Posted on December 16, 2019June 11, 2025 by Dale Phillips Dissolving the Mysteries Dissolving the Mysteries by Graham Caldersmith previously published in Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly Volume 10, #4, 1982 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2001 We live in confusing times where progress in understanding the natural world, and in manipulating nature to our advantage has spawned an ever-changing technological environment that seems beyond our own control, and even beyond our comprehension in its scale and complexity. We are beginning to see organized reaction against technological excess, and movements towards simpler ways of living. Most luthiers are aware that the practical and traditional practice of lutherie is being analyzed and even supplemented by scientific methods, and some feel that the dignity and integrity of the traditions are therefore threatened as we redefine and dissolve the mysteries of lutherie. I would argue that the greatest system of lutherie to date, the Renaissance-Baroque school of violin making emerged in times of devastating plague and recurring war, when the orthodoxy of creation and nature was being challenged by Galileo and Copernicus in centers not far from Brescia, Cremona, and southern Germany. In fact we know that because the centers of Baroque violin making lay on the trade routes through which the latest news in science, art, and technology flowed with trade merchandise. The great masters of lutherie would have been exposed to new concepts in vibration, pitch, and wave motion which they would find difficult to ignore in their experience of wood vibration at the workbench. How they dealt with it is not recorded, but that they produced unsurpassed masterpieces in bowed instruments is undisputed. Contemporary luthiers live in times of social upheaval, war, and pollution, but also with a growing body of knowledge about the function of the instruments they make. It remains to be seen how we will react to this environment, but already we have seen a variety of new designs for the guitar, and the vital interaction of luthiers with pioneering guitarists. 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 November 13, 2019May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips Controlling Strings, Wood, and Air Controlling Strings, Wood, and Air from her 1979 GAL Convention lecture Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly Volume 8, #3, 1980 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume 1, 2000 I’d like to take a minute to tell you a story. Imagine the scent in front of a cave some 20,000 years ago. A family has just killed a bear and is skinning it and preparing the meat for food. They’ve given some of the rawhide to their young son who has made some strips to string his first hunting bow. He and his sister are sitting out in front of the cave trying to tie some of the slippery strips to the bow-stick. As they do this the boy puts one end of the stick in his mouth to hold it steady as he tightens and ties the slippery stuff. As he plucks the rawhide to check the pull he suddenly realizes he can get different sounds depending on how he bites the stick and shapes his lips and cheeks around it. This could have been the origin of the musical bow. When I told this story in Ames, Iowa, a few years ago it created quite a lot of interest. After the lecture they produced a record of someone playing the mouth bow. I now have a mouth bow that a young man made for me which is quite a challenge to try to play. Actually, we are working with the same three elements that the young cave boy had under his control: strings, wood, and air. He could vary all three of these quite easily to a certain extent. In our modern bowed and plucked strings, however, the wood and the air resonances are more or less set when the instruments are made. For years I have worked to test the effects of variations in the wood and air resonances, but it means taking the instruments apart to thin the plates or slice down the height of the ribs (on expendable instruments, of course!) 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 31, 2019May 23, 2025 by S Mc Herr Helmholtz’ Tube Herr Helmholtz’ Tube by Mike Doolin previously published in American Lutherie #91, 2007 See also, “There’s a Hole in the Bucket” by Cyndy Burton “Sideways” by John Monteleone “Three Holes are Better than One” by Robert Ruck Design innovator Mike Doolin tried an interesting experiment. Mike’s guitars have the distinctive double-cutaway feature and they don’t lend themselves to a port up in the neck/cutaway region for reasons of underlying structure. So Mike put one in the lower bout and very unexpectedly found his Helmholtz resonance had raised something like a major third. He felt that compromised the responses of the guitar. His solution was to “tube it.” The side was ported before I assembled the guitar. After gluing the back on, I realized the change in the Helmholtz when I tapped on the guitar with the port open. It seemed obvious that a shift of a major third up was going to radically change the sound of the guitar, probably killing most of the bass response. I knew that ports in bass reflex speakers are often tubes, where the longer the tube the lower the resonant frequency. I also knew that the tube could be either inside or outside the box. So I initially held a roll of toilet paper against the port, letting the cardboard core of the roll form a tube that extended the port. That dropped the main air resonance back down, showing me that I was on the right track. Then I turned a tube of wood on my lathe to fit the hole and experimented with the length until the air resonance moved less than a half-step with the port closed or open. I recall the port being 1 1/4" in diameter and the tube being about 2 1/4" long, but that’s just from memory. 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 January 14, 2010May 28, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Left-Brain Lutherie by David C. Hurd, PhD Review: Left-Brain Lutherie by David C. Hurd, PhD Reviewed by R.M. Mottola Originally published in American Lutherie #81, 2005 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 Left-Brain Lutherie Using Physics and Engineering Concepts for Building Guitar Family Instruments: An Introductory Guide to Their Practical Application David C. Hurd, PhD ISBN 0-9760883-0-4 Ukuleles by Kawika, Inc. www.ukuleles.com A prepublication copy of David Hurd’s Left-Brain Lutherie was given to AL for review. A draft of the following review was sent to the author prior to publication so that any factual errors in the review could be corrected. During the early 1980s I worked at a small engineering company that made instrumentation used in biomedical research. As the company grew, the product line expanded to include devices used in other fields, including analytical chemistry and materials science. I count the time I spent on this job as some of the most precious in my life, in no small part because it provided the opportunity to spend a good deal of time with research scientists and to be directly involved in some of their efforts. This contact taught me the value of scientific methodological inquiry, and it shaped my consideration for the folks who do this work as some of the most creative and open-minded people to be found. That scientists are smart, careful, and highly analytical fits well with the general image of those in the field. But the fact that they approach their research subjects with high levels of openness, objectivity, and general creativity unfortunately somehow gets lost in the general stereotype of scientists. 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 January 11, 2010May 27, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Acoustics of Wood by Voichita Buchur Review: Acoustics of Wood by Voichita Buchur reviewed by Nicholas Von Robison Originally published in American Lutherie #57, 1999 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Five, 2008 Acoustics of Wood Voichita Buchur CRC Press, 1995 ISBN 0849348013 Voichita Buchur’s book Acoustics of Wood is a synthesis of over fifty years of work by the scientific community into the physics of how this complex material responds to vibrational wave stimuli. With almost 800 references into the literature and about ten years from inception to its being published in 1995, it is a tremendous resource for the luthier’s understanding of his/her main material. I don’t get the feel from the text that the author is a maker herself, even though she is a member of the Catgut Acoustical Society. The book is heavily weighted towards violin family instruments, but this doesn’t make the book any less valuable to guitar makers. After a short, well written, general discussion on the anatomical structure of wood (macro, micro, and molecular), a brief outline is presented dividing the book into three major sections. Part One explores the physical phenomena associated with the effects of acoustic waves in forests (windbreaks to attenuate noise) and architectural acoustics (concert halls, office buildings, restaurants) with wood being used as a construction material and insulator in conjunction with other nonwood materials. A survey of six European concert halls and their geometrical, acoustical, and construction data is pretty interesting. 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.
