Posted on January 12, 2010May 29, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Music, Cognition, and Computerized Sound; An Introduction to Psychoacoustics edited by Perry R. Cook Review: Music, Cognition, and Computerized Sound; An Introduction to Psychoacoustics edited by Perry R. Cook Reviewed by R.M. Mottola Originally published in American Lutherie #67, 2001 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013 Music, Cognition, and Computerized Sound; An Introduction to Psychoacoustics Edited by Perry R. Cook The MIT Press, 2001 ISBN 978-0262531900 Wisdom, like beauty, is where you find it, and a beautiful bit of wisdom is tucked into AL#42. Here is found a thought, presented in a letter by Pamela Stanley-Rees. On the topic of the frequency response of instruments, Ms. Stanley-Rees opines that it is wise to always consider the response characteristics of the human ear and auditory system when evaluating the response characteristics of an instrument. She states: “Without the man in the loop, all of our instruments are just trees that have had a bad day.” This thought as presented by Ms. Stanley-Rees is axiomatic, to me at least, and I try to let it inform my own design work. There is little sense in putting effort into working on aspects of the tone of an instrument that, although measurable and therefore present, cannot be perceived by human beings listening to that instrument. The problem this presents to the designers of musical instruments of course is that in addition to what we know and learn about instrument design, we must also learn something about how the human auditory system perceives musical sound. 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 12, 2010May 29, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Custom Guitars: A Complete Guide to Contemporary Handcrafted Guitars edited by Simone Solondz Review: Custom Guitars: A Complete Guide to Contemporary Handcrafted Guitars edited by Simone Solondz Reviewed by Benjamin Hoff Originally published in American Lutherie #66, 2001 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013 Custom Guitars: A Complete Guide to Contemporary Handcrafted Guitars Edited by Simone Solondz String Letter Publishing, 2000 ISBN 978-1890490294 The creators of Custom Guitars had the opportunity, the resources, and the talent to bring into existence a ground-breaking book heralding today’s revolutionary age of guitar building. But.... Despite the claim of its hyperbolic subtitle, Custom Guitars is an incomplete and occasional guide that can’t seem to decide what it wants to be. It consists of eight skimpy chapters by various authors that could be (and possibly were) magazine articles, stretched out and separated by more than 200 color photographs of varying quality, followed by a list of 209 custom builders, a good many of whom — such as Guild, C.F. Martin, and Ovation — are manufacturers, not custom builders. The resulting assembly is a flashy but insubstantial piece of work, the literary equivalent of a factory guitar. 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 12, 2010May 29, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Dangerous Curves: The Art of the Guitar by Darcy Kuronen Review: Dangerous Curves: The Art of the Guitar by Darcy Kuronen Reviewed by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #67, 2001 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013 Dangerous Curves: The Art of the Guitar Darcy Kuronen MFA Publications, 2000 ISBN 978-0878464784 It’s getting harder to write reviews of guitar picture books. I’ve nearly passed through my third decade of playing, building, and heavy reading about guitars, and I have seen the elephant and heard the owl. When confronted by yet another hip coffee-table volume, my first thought is, “Go ahead, impress me. I dare you.” Dangerous Curves is sort of up to the challenge. Photos of 110 guitars (from an exhibition held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) illustrate the evolution of the guitar as objet d’art while the text attempts — succinctly and entertainingly — to track the changes to the instrument as cultural phenomena. The book is a good thumbnail refresher course in the history of the guitar with a new twist. Guitar nuts tend to think of a few guitars as important and the rest as also-rans. Within the context of art there are no important guitars, only artistically interesting guitars. Art is dynamic. The strongest art has led its culture. With the possible exception of the Stratocaster (my own judgment), no guitar has been artistically that important. Guitar art has followed cultural trends, not led them. 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 28, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Shoptalk 5 by Todd Sams, Don MacRostie, Dan Erlewine Review: Shoptalk 5 by Todd Sams, Don MacRostie, Dan Erlewine Reviewed by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #59, 1999 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Five, 2008 Video: Shoptalk 5 Todd Sams, Don MacRostie, Dan Erlewine Stewart-MacDonald At the ’99 Merlefest in North Carolina I had the good fortune to find myself manning a booth next to Stew-Mac. It was a pleasure to meet Todd Sams and get to know Jay Hostetler better. It was also astonishing to hear so many self-proclaimed luthiers confess that they had never heard of Stewart-MacDonald. Where do these luthiers buy their tools? My guess is that they aren’t buying them at all, that what they can’t find at Ace Hardware or cobble together in the shop they are doing without; that they don’t even know about the tools that could make their work better and their lives easier. 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.
