Because the top and the back are the two most acoustically active parts o the guitar, the choices o top and back wood woo d are the most important ones to be made in the selection o the guitar’ guitar’ss tonewoods.
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echnically, tonewoods are simply woods that are sliced thin in order to be used us ed or making soundboxes -- even i/when in other orms they can be useul or making other things such as buildings, boomerangs, boats, picture rames, or urniture. Some woods are really better than others or making sound, though, and the best selections are generally agreed to be the
Te best guitar aces are made o stiff and lightweight sofwoods such as spruce and cedar. cedar. opwoods need to b bee lighter in weight than body woods because b ecause physical lightness is a help to the kind o responsivity that, when under direct string load, has the requisite dynamic range. Te best guitar backs ba cks are made o denser, heavier woods such as rosewood, ebony ebony,, maple,
quartersawn and straight-grained ones.
walnut, koa, mahogany or any o a number o other suitable body woods: body woods need to be harder than ace woods partly because this makes them more durable, and partly because b ecause denser woods contribute those resonances that best complement the pitch o the top.
Some tonewoods can ring like a bell or a piece o glass when you strike them t hem -- a topic I’ve already addressed in two other questions you’ve sent to me to discuss. In the scientific literature this “liveness” is identified as a wood’s “Q” which, amazingly, is shorthand or the word “Quality”. A high “Q” equals a high degree o liveness. Because o the t he dynamics o the guitar guitar,, tonewoods or aces need to have different properties than tonewoods or backs i the instrument is to have the best and most even sound (i.e. having consistent quality and volume rom lows lows to highs).
While straight-grained and quartersawn wood is the stiffest, stablest and preerred choice or both tops and backs, the use o figured woods or backs has an undeniable visual appeal. Te tradeoff is that while slab-cut, wavygrained or figured wood will look interesting and beautiul, it will be b e more likely to shrink, warp, cup, twist and check than plain, straightgrained wood.
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How does one choose tone woods? W Well, ell, it depends on what the guitar is expected to sound like and how the ace and back are expected to behave. oday, European or Sitka spruce is the preerred choice o topwood or rosewood orasthe backsteel andstring sides guitars, -- with alternatives aand lternatives such koa, maple, and other domestics coming in a close second. Tese, as well as the ollowing descriptions, are rules o thumb t humb dependent on “proper” “proper” selection o woo woods ds that in many species show significant innate variability rom one sample to the next.
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European and sitka spruce As ar as ace woods go European spruce is, by virtue o its cellular structure, more more brittle than Sitka spruce: it cracks and splinters somewhat
Fingerpickers tend to like this sound (especially when they play slowly) because it’s a little like having a choir o singing voices inside
easily when sufficiently bent or Sitka spruce, in comparison, hasstressed. superior tensile strength: it will bend a lot beore it breaks. Because o these qualities qua lities ships’ masts and airplane wings -- which need to put up with lots o stresses -- have been made o Sitka spruce. Beore the advent o space-age materials, its stiffness-to-weight/density sti ffness-to-weight/density ratio, combined with its suppleness, even made it useul or making airplane uselages. On the other hand, European spruce isn’t used or airplane parts: they would be too brittle and
their guitars, or like listening to the clear undamental and harmonics o a churc church h bell. Because o the limpid clarity o these notes, this sound is experienced as being b eing a bit on the cold side.
snap rom hard use. Nonetheless, this same internal brittleness gives European spruce the capacity to make a particular kind o sound when it is made into a guitar ace; it’ it’ss a ssound ound that is at its best exquisitely limpid, rich in overtones, ocused, and ull o nuance and tone color.
In comparison, Sitka spruce is supple and springy (in a ropy way) rather than brittle, as a unction o its cellular structure. struc ture. Because o these qualities, when it is made into guitar tops it makes a sound that is not as much in ocus as that o European spruce. For this reason Sitka spruce’s sound is heard not so much as being crisply defined, but rather as sofer and uzzier around the edges: its presence is warmer, rounder, more undamental, and largely ree o overtones. It’s a very pleasing and solid sound which bluegrass flatpickers flatpick ers and olk musicians tend to like a lot.
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Englemann Spruce Engelmann spruce has been brought into instrument making in the last ew years, and is different rom the above woods in several characteristic ways. First, it is very white; when resh cut it is the color o typing paper. European spruce is white at first, but oxidizes and darkens over time so that afer ten or so years a European spruce guitar ace takes on a lovely, warm and golden honey color that imbues it with a naturally aged look. I repair work needs to be done on such a ace and the repairman sands some o this wood off it reveals a lighter color which won’t match the surrounding surace and needs tinting.
Sitka and European spruce and cedars tend to have dark grain lines that are hard; that is, they are areas o dense cellulose concentration. It is precisely this cellulose concentra concentration tion which gives sofwoods their longitudinal stiffness and vitreousness: the white grain lines in between are mostly thin walled cells ull o air (think Styrooam), but it’s the dark material that does the real work. Much Engelmann spruce seems to have dark grain that is less differentially concentra concentrated ted rom its own white grain. Tat is, it’s not all that much harder (or darker) a material than the white grain next to it; that is why its visual visua l appearance is so uniormly white.
Engelmann spruce seems to have slower oxidation, and, in my experience, stays white
You can test its hardness out yoursel next time you’re you’ re in a position to compare these woods: dig your thumbnail into a ew grain lines to see
much longer; and, when aged, it seems to take on a more brown/tan than golden hue.
how relatively undifferentiated undifferentiated the li light ght and dark grain lines eel.
A second and much more important difference, though, is in the t he nature o its cellular structure.
Or run an Exacto blade across an inch o grain in some non-essential corners and listen to
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the sound the blade makes. With Sitka and European spruce the sound o the blade hitting the hard grain lines makes a r-rrrripping sound that’s a bit li like ke a stick being raked across a picket ence; with Engelmann this sound is less audible, and sometimes it will wil l cut quietly, like hard butter with grains o sand in it.
Cedar As a vibrating material, cedar sometimes has a better stiffness-to-weight/density ratio than spruce. Because it can be so lightweight, the sound it makes can be on the t he quick and loud side. Being so immediate, i mmediate, it comes across as a brighter and sharper sound than that o spruce -- but
Te differences between these woods are pretty obvious when looked at like this. t his. In consequence, because the concentration o linear “cellulose “cellulose rebar” is typically less in Engelmann than in Sitka or European spruce, it is to that extent a sofer and weaker wood.
without the limpid overtone component o wellchosen European spruce. Te cellular structure o cedar is somewhat weaker than that o spruce and it is more subject to cracking and racturing: one needs to be a bit more careul in the care and handling o a cedar top guitar than a spruce one.
Tat doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad wood, but it does mean that t hat it has to be worked differently than the other spruces. Tere are exceptions to this, o course, and some samples o Engelmann compare avorably avorably in cellulose
While it is known that spruces take a while to “play in”, common wisdom about cedar is that it appears to have a quicker play-in time. Tat is, the sound o spruce will wil l change and mellow over time, but the sound o a cedar-topped guitar
structure to European and Sitka spruce. But, on average, these are their characteristic differences.
when new is much closer to what it will be five years down the line. I don don’t ’t know why this should be so, and I’m insufficiently experienced in the use o cedar to comment urther.
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Rosewood Rosewoods are more consisten consistentt rom sample to sample than spruces and cedars and one piece will be much more like another in behavior, i not appearance. O the rosewoods used in in guitar making, Brazilian rosewood (dalbergia nigra) has traditionally been the wood o choice or backs. Tis is partly due to tradition t radition and partly due to its phenomenal “Q”, which makes it a very acoustically live material.
When struck, a properly aged sample rings like a plate o glass, regardless o whether it’s quarter sawn or slab cut. Tis quality contributes to sustain and projection in a guitar; sustain because anything that rings sustainingly will promote a lasting sound better than something that just goes thud, and projection because this is one o the chie unctions o the back. In brie, the guitar’s guitar’s projection is a unction o how the vibrating activity o the back is coupled to that o the ace, and a proper matc matching hing o such activity boosts the directional power o the gguitar uitar..
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But otherwise, because o its high “Q”, Brazilian rosewood is both vitreous and brittle, and thereore prone prone to cracking and checking. East Indian rosewood (dalbergia latiolia, the most popular alternate wood o choice) is comparablee to Brazilian rosewood but simply comparabl not as beautiul nor as “live”, by a actor o some 20% to 30%. Tis is not a huge difference, and there are plenty o excellent sounding East Indian rosewood guitars around. Also, East Indian rosewood is an attractive choice because it is much less prone to cracking and thereore generally less problematic to work with. Other rosewood-like woods which have a high “Q” are wenge and padauk (both o which crack very easily) and certain Asian, Arican and Central American rosewoods which do not have the beauty o the Brazilian or East Indian species. While I haven haven’t ’t worked with all these woods I’d I’d expect tthem hem all to be brittle in di direct rect proportion to their liveness and be prone to the same mechanical ailures. Removing their brittleness would in act remove the actor that is responsible or their characteristic tonal superiority.
