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This article is about the Classical guitar making, the Classical guitar strings and the Classical guitar accessories.

Contents 1 Classical guitar making 1.1 Shaping of wood with acoustics and resonance aims 1.2 Sound characteristics (Timbre) 1.2.1 Spectrum 1.2.2 Temporal change of spectrum (attack/onset, decay) 1.3 Styles of "sound aesthetic" 1.3.1 Guitar making in the 19th century 2 Contemporary classical guitar making 3 Contemporary Innovations 3.1 Double-top, sandwich-top and composite-top 3.2 Lens Resonance System(R) 3.3 Side Soundport 3.4 Finger board 3.4.1 Elevated fingerboard 3.4.2 Curved fingerboard 3.4.3 High frets 3.4.4 Multiple scale length fretboards 4 Armrest 5 References 6 See also 7 External links 7.1 Technical drawings (Plans) of guitars, historic guitars etc. 7.2 Manuals, Treatises and Books 7.2.1 Acoustics 7.2.2 Historic Luthier Manuals 7.2.3 Varnish for musical instruments 7.2.4 Books on guitars 7.3 Articles 7.4 Luthier Videos 7.5 Associations 7.6 Sound-documents of historical guitars

[edit] Classical guitar making

Fernando Sor has written that an instrument-maker "should be an accurate draughtsman, understand the common principles of mechanics, the composition and resolution of forces, and the laws of vibrating strings and surfaces"^[1].

A master luthier must have a number of skills, knowledge and experience:

• accurate craftsmanship
  • understand the tools involved and how to best use them

• understand the materials involved
  • esp. the various tonewoods: their physical characteristics (stiffness, density) and sound characteristics (resonance, response); the effect of combining woods
  • tuning keys: mechnical machine heads, wooden pegs, planetary pegs^[2]
  • etc.

• Acoustics
  • resonance, vibration
  • colour of a tone based on its "fundamental and overtones" (and their relative intensities)
  • wolf tone (how to find wolf tones, and how to avoid/eliminate them)
  • tuning: temperament and pitch

• how to influence acoustics, forces and tensions with construction decisions
  • understand how to shape, work and manipulate the tonewoods, to alter/achieve specific acoustic, resonance properties
    • "fundamental and overtones" present for plucked notes. Different "fundamental and overtones" (colour) for notes in various registers (bass, mid, high, "head voice")
      

Controllable by

• Pre-construction decisions:

• Woods and their stiffness, density and sound characteristics (combinations of woods) and resulting forces
• Body shape and volume

• Construction/shaping decisions:

• soundboard tuning (adapting soundboard thickness)
• manipulation/"tuning" of bracing thicknesses and angles, etc.
• shaping of the bridge
• etc.

• understanding technical drawings and how to create an instrument based on such plans
• analysis of existing guitars (e.g. historic models) and making accurate, usable technical-drawings (plans) from them

• restoration of antique instruments

• Being able to judge instruments and their qualities: resonance-properties, response, attack, action, sensitivness, timbre, fundamental, brilliance, bloom, resonance, tone, focus, volume

• Being able to visually differentiate and distinguish historic guitars, based on their body shape, decoration
  • Baroque guitars, 19th century guitars (Italian Style, French Style, Viennese style, Spanish style), etc.
  • Understand construction characteristics of these different guitars (e.g. internal bracing, bridge, neck construction, etc.)

• Understanding the different styles of "sound aesthetic", present in various different historic instruments
  • "sound aesthetic" is based on different "intensity of fundamental and overtones" - resulting in a specific "colour", etc. (also response)
  • being able to reproduce the "sound aesthetics" style when constructing replicas of historic instruments
    • baroque guitar "sound aesthetic"
    • 19th century guitar
      • french style "sound aesthetic" (Pierre Rene Lacote, guitars from Paris or Mirecourt region)
      • viennese style "sound aesthetic" (Stauffer, Ries, Scherzer)
      • spanish style "sound aesthetic" (Antonio de Lorca, Pages, Panormo, Torres)
      • etc.
    • Being able analyze a given guitar by hearing and determine its "sound asthetic"

As can be seen from the above, a luthier needs many more skills than mere accurate craftsmanship. Just making a measured duplicate of a given reference instrument, will not result in a duplicate with the same characteristics as the reference. The reason is that there are always differences in wood (even if it is of the same wood-type), and that an instrument and the interactions of its parts are complex and cannot be described by "distance-measurements" alone. Thus a luthier also needs to consider stiffnesses, tensions, densities, and vibrational aspects of wood and its combinations as the building progresses. More importantly still, a luthier needs an understanding of acoustics; and the ability to shape the wood (its thickness, stiffness, etc) so that the resulting instrument will have the desired characteristics.

