Posted on January 5, 2010March 11, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: Lyre-guitar: Etoile charmante, between the 18th and 19th centuries by Eleonora Vulpiani Review: Lyre-guitar: Etoile charmante, between the 18th and 19th centuries by Eleonora Vulpiani Reviewed by John Doan Originally published in American Lutherie #99, 2009 Lyre-guitar: Etoile charmante, between the 18th and 19th centuries Eleonora Vulpiani Two volumes (Italian and English) plus CD Rome, 2007 www.eleonoravulpiani.com No one can question that the guitar has great popularity today and that the lyre-guitar is little known and all but forgotten, but few realize its past significance and the important role it played in the early days of the birth of the classical guitar. Rediscovering an instrument from a forgotten tradition brings with it many intriguing surprises, which is what Eleonora Vulpiani presents us in her self-produced book Lyre-Guitar: Etoile charmante, between the 18th and 19th centuries. It is a small window into the grand world of the lyre-guitar. For those not students of history, let’s back up to the last quarter of the 18th century to a time when Western culture was entering into a Neoclassical era, both intellectually and artistically exploring aesthetics and values of a Graeco-Roman world. It was nothing short of revolutionary (note the American and French revolutions at this time) putting aside notions such as the rule by kings and various religious beliefs, and wanting to be guided instead by principles of reason based on evidence and proof. There was a flourishing of the sciences and a rise of the middle class at a time when people surrounded themselves with Greek inspired art, architecture, and literature. The music of this time celebrated clarity, simple structures, and folk-like melodies that were to be graceful and elegant. 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 5, 2010March 11, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: Les Luths (Occident) Review: Les Luths (Occident) Reviewed by Alain Bieber Previously published in American Lutherie #88, 2006 Les Luths (Occident) catalogue des collections du musée de la musique (vol.1) Les cahiers du musée de la musique #7. Sous la direction scientifique de Joël Dugot ISBN# 2-914147-34-1; 2006; 35€ tax included Cité de la musique; www.citedelamusique.fr I remember my first visit to the musical instrument museum of Paris. At that time it was still a neglected part of the old “National Conservatoire,” the School of Music. I was an early teenager, still in short trousers. The museum was more than modest in its opening days, and very erratic. My dear guitar teacher visited the museum at an even younger age, just a few years after it opened. Being of a family of well-known musicians, he was presented by his mother to the curator. He has a very precise memory of an elderly lady of strict appearance in a grey smock, with a feather duster in her hand. She was Geneviève Thibault de Chambure herself, taking care of her beloved collections. She was specially devoted to this museum and, as time will progressively reveal, an active collector of ancient instruments, among many musical activities. The collection was created in the turmoil of the 1789 Revolution. Its nucleus was the result of the rather high and regrettable rate of death penalties then applied to the local aristocrats. The first “curator” (so to speak) efficiently gathered many instruments in a very short time, and simply stored them. After this rather macabre birth, the collection progressed regularly and slowly with donations and, from time to time, an acquisition or two. Budgets were minimal. The first museum was only opened to the public seventy years later. 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 5, 2010March 11, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: Engineering the Guitar: Theory and Practice by Richard Mark French Review: Engineering the Guitar: Theory and Practice by Richard Mark French Reviewed by Bill Greenwood Originally published in American Lutherie #99, 2009 Engineering the Guitar: Theory and Practice Richard Mark French ISBN (hardback): 9780387743684 Springer, 266 pp. 2009 With Engineering the Guitar, the author introduces a new genre of musical acoustics textbook, aimed at a niche audience of mathematically literate students who are relatively new to the details of guitar structure and guitar building. The book assumes familiarity with basic physics and calculus that includes a modest background in differential equations and Fourier series, and presents some excellent applications of basic engineering analysis that will be appreciated by those who have taken a standard course in the strength of materials. The book parallels a unique course developed by the author at Purdue University, where a dozen engineering students all build identical classical guitars in the span of a single semester with the aid of computer-controlled machining. At the same time, the students are introduced to the basic physics of stringed instruments and to the engineering aspects of guitars. Although the target audience of college engineering students is rather narrow, the advanced level of the book and the refreshing examples generated by the author make it a useful and engaging reference for others who are interested in theory and measurements that relate to the structure and dynamic behavior of guitars. 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 5, 2010March 11, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: Step by Step Guitar Making by Alex Willis Review: Step by Step Guitar Making by Alex Willis Reviewed by John Mello Originally published in American Lutherie #94, 2008 Step by Step Guitar Making Alex Willis ISBN (paperback): 9781861084095 Guild of Master Craftsman Pub. Ltd., 2008, $17.95 In the predawn (1960s) of the current somewhat optimistically termed “Golden Age of American Lutherie,” nascent craftsmen and craftswomen roamed the land, struggling on their own, haunting the few professional practitioners, and occasionally wheedling an apprenticeship, where they spent long unpaid hours in the shop, after which they trudged to their dwelling, inscribing their hard-won knowledge on stone tablets dutifully stacked at the back of the cave for future reference. Hard data was difficult to accrue; the only readily obtainable publications being the helpful but maddeningly brief offerings by A.P. Sharpe, H.E. Brown, and Joseph Wallo, and the seminal Classical Guitar Construction by Irving Sloane, an inspiration for many, but at ninety-five pages, many taken up with background info and photos of older master instruments, more a porthole view of a mysterious and beautiful island on the horizon than a detailed prescription for sonic and cosmetic excellence. Art Overholtzer’s Classic Guitar Making, edited and published by experienced technical writer Lawrence Brock, and at 324 pages, the first method with enough detail to give one a decent shot at making a guitar even remotely like that of the author, was published in 1974, significantly followed in 1987 by Cumpiano and Natelson’s Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology, a thorough exposition of the craft by working professionals, its detail and clarity setting the bar pretty high for anything to follow. 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 5, 2010March 11, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: The Ukulele by Denis Gilbert & Ukulele Design & Construction by D. Henry Wickham Review: The Ukulele by Denis Gilbert & Ukulele Design & Construction by D. Henry Wickham Reviewed by John Calkin Previously published in American Lutherie #86, 2006 The Ukulele Denis Gilbert Windward Publishing and Press, 2003 ISBN 0-9728795-0-1 available from Stewart-MacDonald, $24.99 Ukulele Design & Construction D. Henry Wickham Trafford Publishing, 2004 ISBN 141203909-6 I hear that there’s a ukulele revolution going on out there. Maybe rebirth is a better term, I’m not sure. I live such an isolated life that major cultural changes pass me right by, but I hear in the wind that there’s a ukulele tsunami out there. I hope it’s true. It’s not like Hawaiian music automatically melts the stress off my bones. Heck, I’m a guitar maker and as such I don’t suffer any stress, right? But as a guitar maker I’ve sort of settled into my mold. It’s life-as-usual the year round. I’m ready for some excitement, for the next Big Thing. If it’s going to be ukuleles, so be it. That Gilbert and Wickham’s books came out within a year of each other suggests that something is happening. That their books are so much alike suggests that they know each other, or perhaps one taught the other. I don’t know and it doesn’t matter to me, but their books are enough alike that I decided to review them together. 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.