Mahongany and koa Mahoganies and Koas are highly variable in physical properties, within their species. Tat is, whereas one piece o rosewood is much like another in this regard, these woods range rom light to dense and stiff to loose, while all looking the same. Accordingly,, they will behave Accordingly b ehave differentl differentlyy as they exhibit different degrees o “Q”, and a guitar’s sound will be colored by the specific selection o koa or mahogany used. Te denser and more brittle the wood, the more it will ring; the lighter and looser the wood is, the more it will be an acoustically mellow-to-neutral tonal influence on the guitar guitar.. Heavy koa, mahogany and walnut are all comparable comparab le in their t heir tone. But, because o their great natural variability, variability, to only say that this or that guitar is made rom any one o these woods is not, rankly, very meaningul outside o its being a marketing tool.
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Maple Western broadlea maples typically have a low “Q”” and tend to make passive backs in that they “Q don’t don ’t ring, sustain, or urther the vibrational activity o the ace. In act, they help to absorb the vibrational energies o the ace and kill them. From a fingerpicker’s point o view, a maple guitar will soundconstructed thinner andone lessmade lushly ull than an identically o rosewood. As an extreme example, consider the sound you’d get in tapping a guitar back made o stiff cardboard. Tis is not necessarily a bad b ad thing, however. however. Besides being beautiul, maples help to create a sound which is comparativel comparativelyy damped and short-lived and which is perect or jazz style and even bluegrass playing, in spite o the act that the use o mahogany has long been associated asso ciated with that kind o guitar guitar.. Te bluegrass guitar is best when its sound s ound is punchy rather than sustained and mellow. Jazz musicians will play runs o individual notes
and the music is such that it is not desirable or any o the notes to linger in the air. In both, one wants quick notes that come out and then disappear -- because there t here are more notes coming. Te sustain o something like Brazilian rosewood is not needed. Tis quick quality is also desirable or certain parts theatmodern classical guitarabandoned repertoire, whichohas this point somewhat the lush, dark and expressive tonalities so much appreciated appr eciated by ans o tthe he Romantic classical repertoire. European and Eastern rock maples are denser and more live than the W Western estern varieties, which act introduces yet another variable into the uses o this wood. Tere are excep exceptions tions to all these statements; but, as rules o thumb, these descriptions are accurate. Lamentably Lamentably,, classical guitar players are, onunreceptive the whole and or better b etter or worse, markedly to guitars made out o any woods other than rosewood.
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Spanish cypress
Full moon wood
“Spanish” cypress is the traditional wood o “Spanish” choice or flamenco guitars. It’s a ormerly cheap and plentiully available Mediterranean wood which is wonderully aromatic and easy to work. For much o the Spanish guitar’s early lie this cypress was the poor man’s wood or
Tere is one other wood to add to this t his list. I want to preace telling you about it by saying that my own approach to the selection o the topwoods or my guitars relies on a avorable stiffness-to-weight ratio, rather than on things like grain evenness, count, or color. Te wood’s
backs sides; or it was the most deaultand material anyone who common could not afford the more expensive rosewood.
weight is critical to me: it’s it’s hal tthe he ormula.
For all its humble origins, though, and in spite o its comparative lack o density, properly cut and selected Spanish Cypress has a “Q “Q”” comparablee to that o East Indian rosewood comparabl and a much better one than t han maple. Even though it isn’t isn’t used or making steel string guitars, I know o no reason at all (other than that it’s hard tovery find well pieces enough) why it wouldn’t work onbig them.
I’ve sorted through many thousands o I’ve topwood sets in the last orty-plus years and the range o their densities has never ailed to impresss me. Te same has also been true o the impres t he many piles o spruce and cedar planks I’ve sorted through and made selections rom. I’ve I’d handle planks that were so heavy that they seemed resh-elled and still sti ll ull o water; they’ they’d d be next to planks that were so light that you couldTese sneeze and they’ they’d practically blow offand the pile. woods weredo comparable size had been kiln-dried ki ln-dried together, so the moisture contentt would have b conten been een the same or simi similar lar..
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I’d always assumed that this disparity was all normal and natural -- until I learned about a European tradition o orestry that is based in the practice o cutting down woods at specific phases o the moon; it yields woods o consistently different density, durability, and working properties. I became aware o this material through a wellresearched and documented article written by Ernst Zurcher, Zurcher, a Swiss orestry expert who has written extensively on this ascinating topic. (Zurcher’s article is titled “Lunar rhythms in orestry traditions: t raditions: lunar-correla lunar-correlated ted phenomena in tree biology and wood properties”. He wrote it or Wood Sciences magazine, HG F.21. Zurcher’s name is sometimes spelled Zuercher and, as I said, he has written extensive extensively ly on this ascinating topic.
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Zurcher’s article jolted me with an unsuspected explanation or the variation in wood mass that I’d long noticed. Tat explanation turned out to be news only to me, however; since reading that article I’ve discovered that there are lots o people who know about such wood woo d and have known about it long beore I did. di d.
Yet, in traditional and less-than-industrialscale logging work, there is a practice o woodelling with an eye on the phases o the moon that is based in many centuries centuries o empirical experience and observation.
Wood tthat hat is elled in accordance with lunar cycles is reerred to as “Full Moon Wood”. Somehow, I’m tempted to think o it as werewood. Perhaps Perhaps I’ve seen too many Boris Karloff movies. But, whatever one wants to call it, the act is that our own modern traditions o lumber-cutting lumber-cut ting -- which are not at all bas based ed in cutting woods selectively select ively,, in limited quantities, and or specific uses -- have paid no attention attention to this practice.
noticed that woods and plant products o a given species that are cut during the new moon, the ull moon, or the waning moon, have consistently and predictably different working properties, characteristics, and durability. durability.
Our commercial enterprises will cut day and night until the acreage has been clear-cut, take the wood away by the industrial containerull, and then move on to the next acreage regardless o the day, week, month, rain or shine, or phase o moon.
Full Moon Wood has an interesting history. Foresters Forest ers since beore the time t ime o Christ have
Tereore a number o especially advantageous Tereore uses or timber t imber -- including, naturally naturally,, musical instrument soundboards -- have been correlated, correlat ed, through long practical experience, with specific elling dates. I you’re interested, guitar soundboards rom such woods are available to luthiers rom Swiss suppliers that can be ound through a google search under “ull moon wood” wood”..
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Some readers may think that this kind o lore is sheer poppycock. Nonetheless, Mr. Zurcher points out three things that are hard to ignore. First, as I’ve already said, the body o empirically collected wood-elling wisdom is very old and it applies to a range o practical wood uses as diverse as house construction,
and record-keeping in which lunar rhythms (as well as the cycles o the seasons) s easons) are mentioned as having an influence on the growth, structures, characteristics, and properties o plants.
roo shingles, wooden chimneys they had them in the old days), d ays), barrels(well, or storing liquids, boxes or storing oodstuffs, uel (firewood), plows, transportation o elled woods via river floatation, and o course musical instrument soundboards.
Roman writer Pliny had, o in plants, addition to suggestions about thewho cutting urther advice to give to armers or picking ruit or the market vs. ruit or their own stores -- all with respect to different phases o the moon.
One o the earliest o these is rom the
In each case woods woo ds elled at tthe he appro appropriate priate phase o the lunar cycle last longer, wear better, are more stable, are harder/stiffer or sofer/ more pliable, or is more fire resistant or burns more easily -- as their intended use requires.
It has long been known, or instance, that t hat ruit picked or the market will weigh more and be more profitable profitable to ssell, ell, when picked just beore or at the ull moon; but or stocking the larder and pantry, pantry, ruit picked during the new moon would contain less water and last longer.
Second, the knowledge through centurieswhile o hands-on orestrygotten practices has necessarily resulted in a body o oral tradition, peasant wisdom, and olklore, there exists in addition a significant body o historical writing
As ar as practical advice goes, what could be more useul than this? I ruits and vegetables show such properties in tandem with the phases o the moon, then it really shouldn’ shouldn’tt
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be hard to believe that the plants and trees that these edibles are attached to, and grow g row rom, must also be being affected by the same lunar processes. [Note: Te practice o paying attention to the elling date o a wood has also als o included the moon’s cycles o height-trajectory with respect to the earth’s horizon, as well as which sign o the Zodiac Zodi ac was dominant at the ttime. ime. W Woodoodcutting practices in places as diverse as Bhutan and Mali ollow these “rules”. No, I’m not making this up; read the article.] Tird, while Pliny and some o the other historical sources are o course European, it has been noted that the general rules or elling woods in Europe are in act very similar across the other continents.
