Posted on September 9, 2020March 6, 2024 by Dale Phillips The Bluegrass Dobro The Bluegrass Dobro America’s Second Native Instrument by Bobby Wolfe Originally published in American Lutherie #5, 1986 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume One, 2000 There is a little ditty known as “The Duck Principle.” It says: If it looks like a duck, if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck. Well, since the Dobro only looks like a guitar, and even in this respect with significant differences, and doesn’t qualify in the other ways, I say it’s not a duck. Seriously, in my opinion, the mechanically amplified instrument known as the Dobro does qualify as America’s second native instrument. This article is designed to acquaint you with the Dobro and to provide information on common repair and setup needs of the instrument. Today, in addition to the members of The Original Family building the original instrument, there are many individuals building their versions. Most of these people have their own ideas and opinions about what works best. Therefore, I am not presenting my ideas, experiences, and working practices as the “last word.” First, let’s define Dobro. It is a registered brand name that is now also used generically to describe most resonator-type guitars. The name comes from the Dopera (Dopyera) brothers. There are five Dopera brothers. There are five letters in Dobro. The word dobro means “good” in their native Slavic language. Take your pick! Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on August 17, 2020March 6, 2024 by Dale Phillips Basics of Air Resonances Basics of Air Resonances by W.D. Allen Originally published in American Lutherie #1, 1985 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 Stringed musical instruments with soundboxes typical of the guitar and violin families have many internal air resonances. The resonance with the lowest frequency is called the Helmholtz resonance, and its importance to the quality of the instrument is appreciated. The resonances with higher frequencies have been referred to by different names: higher Helmholtz, cavity modes, or standing wave modes. These resonances have been measured and documented for several different instruments, but there seems to be little information on their controlling parameters. The intent of this article is to give the instrument builder some understanding of the air resonances, what parameters establish the frequencies, and some insight into the potential for using this information to make better instruments. A minimum-math, pictorial approach with approximation and rounded-off numbers will be used. Showing the effects of the controlling parameters is the objective, not the absolute value of a number. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on July 24, 2020March 6, 2024 by Dale Phillips Area Tuning the Violin Area Tuning the Violin by Keith Hill Originally published as Guild of American Luthiers Data Sheet #283, 1984 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 See also, Hints for Area Tuning the Violin by Keith Hill Announcements of “discoveries” of the “secrets” of Stradivarius usually are not worth the ink used to print them. When they appear, everyone reads them with the customary curiosity. Then away they are filed along with the hundreds of other such claims. They get dredged up again when someone writes yet another book on the violin. Mindful of this possible fate, I would like to offer an explanation of a discovery that I have made. It is not of the “secrets” of Stradivarius; rather it is, I believe, the acoustical system utilized by the ancient Italian violin makers. The system is simplicity itself. It is possible for anyone who understands it and has normal hearing to use it. Moreover, it requires no measuring equipment save the ears and possibly a monochord. Furthermore, the thicknesses and their inexplicable variants, which so annoy our modern sense of decency when we observe them in the finest violins by Stradivari and Guarneri, occur naturally as a result of this system. Because it is so simple, it is, of course, the last place one would think to look for the answer. I expect that once you are equipped with the following information, you will go to your nearest antique Italian fiddle and look to see if what I am saying is actually there. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on July 8, 2020March 6, 2024 by Dale Phillips Hints for Area Tuning the Violin Hints for Area Tuning the Violin by Keith Hill Originally published in American Lutherie #1, 1985 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 See also, Area Tuning the Violin by Keith Hill In my article “Area Tuning the Violin” I presented my discovery of one of the theoretical principles governing the acoustical quality of the violins made by Stradivarius and his numerous Italian contemporaries. Because I believe that the area-tuning principle is the most important of all the acoustical principles pertinent to violin making, I deemed it best to present it in isolation. I would be less than open with you if I did not say that the American Acoustical Society and the Catgut Acoustical Society both rejected the worthiness of the area-tuning principle. I feel that their reasons were full of vested self-interest. I tell you what I told them: Paying attention to flexibility of free plates is a waste of time and attention. Consider the following points. First, thousands of violins have been made using this notion for the last century, yet no consistently superior results have been produced. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on July 6, 2020March 6, 2024 by Dale Phillips Spiritual Lutherie Spiritual Lutherie by Raphael Weisman Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly, Volume 9 #3, 1981 and Lutherie Woods and Steel String Guitars, 1997 We are all, in some way, the samurai warriors of today. Our weapons are our tools, our disciplines and skills are our crafts, and our aim is the refining and perfecting of ourselves as artists, as craftspeople, and as human beings. I am becoming more and more aware of my quest, of my journey in this field, and only a small amount of it really has to do with making instruments. I see life as a university, a school, the school of the soul where we come to learn as much as we can in a brief spell. This world is the world of the physical, the material, the world of money and nature. It is here that we can learn the most and the fastest because this world offers us an opportunity to experience. And it is through experience that we grow in consciousness, in awareness, and in form. We are the molders of our experience, and through the process of experiencing, we learn. Through learning and refining, we grow. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
