Posted on June 22, 2020March 6, 2024 by Dale Phillips Brazilian Guitar Makers Brazilian Guitarmakers by Roberto Gomes Originally published in American Lutherie #33, 1993 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 The guitar has been the main musical instrument in Brazil since it was brought by the Portuguese colonizers centuries ago. In those times, Baroque guitars were the most common string instruments. They had five courses of gut or wire strings. Since then it hasn’t changed much, as we can see in the “Brazilian viola” which is used for a kind of Brazilian country music called musica sertaneja (countryside music). The shape of the soundbox of this viola today resembles more a small classic guitar. Unfortunately there are very few records of those times, making it difficult to make a better study of those guitars and their makers. It’s known that most of the instruments were made in Portugal, Italy, and France. The first decade of this century brought three immigrant families from Italy: the Gianninis, the DiGiorgios, and the DelVecchios. These families were luthiers in their country of origin and later they founded the main Brazilian guitar factories which became the backbone of Brazilian-made guitars for nearly eighty years. They made mostly classic guitars and some violins, along with Brazilian violas. They also made mandolins, first with vaulted backs like lutes and later with flat backs, which are used to play choro music. 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 March 2, 2020March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Free Plate Tuning, Part Three: Guitars Free Plate Tuning, Part Three: Guitars by Alan Carruth Originally published in American Lutherie #30, 1992 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 See also, Free Plate Tuning, Part One: Theory by Alan Carruth Free Plate Tuning, Part Two: Violins by Alan Carruth The guitar is somewhat simpler acoustically than the violin, and perhaps more limited. As a result it has evolved into a number of more or less specialized forms to suit different musical uses. It is difficult to imagine a guitar that could “do it all” the way a good violin can. Rather, each guitar seems to have a “center,” a sound that is characteristic of it that suits it for a particular style or player. Good guitars do have a wide dynamic and timbral range, but they always retain their characteristic sound. As I see it, a good part of the art in this game is deciding where you want the “center” to be, or, alternatively, how to get the “center” you want out of a given shape or set of wood. And then you want to have a broad dynamic and expressive range, good balance, and clarity or resolution; the ability to distinguish things like inner lines. No amount of acoustic science is going to tell you what priority to put on the different characteristics of the sound, nor whether you have succeeded in the end. But if you know what you’re doing, an oscillator and a jar of glitter can help you get the sound you want. One of the main simplifying factors between the guitar and the violin is the lack of a soundpost in the guitar. This allows the top and the back to be more independent; in acoustic terms they are not so tightly coupled and can act out of phase. 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 March 2, 2020March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Quick Cuts: The 13-string Chiavi-Miolin Guitar Quick Cuts: The 13-string Chiavi-Miolin Guitar by Johannes Labusch Originally published in American Lutherie #83, 2005 The preconception of what a classical guitar has to look like may spring from our desire to find the definitive, the classic look and feel of what we cherish. The familiar visual signals give us a certain peace of mind, the reassuring feeling that something has found its final, perfect, and most satisfying shape. I had known Swiss luthier Ermanno Chiavi’s guitars to be firmly rooted in that straightforward philosophy. But constant improvement has been as much a mark of his development as a steady and firm belief in tradition. I own a Chiavi guitar built in 1996, and it is proof of his solid no-nonsense style. At the same time, it illustrates his keen curiosity and sense of experiment: The body is made from beautiful bird’s-eye maple, and the inlays around the soundhole represent a row of maple leaves. 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 June 28, 2019March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips The Imperator The Imperator Revisiting the Lyra Guitar by Alain Bieber previously published in American Lutherie #88, 2006 The year 1806 is very special for my personal guitar addiction. As reported in a previous contribution (AL#80), 1806 is when Giovanni Battista Fabricatore of Naples produced the first guitar I know of with a fully adjustable neck. This lyra guitar (or lyre guitar), now in the Paris museum, might have inspired Stauffer and the whole Viennese School. I have no proof of that, but I remember that Stauffer started his career by replicating the Neapolitan master’s models. Legnani also played a role, as everyone knows. I have become a complete fan of adjustable necks. After a dozen guitars inspired by the Stauffer model, I am more and more attracted by this basic option. I no longer see the superiority of the fixed neck. To me it is less convenient and less stable across time, due to the difficulty of adjusting the action. To summarize, I admire G.B. Fabricatore as well as the Viennese luthiers who enhanced his pioneering efforts. For these reasons I decided I should celebrate the bicentennial anniversary of the 1806 Fabricatore by building a lyra guitar, with an adjustable neck, of course. I would also find out through this exercise if such instruments were really as bad as commonly said. The so-called neoclassical infatuation flooded the world at that time and produced the lyra guitar. This instrument is a reflection of the Greco-Roman craze which influenced all aspects of arts and crafts, including the lutherie world, as early as 1750. Without that context, the lyra guitar would have been either nonexistent or very different. The neoclassical movement emerged during the Enlightenment as a facet of the profound desire for change of the whole society. Among its foundations are the concomitant archeological findings of the Naples area. A real cult for the artistic accomplishments of the ancients resulted. From this basis, a new, more austere style of furniture with multiple links to the archeological images available appeared and seduced a society which was a bit fed up with the royal styles that preceded it. All artists and craftsmen where ready for a profound change. In a rather short time the Louis XVI style was born. This moment is still considered by many as the apex of European cabinet making. 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 June 24, 2019March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Three Short Articles by H.E. Huttig The Guitar & I by H.E. Huttig previously published in Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly 10 #2, 1982 See also, “Three Craftsmen” by H.E. Huttig “Woes of a Wood Merchant” by H.E. Huttig My introduction to the mystery and beauty of musical instruments took place in my grandmother’s hotel suite. Grandma had been to Europe, an experience reserved for a favored few in those days. Her suite in the old Hotel Lucerne was a cultural oasis in the otherwise arid surroundings of Kansas City, a town only recently emerged from frontier days and having a considerable preoccupation with cattle and lumbering. Her rooms were filled with bric-a-brac and antique furniture. In addition there was a grand piano and numerous small instruments including violins, mandolins and guitars. I was five years old at the time and my inquisitive fingers quickly found the strings of the instruments. I marveled at the sounds and appreciated the beauty of the polished rare woods. Later Grandma moved to Miami Beach and her guitar was damaged when a hurricane blew in the windows. The guitar was given to me all in ruins, and I managed to repair it. It is still in my possession. Years later I met Delfin Martinez and Ted McCully, both talented guitarists. Delfin had come from Key West and was familiar with all phases of Latin music. Though he plays guitar, his favorite instrument is the TRES, a three stringed Cuban folkloric instrument Ted was born in Russia and was adopted by Admiral McCully from the crowds of Russian orphans left homeless after World War I. 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.