Whether in the European Alpine regions, the Near East, in Arica, India, Ceylon, Brazil, or Guyana, these traditions all seem to be based in matching and independent observations. It is entirely reasonable reasonable to believe that, in tthe he past, people everywhere had more time and more peace and quiet in which to observe how things work; indeed, such knowledge would have been vital to them. More to the point, the variations in woo More wood d density that I’ve mentioned noticing make sense within the context o modern vs. the traditional and more leisurely wood elling practices. oday oday,, as I said above, loggers will work a orest, stand, or acreage relentlessly and indiscriminately until their quota is met. Te job might take weeks or months. months.
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And then, leaving a denuded hillside, they’ll move on to another patch o land and do the same. Selectivity is per acreage and tonnage, set by commercial considerations and not per specific intended use o the wood harvest. Tis contrasts sharply with the traditional selectivity that would have been the rule in any aware aware,, non-industrial community o oresters: you go in and select a limited amount o wood to be used or specific purposes; you don don’t ’t cut indiscriminately and ship out by the lumbertruckull. You You take what you need, until the next trip into the orest. It’s easy to understand that these different mindsets would have quite different contextual, environmental, environm ental, meteorological, commercial, ancillary, and/or scheduling concerns. We moderns are too caught up with television dramas, production quotas, the rising prices
o everything, and the latest bodice-ripping revelations that emerge rom Washington, Rome, Moscow,, Damascus, Beijing, or Hollywood to Moscow notice how things grow. Celebrity wood and exotics Well, we’ve covered all the usual guitar topwood suspects; but rom time to time a new wood suraces that captures everyone’s imagination as being “superior” in one way or another. It might stem rom some prominent prominent guitar maker’ss successul experimentation with a new maker’ species and the word getting around; or it might stem rom a commercial supplier’s promoting o a new wood that’ that’ss become available on the market; or it might result rom something, somehow,, catching the popular imagination. somehow
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“ rom time to time a new wood suraces that captures ever everyone yone’’s imagination”” imagination
It’s an interesting phenomenon that is part and parcel o the guitar making community’ community’ss cyclic attempts to find Te Holy Grail. As an example, Arican Blackwood has emerged as a popular alternative to Brazilian rosewood in the last ew years. It’s heavy, hard to resaw (there seem to have a significant silicate content), and has a semimuted tap tone, indicating a so-so level o vitreousness or “Q” “Q”. As such, as ar as I’m I’m concerned, there’s no chance it’s ever going to be the acoustic equivalent o the old growth g rowth Brazilian rosewood. Nonetheless, it’s a perectly adequate wood, and getting quite pricey as demand or it rises.
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Likewise, Adirondack and red spruces have been getting a lot o press lately on the strength o their having been the ““original” original” spruces used by the Martin Company Company.. Carpathian spruce, which is much like Adirondack and the red spruces in its appearance and pro properties, perties, is being imported and sold too. I sometimes wonder what Arican or Asian wood will be b e discovered next year as the answer to my acoustical problems, both those continents being so well known or their t heir long and rich traditions o guitar making. Te act is that the use us e o celebrity wood -- that is, simply because it’s it’s popular all o a sudden -- is always a lways driven as much by marketing and wishul thinking as by experience and the laws o acoustics. I want to underline the obvious: namely namely, , that one canas overbuild underbuild with celebrity wood easily as or with anything else. Just using it will not be a guarantee o anything. It would be like believing someone’s wie is better than anyone else’s because she’s, well, say, rom France. I once had a man brag to me that he had a Swiss girlriend, as though that inormation/label alone ought to have made my jaw drop. drop.
Parenthetically,, the corollary to the myth o Parenthetically “the best wood” is the myth o bad wood. Te act is that, within reason [or instance, I wouldn’t hold out much hope or balsa wood guitars], there aren’t many really “bad” woods: one simply has to know how to work with the materials. Personally, Personally, I preer the stiffest and most lightweight tonewoods woods to work with. But perectly good guitars have been made with stiff woods, floppy woods, heavy woods, lightweight woods, tightlygrained woods, widely-grained woods, domed woods, flat woods, quartersawn woods, offquartersawn woods, etc. etc.; you get the idea. idea . It’s very largely in what one does with them. In act, that’s that’s what this book b ook is about. And as ar as exotic woods go, keep in mind that one man’s exotic is another man’s boring domestic product. oday, many American guitar players and makers believe that European spruce is the best guitar top wood. European spruce comes, o course, rom Europe. Prominent Swedish luthier Michael Sanden reports that he has great g reat demand or Sitka spruce on his guitars; Sitka spruce is, o course, a Northwestern American and Canadian (and Alaskan) wood, and Sanden’s clients consider this wood superior. superior. Each ggroup roup o end-users considers its preerred wood to be an exotic or an import.
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onal potential and tone changes over time It is common knowledge that wooden string instruments -- whether they be pianos, mandolins, lutes, or guitars -- benefit b enefit rom being “played in”. Keep in mind that older instruments have tonal qualities o mellowness and smoothness that newer ones lack, the latter ofen sounding somewhat brittle and harsh in comparison. Te analogy o making a stew is ofen used to describe the quality o transition o a sound which is initially a bit rough, “green” and unsubtle but which gradually blends its elements into something more integrated and smoothly pleasing.
In the guitar, also, different woods take different amounts o time or getting “played in”. Why this is so is not ully known but, obviously,, it has to do with changes in the obviously cellular and fibrous structures o the woods over time. Some o these changes have to do with the adaptation o the woods to the stresses o being strung, afer possibly centuries o being unencumbered by such orces. A main physical indicator o these changes is seen se en in the doming in the area behind the bridge which almost all older guitar tops show, show, but which new ones won’t yet have. Extreme distortion is problematic, but a merely visible
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amount o it is absolutely normal and even e ven desirable; in act, guitars which are so overbuilt (through thicknessing, doming, bracing, etc.) or understrung that this distortion o the wood is prevented, will never manage to have the developed sound every player wants. Furthermore, the act o actually playing on a guitar, in combination with stringing and stressing it, seems to have a decisive and accelerating effect on this blending; as with muscles, stretching and “warming up up”” seems to loosen things up significantly significantly.. I make my guitars yielding enough to have some top pullup, and tell my clients to play them a lot or at least the first ew weeks. Finally, all o the woods described above have Finally, a certain tonal potential rather than a fixed quantity o tone. Tat is, they can be worked with to enhance or suppress certain portions o their potential sound.
However, like a plank o wood that can only yield usable pieces shorter than itsel when it is cut, and never a longer piece, guitar making woods benefit rom the outset only in having the most and best potential tone or their intended use. You can work with any wood to make it sound a lot worse than its potential; but you can only work with it to make it a little, i any, better. Once you’ve figured out what you want your next guitar to sound like, go out and buy the best wood you can find or it.
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At least as important as these secondary actors – and actually more – are choice o strings and playing technique. Different brand, gauge, and/ or composition strings can make a significant difference to a guitar’ guitar’ss sound, as these generate sufficiently different different dynamic signals, as well as contribute different different energy budgets: the result is that a guitar can have different voices. Playing technique is usually overlooked in these discussions, just as a driver’ driver’ss driving skills are overlooked in making assessments about the perormance o an automobile. It’s no secret that a skilled player can coax an amazing palette o sounds out o the soundbox. O course, the guitar’s guitar’s sensitivity to begin with is a actor. I the soundbox is overbuilt and acoustically constrained then it is not likely to have much flexibility o response: some guitars have such a limited dynamic range that they sound pretty much the same no matter what one does to them.
But there are other contributors to tone too, like scale length, neck materials.....
Well, outside o tthe he top and the ba back, ck, which are important vibrating diaphragms, not really really.. Or at least, not in my opinion: actors such as scale length, neck material, body size, bridge height, ret height, etc. are secondary. I go into these matters in some detail in my books “Te “ Te Responsive Guitar” and “Making the Guitar”, so I might recommend thatResponsive anyone who is sufficiently interested get these and explore my specific thinking.
