The Heretic’s Guide to Alternative Lutherie Woods

by John Calkin

Originally published in American Lutherie #67, 2001 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013



Why do we even need alternative wood species for musical instruments? That’s a perfectly valid question, and the answer is that we don’t. Rosewood, mahogany, and maple have served us well for centuries, we know what to expect of them, and our customers have already come to accept them as trustworthy and will pay for them. So why look further?

First of all (and speaking from a steel string guitar perspective), let’s discard the notion that some species of wood make good instruments and that others don’t. The concept of tonewood is a hoax. Of the few things we can do to a guitar and still call it a guitar, changing the wood it is made of will have the least impact upon the quality of the sound it produces. The tonal difference between a mahogany guitar and a rosewood guitar is exactly the same as the difference between two mahogany guitars or two rosewood guitars. Can you tell what a guitar is made of while listening to an unfamiliar recording? No one I know claims they can. No one at the blind listening sessions I’ve attended could reliably distinguish between mahogany and rosewood guitars, or maple and koa guitars for that matter.