On the other end o the spectrum is a guitar that is so sensitive to the player’s touch that it becomes unorgiving o sloppiness in technique – because it shouts out every player’ player’ss tickle, pluck, and scratch. In between these extremes is a truly responsive guitar with plen plenty ty o “head room”” and that is like a well-trained horse that room responds to the rider’s rider’s ever everyy subtle iinspiration nspiration and command. One additional “contributor” to tone that usually goes unmentioned is a guitar’ guitar’ss tonal directionality – which most guitars have to one degree or another. What I mean by that is that a guitar ofen projects its sound out more strongly in one direction di rection than another. Te consequence o that is that the same guitar can sound quite different depending on where one sits. Tereore, anyone in the market or a better guitar will do well to go shopping o orr one with a riend, and do listening rom different positions.
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Speaking oask players, you lef specifically or “ aI notice tracingthat o your hand and inormation about the average seasonal humidity in your area”. Perhaps I could get you to comment about shaping the neck to fit that tracing and how the player’ player’ss environment affects the way you build...
It all goes to the playability and stability o the custom-made instrument that I intend to deliver to my client. Guitars getpriorities. made around concernscan and Somedifferent o these primary are the pursuit o sound, or appearance (artistry and customization), or business (efficiency (efficiency,, brand loyalty,, and profitability), or experimentation loyalty in electronic sounds, or tradition vs. original design. Te things you are asking about go to two other concerns. Te guitar, neck and the hand
and respond; it’slap. something purring o a cat on one’s At least,like thisthe is true o the nylon-string classic and the acoustic steel string guitar, when the player is sitting. Te guitar is very much a physically user-riendly instrument and I don’t think one should underestimate the sheer physical pleasure o playing this person-sized pleasure box. Second, it is also a tool or musicians in which the point o the most meaningul body bo dy contact between guitar and player – besides the fit o the guitar’s size the body – is the contouring and to eel oplayer’s the neck. And because players’ hands are ully as unique as aces, ears, eet, torsos, and genitals are, the sizing and contouring o the guitar neck can be looked at in the same way that tailoring one’s clothing is regarded: a custom job in each case. In act, to use a word that’s perectly correct although in an unusual context, a properly made guitar neck is bespoke.
Te first is the act that t hat the guitar is a physically intimate instrument. As one strums or picks on it one hugs and enolds it; one literally puts one’s arms around it, and even bends one’s body over it, as it rests on one’s lap. Tere’s a genuine somatic pleasure in eeling it vibrate
So: I need to have a sense o the size o my client’s hands, as well as his or her lef-hand playing style. I describe these concerns and actors at length in chapters 13 and 26 o my book “Te “ Te Responsive Guitar – and I’m
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includingsent twome photos (see above) t hat that a client recently in response to my quest or this inormation, to give you an idea o what w hat I mean. Such readings on lef-hand playing technique are inormation-rich or anyone experienced in the fine points o lutherie. Average and seasonal se asonal humidity Concern about fluctuations in seasonal humidity goes to the act that wood is a hygroscopic material: material: it takes on and gives off water molecules the air moist or dry dr y. Everything made o as wood, in is act, swells and shrinks with these normal changes in the weather.
Dimensional instability can lead to damage: lookinatwooden any treeobjects stump or telephone pole and observe how it will show a mass o cracks rom the wood having dried out and shrunk. Many guitars crack or the same reason: being exposed to dry weather – or at least drier conditions than those woods had previously been stabilized at. But whether or not there’s been actual damage, the woods will have swelled and shrunk (and may have warped to some degree) with changes in the weather; in the case o the guitar this leads to changes in action and playability.
Te primary unction o any finish is to seal the wood and prevent, or at least minimize, this movement. (When I recommend a thin finish such as French polish to my clients they sometimes comment on how this doesn’t protect the guitar rom scratches all that well because o it’s it’s very thinness; I respond that
I became aware o this early on in my career when I was more active as a repairman than a builder,, and I was coming into regular contact builder with musicians who were on tour. Tey would report to me that their guitars guitars’’ (and mandolins, etc.) actions would be high in one city city,, and then low in the next city, city, which drove them crazy and baffled them. Tey would o course have been traveling through cities with different climates and altitudes, playing indoors and
the unction o the finish is to protect the instrument against the weather weather,, not tthe he player; and that a thin finish promotes a uller sound.)
outdoors, and their wooden instruments would have been responding to those ever-cha ever-changing nging environmental environm ental conditions.
GUIARBENCH MAGAZINE ISSUE 7 PAGE 85
Te rule is this: woodswhether dry out,orthey In the case o theasguitar, notshrink. there’s actual damage the shrinking action is displaced into the sinking-in o the top and back plates (more so than the instrument’s simply getting bigger and smaller, that is): action gets lower, lower, and buzzes appear. Exposing a guitar to a wetter climat climate, e, on the other hand, will make it swell up. While there’s no damage or cracking when this happens (the wood fibers simply get squeezed together), the dimensional in back the wood then displaced into thechange top and platesisbulging out: the action rises. Tis is crazy-making or a musician on tour but it’s a natural consequence o the act that wood, unlike metal or plastic and regardless o whether it’s new or old or alive or dead, orever has the ability to take on and give g ive off ambient moisture. (Note: (Note: there are ways o de dealing aling with this, as I describe des cribe in the chapter on wood stability in my book, bo ok, or anyone wanting more inormation). Finally, in order to do my best work, I need to Finally, have an idea o the environmen environmentt that my guitar will be living in i n once it leaves my shop – both
in geographic and in domestic terms. I the guitar will be living in i n a drier climate, then I will need to assemble the guitar gu itar in a compatible environment, environm ent, in my humidity controlled room; to not do so will wi ll be to invite potential cracking o the woods when the humidity in the guitar owner’s area plummets. And whether or not the seasonal fluctuations are extreme, I will ask about the humidity and temperature temperat ure conditions o the house and the rooms which the guitar on willmy beend kept. cannotin make adjustments oIitIto take some o those actors into account, then I give advice as to how the guitar needs to be treated. It’s simply proessional to do so.
GUIARBENCH MAGAZINE ISSUE 7 PAGE 86
And is contouring also the driver behind the
Windham Hill & Co. broke that new ground –
modifiied dreadnought shape?
and it broke ground in a big way.
Yes. I designed that guitar in the late 1970s, in response to guitarist Daniel Hecht’s request or a guitar that was easier to handle and play than the dreadnought he was then using. Tere’s an interesting story behind this.
Also, until then the steel string guitar – which had been developed or use by musicians who were standing up rather than sitting down (unless they were sitting on a horse, as happened occasionally in the singing cowboy movies o the 1930s and 1940s) – pretty much “was” the dreadnought, both by dominance and by deault. For musical use the t he Dreadnought was typically held up with a shoulder strap, and its actual center o balance was a non-issue.
Daniel Hecht was one o the Windham Hill guitar players. Tese guitarists, as a group, pretty much gave birth to the modern fingerpicking guitar style. Te Windham Hill label was the midwie to that birth; it brought fingerpicking guitar music to the world’s attention. Up until about 1970 flatpicking had been pretty much the only way to play the steel string guitar, and that technique defined what musicality the steel string guitar was capable o – by ar most o which was instrumental mix and/or solo chord accompaniment to singing.
Te Windham Hill guitar players, on the other hand, sat when they played – like jazz guitarists were doing – and, along with using their fingers rather than a plectrum to play play,, these pioneers created new tonalities and melodies with which to enrich the guitar’s repertoire.
Even the pioneers o playing actual melodies
So . . . Daniel Hecht asked me to make him a guitar that didn’t slip and slide around on his lap when he played, the way his shallow-waisted dreadnought did. He needed something that stayed put, and that
on the guitar (notably Doc Watson, John Fahey,, and Clarence White) used a plectrum. Fahey All told, fingerpicking style really hadn hadn’t ’t been introduced, much less coalesced, as a
urthermore took the gu guitar’ itar’ss center-o-balance into account. While he was making a request out o a musical need, however however,, it equally came out o a sensible s ensible historical context.
way o playing melodies on the guitar beore GUIARBENCH MAGAZINE ISSUE 7 PAGE 87
Some historical context While the steel string guitar’s older brother, the modern Spanish guitar, had always had a well-defined waist, the dreadnought didn’t. It’s interesting (at least to me) that in the century and a hal since the modern mo dern guitar has been around the steel string guitar has increasingly come to adopt that eature o the Spanish guitar, but the latter – which has had every opportunity to reciprocate recipr ocate – has never done so. In act, the Spanish guitar’s development is opposite to that o the modern steel sting guitar in this regard: it grew out o the shallow-waisted earlier Baroque guitars and vihuelas o the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and it has never gone back to that t hat design eature.
“ I was seeking a steel string guitar design that would stay on a sitting player’s lap without use o a shoulder strap” strap” I might add that the shapes and sizes o the guitar’s body over time are also an expression o the changing nature o musical entertainment in Western society. When musicians played or small audiences they would usually do so in ormal settings and they would sit; it’ it’ss more intimate, and appropriate appropriate to chamber music (i.e., music played in rooms rather than outdoors). With the growth o popular musical entertainment, however, however, and its drive to gather and cater to larger and larger audiences, the steel string guitar has benefited rom becoming larger and larger; and the musician is simply a more visible musical centerpoint i he stands – especially i the audience is standing and is outdoors, as has historically been the case in popular entertainment events o the inormal and semi-ormal kind. (In ormal perormances p erormances the audience sits, regardless o what kind o music or instrument is being played.)
Daniel Hecht’s guitar project So in the matter o the modified dreadnought project I was seeking a steel string guitar gu itar design that would stay on a sitting player’s lap without use o a shoulder strap. Tis suggested a more Spanish-guitar-type Spanish-guitar -type waist and, i the instrument was not going to be b e topheavy topheavy,, a waist that was located at the guitar’s center-o-balance. Te guitar also needed to be a dreadnought size. Tose mechanical requirements were clear; less obvious were the dynamic and acoustic requirements requiremen ts or good sound, balanced response, and ease o rendering good, clear, recor recorded ded sound. But that’s not what you’re asking about, so I’ll leave that discussion or another time. Te modified dreadnought does indeed fit into a dreadnought case. And it sounds good. But I didn’t didn ’t know what to call this guitar: this was at a time beore luthiers had been giving exoticsounding names to their instruments (look in any guitar magazine to find any number o grand and outdoorsy-sounding guitar models). I thereore went or the simplest thing I could think o: since I was “modiying” the dreadnought, it seemed sensible to call it a “modified dreadnought”. Tat name sounds kind o clunky today, today, I thin think k – especia especially lly as compared to some o the zippy titles people are now using which make you think that what’s being talked about is a high-perormance car whose natural habitat is some inspirational outdoors setting – but it at least tells you something about what this instrument actually is. All in all, though, I believe I was breaking new ground by mysel, in making that guitar or Daniel Hecht. Until then, luthiers didn’t dare to make steel string guitars that were different in shape rom the dreadnought. Tat model absolutely dominated the landscape and stores were unwilling to even take different-looking guitars on consignment because they knew they wouldn’t sell. Or at least sell easily. oday, on the other hand, i you go into any guitar store you’ll see many variations o guitar shape; it’s quite accepted.
Contouring and aesthetics Tere’s one other thing to mention, which is that I made an effort to re-contour the Hech Hechtt guitar in such a way as to make its lines look lovely and flowing. Te lines o most Spanish guitars are pleasing, because its makers have brough broughtt an organic aesthetic to it. Tis is lacking la cking entirely in the typical steel string guitar gu itar,, in which curves cur ves o different radii and various flat stretches are “efficiently” thrown together together.. O Overall, verall, this gives them an industrial look. Oh, I know that a lot o people will claim to love the Martin dreadnought or OM, or the Gibson J-200, or whatever. But I believe that what they idea o such guitars; the guitars really love is the idea o themselves look . . . well . . . clunky clunky,, awkward, and disproportionate disproportiona te to anyone who actually looks at them. I do a visual exercise in my annual class in which my students and I do exactly that: we leave brand loyalty at the door and just look look at at some guitars and discuss our impressions. W Wee agree tthat hat i met a girl with unlovely body lines like some o those guitars actually have have we’d think twice about asking her out.
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Te modified dreadnought isn isn’t ’t the only model you build, I see Om and OO models too- which look more curvaeous, I take it they have been modified too?
Yes, o course. Aside rom the aesthetic and ergonomic considerations I’ve mentioned, the only reason I can see or anyone to aithully reproduce exact replicas o commercially made guitars is that one likes them sufficiently to do so. s o.
And now I see apprentices with se e many o your apprentices similar models...
I don’t quite know what you mean by “similar models”. Te main models or steel string guitars were set in stone decades ago by the Martin and Gibson actories, and until relativelyy recently no American luthiers were relativel bold or imaginative enough to make anything but aithul copies o any o those (and i any had been, they would have starved to death: the market was not accepting o variety). It’s only relatively recently that variations o those sizes and shapes have appeared, and even so most steel string guitars gu itars are still largely Dreadnought-like, OM-like, Jumbolike, parlor-guitar-like, parlor-guitar-like, etc. Classical guitars, by virtue o their coming out o a different tradition than steel string guitars, show the least variation or departure rom traditional design. I do encourage my apprentices to design their own guitars – within the context o the act that the market’s main points o reerence are the industry-standard shapes and sizes I mentioned. Tey sell. How However ever,, in the same way that I don’t slavishly copy the “standard” Martin or Gibson models, I encourage my guys to do work o their own within any o these categories. Tere’s less creativity in imitating . . . despite it being, as Oscar Wilde quipped, the sincerest orm o flattery to the one whose work is being copied. Naturally, Naturally, having been be en influenced by me, my students’ work will have similarities to mine. I guess gu ess that’s that’s what you mean by “similar” models. Having said what I just did about the various amiliar and accepted shapes o guitars, I might add two things. First, when it comes to “customizing” or staking out one’s identity as a luthier, the easiest places on the guitar to do that visually are (1) the peghead, (2) the rosette, (3) the bridge, (4) whatever proprietary or unique decorations, woods, inlays, etc. one adorns their instruments with, and (5) the cutaway, i there is one.
I you can come up with something in any or all o these places that t hat are eye-catc eye-catching hing and well executed, you’re you’re halway there to establishing your own identity. identity. One can play with these variables in lots o creative creative ways, and not change the guitar body itsel all that t hat much. A lot o people do work on this level. Second, simultaneously with and in act superseding the above, ““customizing” customizing” occurs at a higher level. Here, one concerns one’s sel with “the overall look” o the guitar guitar.. Making specific but piecemeal changes as I just suggested is all good and well; but many o these will look like exactly what they are: something stuck into the middle o someone else’s design. So there needs to be an awareness o the harmony o the parts -- and this includes the “rame” or the work: that is, the guitar’s body outlines. Tere’s plenty o room or improvement in/ rom the standard models (o steel string guitars) in this regard: they do not appear to have been designed with any sense o the t he classic rules o proportion that have inormed the work o European artists and designers or centuries. Te American (i.e. steel string) guitars have an industrial rather than an organic or artistic look; they’ve never looked graceul to me. I make an attempt to teach my apprentices to operate at this second, holistic, level o guitar design. I teach tea ch them to have regard or the principles o scale, proportion, and flow o line, as well as the rules ru les o visual emphasis: there’s a reason that they work. I the colors, proportions, individual touches, and materials in a guitar (or anything else at all, really) are all balanced correctly then it becomes a thing o beauty,, in addition to b beauty being eing a utilitarian object.
Beore commenting on the physics o the top and its artwork, perhaps I could say a bit about
Always. How could it be otherwise? Te therapist helps the client to become aware o these things, or at least where they came rom rom and what they’re rooted in, because the client is normally not aware o most o them -- much less how these have contributed to the knots that the client is tied ti ed up into, and attempting to untangle.
the meta-physics o it. I began doing “artistic” work (that is, my decorative carving and similar inlay work) seriously back in the late 1980s. Te background to this had to do with the act that I was going through t hrough a divorce, and was eeling pretty demoralized. My work had pretty much also lost meaning or me in this period. p eriod. I sought out a therapist to help me sort out my logjam o eelings. Personally,, I think it’ Personally it’ss a good idea to seek out help when one is eeling unable to cope.
In this context, i and when w hen the therapist introduces any o his or her own personal p ersonal material into the therapeutic session, its impact on the mirroring needs to be discussed. disc ussed. It is essential to know who “owns” what, and what belongs where -- and without judgment or criticism. In my case, my therapist got pregnant. In many therapeutic situations such an event is seismic. Te client may re-experience early lie eelings o competition, or imminent exclusion
I recommend it as a course o action to take, t ake, instead o just toughing things out; the tough part will be there anyway anyway,, and getting help will NO make it disappear.
or rejection. For some, the eelings o losing the therapist’s affection to the new rival are so strong that they drop out o therapy. In my case, I seem to have adapted (to the obvious act that my therapist had a lie that didn’t include me in it) by wanting to “join” m myy therapist. I announced that I wanted to give birth to something too. wo days later I was carving designs into wood, with all the ocus and energy o a water buffalo in rut.
Maybe I can ask about the soundboard decoration/ carvings carv ings you offer offer,, does it significantly alter the physics o the top to the point you make adjustments?
Terapy, when done correctly, is a uniquely intimate experience. Part o a competent competent therapist’s role is to act as a mirror. Te thing is, one is ALWAYS being one’s sel; one ALWAYS carries and acts out (o) (o ) one’s own attitudes, intelligence, deenses, needs, ears, prejudices, learned roles, blind spots, intolerances, inner conflicts, personal boundaries, and style.
Te unconscious attitudes and evaluative processes behind this change o direction were, needless to say, massively complicated; they always are, in this kind o thing. But I’m not going to go into that material ay urther; it would take us ar afield rom the subject at hand. Suffice it to say that I wouldn’t be the same kind o artistic luthier that I am today to day i my therapist had remained celibate. But be that all as it may may,, the decision to release my energies into this new activity was an answer to the problem o how to stay in i n the therapeutic relationship relationship without eeling . . . uh . . . demoted. In act, it was also an answer to a whole set o problems that had to do with my inability to figure out what to do with mysel, at that time.
Anyway, getting back to your question about Anyway, my artistic work’s impact on a guitar’s sound: I consider the guitar’s lower bout (the area around the bridge) to be the essential dynamic area, and I won’t mess with that. Te upper bout is mostly structural rather than dynamic, and is pretty much acoustically dead. My artistic work is mostly confined to the upper bout, with perhaps a bit o an intrusion below the soundhole -- but i so I try to keep that intrusion minimal. I’ll say a bit more about this below.
One way to illustrate the “dynamic” phenomenon phenomeno n I’m talking about is tthis: his: next time you have a guitar gu itar at hand simply tap on or near the bridge with your fingertip (use the fleshy part, not the nail). You’ll hear a ssound, ound, o course. Whatever that sound is, its quality will become be come more attenuat attenuated ed and constrained as you tap arther and arther rom the bridge. In theory, the acoustically “live” area on a steel string guitar extends to the upper transverse brace -- the one that is above the soundhole. Now, the presence o a big hole in any vibrating diaphragm is bad news or the soundproducing potential o that diaphragm, and especially those parts o it in closest proximity to the hole. So most guitars won’t give you
much sound when you tap them right next to the soundhole (i.e., between the soundhole s oundhole and the waist). But they’ll give g ive you some. I should add that on really good guitars, tapping at such an unlikely spot will generate a surprising amount o sound. But the bottom line is that, on average, by virtue o the traditional design o the modern steel string guitar, the part o the top that’s next to and above the soundhole is not significantly acoustically active; the lower bout is where all the action is. My carving work is typically situated in part above the upper transverse brace (and thereore in the dead zone) and also on the ringes o the acoustically most active part o the guitar top, next to the soundhole. I consciously try to
not encroach much lower than the soundhole. But what I do does not entirely kill whatever sound would come rom those sections o the guitar top. Tis is because the carving car ving is “partial” in the sense that it does not result in area that is weakened with lots o perorations. It’s reinorced, so that it’s not radically different in thickness, stiffness, or springiness rom adjoining areas. Te ootprint o topwood that the carved design occupies is first “thinned out” rom the back. Ten, afer the carving is done in that thinned area, that section is reinorced with a thin colored veneer o wood (which provides visual contrast and “sets “sets off ” the carving). Tat thinned area is then urther filled in
with a spruce veneer that t hat re-establishes the ull thickness o the top. Tis three-layered structure enables me to brace the top normally, normally, and at the same time to leave the carved latticework backed up so that (1) it is not ungodly ragile, and (2) it can unction as the same kind o unperora u nperorated ted wooden diaphragm that the rest o the top is. Everything considered, I think the loss o dynamic oomph is minimal. All in all, these processes represen representt several days o careul work. But I think it’s worth it.
And more recently there have been olks copying your artwork designs?
Not really. My aesthetic is my own, and people seem to like it. But no one is willing to spend as much time on this kind o work as I put into it, or that it requires -- just or the payoff o having something that they’ve done look like something that I would do. I think most luthiers would preer their guitars to look like something they would do. I anything, I’d say that people are instead surprised and inspired by what they see me do and are happy to launch into making something original that is an echo o what I’ve done. I’m fine with that. I don’t believe that we really need a bunch o Somogyi knockoffs . . . in exactly the same way that we don’t need a bunch o Martin and Gibson knockoffs, such as people have been producing or decades. But let’s stop a minute and ask what is it, exactly, that I’ve done that is or might be
the context o the act that the modern steel string guitar is a creature o actory production and thereore, in my opinion, by definition devoid o creative or artistic touches, I’ve done five not-too-complicated not-too-complicated things. I mean, I do execute the carved and seriously inlaid work that you are reerring to and I create artistic rosettes, to be sure. Tat work is subtle and complex -- but it has taken me years to develop and refine such a sense o design. But I did these our other, much simpler things at first . . . and I continue to do them. And I believe b elieve that people do copy these, although perhaps without being ully aware o the act that they qualiy as artistic touches. For one thing, I have, since the beginning, used wood bindings and purflings. For those who don’t know, bindings and purflings are the strips o wood at the edges e dges o the guitar that constitute constitute its visual perimeter -- that is, the visual rame. Tey quite literally define the
sensible or someone to copy? W Well, ell, within
guitar’s shape or us; they “contain” it visually
-- very much in the same s ame way that a picture rame “contains” the photo or painting inside o it. I you ever looked at one o the simpler guitars out there that lacks bindings/purflings you’ll know what I mean: they have a naked look to them. Te most common binding material on commercially made guitars that are otherwise ofen made o very nice real woods, is plastic.
ever seen any real statue or any architectural ornamentation made o plastic? o my mind, plastic is or toys. Te second thing I’ve done is to create rosettes that have taken some work to plan out and install. Te average commercially made guitar today gets by with (1) rosettes purchased rom a commercial supplier and installed with as little effort and as much dispatch as possible, or (2) concentric plastic rings that are occasionally spiced up with a circle o abalone shell. Tese options are “good enough” or most people; but they require no imagination or creativity whatsoever.. I recommend doing something whatsoever that is personal and imaginative. While most people would consider the rosette to be a deault component o a guitar, it can represent real artistic effort and achievement. Te third thing I’ve done is to give my pegheads and bridges a sculpted look, instead o the look o something shaped in fifeen seconds with a router. Te ormer takes a bit more time and
o me, that is really tacky. All-wood construction simply looks better. I mean, when is the last time you went to a decent art gallery and saw any work ramed in plastic? For that matter,, while the use o plastic is universal in matter mass-produced items o every kind, consider that there is a reason why artwork and artisanal objects are made o steel, plaster plaster,, stone, wood, glass, leather, ceramic, paint, bronze, abric, paper, or even composite – in other words, o anything and everything except plastic. Tere are the bobble-head figurines and such that are ound in today’s today’s gif shops, and various
other such knick-nacks, but where have you
care, but I believe that it gives my guitars some
personality. And it’s not as though these are Picasso- or Michelangelo-level artistic touches: something simple and elegant does wonders. Again, compare with the typical steel string stri ng guitar,, which has the simplest appointmen guitar appointments ts and lines, and the most practically executed shapes and contours o bridge and peghead.
However,, while mitering takes extra time and However care, it does pay off visually. Te fifh thing I’v I’vee done is the t he relatively innocuous thing o making my guitars’ lines smooth and organic – as opposed to the t he awkward and clunky look o the average steel string guitar’s guitar’s lines with its various-radius curves mixed in with flat stretches. I consider all the above to be in the category o “artwork”, even though most other people would be happy to merely call it “good workmanship”. As or the carved artwork that I think you originally asked about: it is distinct, and it represents good workmanship, but there are practical considerations that argue against someone doing it as I do it.
And to top it off, there’s a lack o any beveling or relie-work to give any o those details any visual depth. I’ve opted opted or making the various elements o my guitars somewhat visually crisp and interesting. A bit o flair is a good thing – especially i one can recognize that (at least in Japanese art) a line can be so essentially simple and right that it crosses a boundary and isflair. isflair. Te ourth thing I’ve I’ve done is to miter just about every visible binding and purfling joint on my guitars – just as the corners o picture rames are mitered. Te woodworker’s deault position is to make linear elements meet in a butt joint, which gives the work a house-raming/ house-raming/ carpentry look. I’m not knocking carpentry:
For one thing, it has to be cleanly and sensitively executed i it is not to look amateurish. And or another, another, it is so timeconsuming that it raises the cost o an instrument. And in today’s economy, that can
Christ was a carpenter carpenter..
be a deal-killer.
Tere has been one Japanese entrepr entrepreneur eneur who has been copying my work outright. He was having one o my carved designs laser-cut and installed on his actory-made guitars (which were themselves outsourced to a cheaper work orce in another country). I persuaded him to stop doing this; and I think that t hat he has. But that kind o thing is not exactly copying; that’s more o a commercial rip-off. Finally, there’s a dimension to “copying” that has to do with one’s sense o artistic proessionalism rather than one’s woodworking chops or lack o artistic imagination: giving others credit. I receive requests or permission to do designs that I’ve previously executed and that are being b eing admired; I grant every one o them, with my blessing or success and urthermore urt hermore with the suggestion that they make a change somewhere so as to “own” or personalize the new version. Tese people will not claim these designs as ully their own, but will mention that I inspired
“All-wood construction simply looks better. I mean, when is the last time you went to a decent art gallery galler y and saw any work ramed in plastic?”” plastic? Also, borrowing ideas rom someone as prominentt as I seem to b prominen be, e, and mentioning that act, may be a plus in itsel. W Well, ell, so be it. But that’s proessionalism: own your own work as proudly as you can, share the rest, and don’t steal any more than is absolutely necessary.
this or that.
Tanks or taking the time to speak with us, Ervin. Erv in. Beore we let you go, maybe you may have some advice or olks looking to purchase a fine hand crafed guitar?
Tank you. At last: a simple question with a simple answer! Uh . . . I’m I’m kidding, o course: the matter is just as complicated complicated as anything else in this biz. All that considered, I’ I’m m going to give you an answer that isn’t exactly a set o rules o thumb or picking out a fine guitar; instead, I’m I’m going to ta take ke you on a short guided tour o the marketplace as I see it: it is a shifing geography ruled by purchasing power and ull o intriguing yet plausible but ofen misleading appearances . . . within the borders o which one does one’s serious buying.
“generally a given that a fine hand crafed guitar guit ar will will cost more than the alternatives” alternatives” No, I’m not putting it down; but i one is doing anything but buying I do see the matter this way. And necessities I’m sorry or being so wordy about the seemingly simple subject o buying stuff. For starters, it’s generally a given that “a fine hand crafed guitar” will cost more than the alternatives. So let’s start with that. Te question o why some guitars cost a lot more than others -- which look pretty much the same in size and shape as others, are made o similar simi lar materials, and sound roughly the same -- ofen gets asked, in one another another. . Tedozen usual answer answer, , I think, is orm any oorthe ollowing clichés:
(1) Te quality [workmanship [workmanship,, artistr artistryy, materials, or whatever] is better; the price reflects the quality (2) It sounds better (3) It’s one o a limited number; it’s one o a kind; it’s exclusive (4) It’s new and improved; there’s more labor in it; it took longer to make (5) It’s really worth the price. Tis isn’t crap, it’s the real deal; this guy really knows what he’s doing. Or, better yet: it’s a good deal; it’s cheap considering how good it is (6) Tese products have a great reputation and track record; you can’t go wrong (7) It’s a great investment (8) Tese things are in great demand and they’ree going ast; al they’r alll the better p people eople own one (9) It’s beautiul; it’s desirable; the maker is a truly gifed artist (10) It’s special: it’s made by someone renown; you’re you’ re buying a piece o history! (11) You have the discrimination and discernment to see the value o this; you’ll be a desirable, interesting, and superior person i you buy it; this separates s eparates the men rom the boys, and the Average Joe rom the Players (12) It’s what the market can bear; take it or leave it
Any or all o these things may well be ‘true’, and i you’re looking to purchase “a fine handmade guitar” you’ll run across and deal with most o these. However, I do think the matter o how come? is the wrong question to be ascinated by. by. I mean: do you really care why something costs a lot more than something else, other than academically? A much better question is: what does any o this have to do with you, and what is the reason you would buy anything significantly expensive? Let me explain my thinking. A peek behind the marketplace curtain Te fine print to the above points, i I may put it like that, is never mentioned out loud but is essential to understanding the Dance O Te Purchase-And-Sale -- especially in the mass market. Tis fine print is:
(2) Te manuacturer manuacturer,, very likely your average guy who is trying tr ying to make a living, doesn doesn’t ’t really care about your personal happiness nor the salesman’s; his priorities are problem-ree production and a good bottom line; he needs to
there there’ ’s ssome ome necessary personal connection in operation. In everything else -and most certainly in the mass marketplace -- everyone is doing this or that or their own reasons. Period. Tis isn’t isn’t cynicism, by the way way;; it’ it’ss just that t hat this is how things work when money is involved. Moreover Mor eover,, everybody concerned (including you) has their own [and rarely mentioned] overhead, however however it may be calculated. In the case o a crafsman making a guitar or you, part o his or her personal overhead is likely to be
ship his product out and keep his own people happy.
(1) their love o the work and their competence,
(3) You, You, likewise, are a good person but don’t really care how many problems the manuacturer or salesman have: you want to get a good goo d deal and be happy happy.. None o this is “good” or “bad”, and none o it is personal. Te exceptions to the above occur in that special corner o the marketplace in which someone is truly making something s omething or you
(2) a concern with making the thing they produce be right, correct, and perect in conscientious ways, and
-like a dinner, a painted a remodeled bathroom, or a guitar -- orportrait, you stumble onto something in the marketplace that has some special, personal significance or you, either
genuine personalare involvement as perhaps pleasure and expectation concernedas . . ar . and even disappointment i something doesn’t doesn’t go right.
(1) Te salesman is undoubtedly a nice person, but isn’t really interested in your happiness; he needs to make the sale; sa le; the more pleasantly he can do this, and the ewer complain complaints ts and returns there are, the better.
(3) personal conscientiousness in ensuring that you are genuinely pleased with the end result. In the modern scheme o things, these things t hings all count points. Your own counterpart to that is that you will expect, and experience, some
imagined or real. In either o these cases
Te laws o pricing in general
involved and, sometimes, marketing and cost involved o doing business. But they all come under the heading o “supply and demand” regardless o whether you are a total innocent or a collector with Godlike taste and eye.
In general, and aside rom rom quality -- however it may be defined and which no salesman sa lesman ever ails to mention or at least imply -- there are three main actors that affect the price o anything. Tey are pretty common-sensical and
A subcategory o the t he Supply & Demand
shouldn’t mystiy anyone. Te first o these is: the market has its own rules or setting prices. Tese rules ru les have nothing to do with you other than statistical statistically ly.. Furthermore, almost no product exists at only one level o price and quality. You can buy a toaster or $29.95 or $229.95, or a car or $10,000 or $300,000. Monkeys, bananas, and everything else in between all ollow this general rule. Guitars won’t be any different.
complex produced has to do with whether or not is whoever the item in question dead or otherwise definitely out o business; i yes, then no more o that item will ever e ver be produced, and this drives prices o the desired product upwards. Te third general actor is the most interesting because it is entirely irrational: it has to do with whether something speaks to one or has personal appeal. It doesn’t matter whether this is based in personal greed, passion, obsession,
Te second general actor has to do with Supplyy and Demand, aalthough Suppl lthough this is disguised as quality and spoken o in terms o rarity, rarity, stylishness, workmanshi workmanship p o desi design, gn,
spirituality, taste, altruism, competitivene spirituality, competitiveness, ss, lust, antasy, ignorance, addiction, addicti on, reality, ego, sex appeal, delusion, belie in destiny, destiny, or genuine sophistication.
uniqueness, the time and effort and skill
Te brain’s Pleasure Center gets a definite jolt rom some purchases. Again, this is not good, bad, smart, stupid, or greedy: it’s simply how things work. And as long as one has the money it takes, the thornier aspects o decoding the quality o something may be happily ignored.
commands higher prices, regardless o how weird his art is. Te value o things in this category resides in a tangle o true tr ue worth or merit, ‘brand loyalty’, current popular opinion or addism, nostalgia, nostalgi a, “o “owning wning a piece o history“,, canny-to-unscrupulous marketing, history“ being “ahead o its time” or “vintage”,
Don’t getGenuine me wrong: thereit’s really such as thing as Quality; justisthat you’re not likely to hear about ab out it rom anyone who has a vested interest in selling you something; you have to talk with an inormed and neutral party to get to that. Also, Als o, in terms o English grammar, please note that “quality” is a noun, not an adjective: adject ive: it’ it’ss meaningless without a modifier like “good” or “bad” or some kind o synonym or either one. Te most powerul single componen componentt o this
pandering sel-image, establishing a personal connectiontowith the artist, or any o the eelings listed in the second sentence o the preceding paragraph.
irrational actor is that things produced by or associated with well-known people or entities command higher prices. Tis is an immutable law.. I repeat: I’m not saying this is bad; it is law
old days as the Caveat Emptor clause) needs to be obeyed. In buying horses you should be able to tell the difference between a race horse and a painted nag with a nice saddle; the same goes
What do these things mean or us? I think they mean two things. For starters, I think we should consider admitting that it is the least rational part o buying something that makes the experience the most thrilling. Second, it means that the more expensive the thing is, the more Te Iron Rule o Buying (known in the
merely not rational. Any amous artist’s work
or guitars.
For these reasons, most important rational corollary to the pricing/buying comp complex lex is that you need to have a sense o whether the claims that are made about an expensive object match its actual pluses and minuses. You must do some homework.
Quality implies that some things really are better than others. But quality is hard to pin down in spite o the act that everyone claims it and swears by it.
I this means paying someone knowledgeable to give you some useul pointers then you should consider doing it: otherwise you become the seller’s lawul prey (it’s his job, afer all, to sell you something!) and your thrill will have a short hal-lie. While this probably sounds a bit overdramatic overdramatic it is really no different than looking both ways beore crossing the street. Some reasons or buying a handcraed guitar 1) Quality We believe that something can be ‘o higher quality’ than something else. Tis can sound s ound
Manuacturers and salesmen pitch quality as Manuacturers though you could measure it by the quart or the pound or sell it by the yard, y ard, while actually putting their best efforts into price point. On the other hand, or buyers, quality is simply how good the product is. You know: whether or not it works well, lasts, and satisfies. Mass-produced things tend to all down in this regard because they are cloned objects that lack individuality. Te phrase “i you’ve seen one [o a given model] you’ve seen ‘em all” applies to them literally. Tis is particularly obvious in products like li ke kitchen appliances, cars o any given model, chocolate chip cookies, and any print run o any book,
plausible.
magazine, or newspaper.
2) Appearance Guitars look shiny and beautiul, in part, to attract the buyer. buyer. One might ssay ay that they have put on nice clothes, and makeup and perhaps even perume and jewelry (a.k.a. options, eatures, and selling points), then put out the word that they’re available, and have gone to their avorite hangout to attract you and have you take them home.
object in question. I am o the opinion that there really is such a thing as artisti artisticc merit; it’s it’s just that it’ it’s slippery and hard to get a hold o i one hasn’t had any education in the ins and outs o line, proportion, visual symmetry and balance, creativity, creativity, and the overall success o a design (or lack o it).
Is this quality? Not at all: it’s simply how the world works. However, i you’re looking or something better than average, and i you can’t tell the difference between something s omething genuinely good and something glitzed up but mediocre, then you have no business thinking about buying an expensive guitar guitar.. 3) Artistry Tis is a subset o item #2, and here we touch on one o the more elusive elemen elements ts in this t his
It takes a bit o learning, training, and exposure and it all results in an educated eye; there are perectly good reasons, afer all, as to why some buildings, paintings, clothing, cars, home urnishings, and human bodies are more appealing than others. It’ll It’ll do you good goo d to become amiliar with some o these reasons. 4) Sound Everybody in the guitar making and selling business cites their guitars’ sound as a selling point (actually, they hawk their guitars’ specialness, ofen without spelling out exactly
equation: the genuine artistic merit o the
what that is -- and in the process hinting that
the sound is beyond description . . . which is in large measure true). Tere are guitars out there that sound o.k. (very ew sound really bad, although there are some), s ome), and there are guitars out there that will make you eel like you’ve you’ ve heard a choir o angels sing, or seen a magnificent sunset, or just watched your child graduate summa cum laude.
5) Personal reasons Let’ss return to the question I posed at the Let’ beginning: Why, really, would you buy some thing expensive?
Most people will be happy with the ormer; a ew will be looking or the latter experience. Commercial makers, as I said, are usually ocused on the Price Point. You simply have to make up your mind what you’re in the market or, and what you’ll settle or, and what you can afford. Tat really is the bottom line -- in spite o the act that when I do these things I harbor the secret antasy that owning a particularly expensive thing will make me a superior
Your reasons are your reasons, o course. But be honest with yoursel. Some good reasons might be: (1) I really want it. Te impulse does not go away within a day. I will derive pleasure rom this item or a long time to come. (2) I need one (or this or that t hat plausible reason). (3) Tis [item] is really really,, really goo good; d; I’ve done my homework. (4) Tis is better than the one I have now; it’s an appropriate purchase (5) I’m serious about this; I collect. (6) I’ve outgrown the old one; I need something that fits me better personally.
person. I suspect I’m not alone in this.
Some more questionable reasons might be the ollowing (again, just be honest with yoursel; people purchase things or all o these reasons, and more): (1) I want to show off and get admired; I’d be seen as a superior person. (2) I want to celebrate [something] and this’ll do it. (3) i I buy it I’ll be happy, and I can afford it. (4) I can turn this around quickly and make a ew bucks off it. (5) Te salesman intimidated/shamed/pressur intimidated/shamed/pressured/ ed/ sold/impressed/convinced sold/impres sed/convinced me. (6) I’ll add it to my hoard; it’s my next fix. (7) I believe the hype; the thing has to be good; everybody says so; I’m I’m convinced I ought to have it. (8) Having one is expected o someone at my level. (9) I’m bored with my old one; it’s time to buy
(10) I’d miss out on a great deal i I didn’t jump on it: I can’t pass this up. Why would you buy it? At the beginning o this thread I said that the question o why some guitars cost a lot more than others is the wrong question to be ascinated by -- other than academically. Really: as a general matter matter,, who cares? And is anyone baffled by the act that a 747 airliner costs more than a Cessna? I repeat: a much better question is the personal one o why you would buy an expensive one. Tere are only two reasons that I can think o or buying an expensive guitar. Te first is that one will love it. Te second is that it is looked on as a useul tool or an investment. Tese motives can be combined in any guitar purchase and, with both, it involve involvess doing your homework and paying attention to your own motives,
something newer.
experience, and desires as well as evaluating the guitar on its own merits.
Compare it. Check it out. Would you buy a house without a structural report on it? o the extent that the pursuit o good ssound ound and quality are actors in these matters, the act is that most people have never had the opportunity to listen to a truly good guitar’s guitar’s sound or to appreciate the fine points o its design. Not really.
“the guitar you are agonizing about is just a guitar; it’s not a kidney ”
Tey consequently understand these things about as well as they understand the tax ta x code. Fortunately, as I said, one can pay someone knowledgeable or a ew hours’ tutorial; it is well worth the cost. And, I repeat, you owe it to yoursel: it’s it’s your job to equip yoursel to tell the difference between hype and the real thing.
tell the difference between a genuinely good guitar and a glitzed up but mediocre one, then you have no business thinking about spending a lot o money on one. On the other hand, i you get taken or a ride, guitar-wise, it isn’ isn’tt the end o the world: you can learn something rom it. I mean, that’s sort o what lie’s all about, isn’t it? Also, people are motivated to buy things partly because they eel time pressure; they believe they must act quickly or lose the t he sale. My wisdom on this matter is that there are mighty
Tis is no easy thing to do in an environm environment ent where we’r we’ree all neck-deep in perpetual hype. But the act remains that i you’ you’re re looking or
ew true once-in-a-lietime opportunities; it’ it’ss simply the market’s job to make you think this sale is one o them. Also, A lso, some perspective helps: the guitar you are agonizing about is just a
something better than average, and i you can’t
guitar; it’s not a kidney.
HE BOOM LINE Ultimately, in buying an expensive guitar, you are not dealing with a simple case o ‘like’ or a ‘not like’. It’s an analysis or which any checklist o specific items or qualities is merely a set o guidelines. You’re actually playing and listening and looking or the overall quality o the experience. Everything should be o top quality: at a top level it has to be so. You’re looking at: “is every element technically correct”? And then you’re looking at the creativity creativity,, and the little touches. Does the thing work as a whole? Does the balance o the various elements work? Is the sound rich, ull, and expressiv expressive? e? Does any part o the sound ail to compare with any other part? Does the t he response under any particular lef-hand playing position overpower that o any other position? Do different right-hand
Does anything in the visual visua l field dominate everything else? Do the curves o the upper bout ‘match’ the curve o the waist and the curves o the lower bout? Is the rosette the right size or that guitar, or is it too to o emphatic, or underprominent? underprominen t? Do the colors o the various parts and woods match and complement complement one another? Does the guitar seem se em put together by one artist, or assembled by a committee? I any one thing grabs your atten attention tion more than any other element and doesn’t let go, does that not somehow denote a lack o balance on some level? A lack o balance denotes some degree o deficit, and a five star guitar (to borrow a ranking system rom the restauran restaurantt business) should be o the highest quality qua lity and be ‘right’ in everything -- including the quality o the thrill. Finally,, once you’ve decided that you really do Finally want something, then you must deal with the price as best you can: you are, afer all, in the
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