This means that a luthier must be sensitive musically to the characteristics of sound that the instrument should yield. Thus the value of hearing and judging of sound^[3] are of the utmost importance. This must guide the luthier's judgement as to how to shape the wood, and how to shape the instrument.

[edit] Shaping of wood with acoustics and resonance aims

This shaping of the wood is know - in the case of the soundboard - as "soundboard tuning"^[4] (or "top tuning", "plate tuning"). Many consider this to be an art. The techniques used, can be traced back the the previous centuries esp. in violin-making.

[edit] Sound characteristics (Timbre)

[edit] Spectrum

One of the important aspects that good luthiers need to understand, is that a single tone consists of the "fundamental and simultaneous overtones". The ratio of the "intensity of fundamental" and the various overtones, defines the "colour" (Frequency spectrum) of the tone. Overtones are simply frequencies that are at a multiple of the base fundamental frequency. (Overtones defining colour, do not only occur in instruments, but also in the human voice. When singing a note, there are numerous overtones present. Singers experienced in overtone singing are able to control their voice in such a way, that they can increase the intensity of any high overtone to such an extent, that it becomes clearly audible, whilst simultaneously singing the fundamental. In this way two pitches (fundamental and high-intensity overtone) can be made clearly audible while singing.^[5])

The colour of tones on a guitar are an important characteristic. Usually the notes of the guitar's different registers (low bass, mid range, high, etc.) will have different colour-spectrums, i.e. differing relative intensities of fundamental to different overtones.

Various types of guitars will have tone-differences of colour, in the various registers (also differences in response, action, etc.). Specific colour-spectrum characteristics of certain types of guitars can be said to form a specific "sound aesthetic" - this is like a "fingerprint" of the characteristic of that type of guitar. Other guitars will have a different "sound aesthetic", i.e. a different colour-spectrum characteristic.

One can associate historic instruments to various styles of "sound aesthetic".

[edit] Temporal change of spectrum (attack/onset, decay)

Important in characterizing the sound of instruments (or more precisely notes of particular registers), is the manner in which the sound begins: This is the attack or onset: a short-duration transient. This occurs at the moment when a string is plucked - the string builds up motion for some time, before it can vibrate in the normal way. The attack is nonlinear and usually has very high-pitched frequencies present. The duration of the transient (until normal string vibration continues) and frequencies occurring during the transient, are a very important factor in how we perceive the tone.

Once the string is in its normal mode of vibration, the standard colour-spectrum will be present. As time progresses the amplitude of the strings vibrations will get less, and usually the intensities of higher pitched overtones will decay at a faster rate, than the intensities of fundamental and lower overtones (thus a change of colour over the vibrating-time).

In this way one can observe the acoustic "envelope": the attack, followed by the way in which the intensity of frequencies (fundamental and overtones) decrease with time. The "envelope" can thus be regarded as the temporal change of the spectrum of the sound. This envelope will be different for notes in different registers.

Thus the tone or timbre is determined by:

• attack or onset (how long until normal vibration of the string? -> response of the guitar)
• relative intensities of frequency spectrum: fundamental to overtones (defines colour -> colour will change over vibrating time, since the higher-freq overtones decay quicker)

These factors can be influenced by the shaping of the wood. A good luthier understands how to shape the wood to directly influence these acoustic properties.

In guitar playing, the musician is actively able to vary the timbre (attack, colour-spectrum and its temporal change) in the way in which the string is plucked. The guitarist is able to change the position at which the string is plucked, and also the angle of the nail/finger to the string. A good instrument will give the musician the possibility of producing widely varying timbres and have yet have good resonance ("parts of the guitar body and wood boosting frequencies by moving in sympathy") over all notes.

Nevertheless a default colour and response is identifiable for notes in the different registers and define the instrument's sound aesthetic.

[edit] Styles of "sound aesthetic"

As was mentioned, it is possible to group historic instruments according to the colour and response sound characteristic (present for notes in the various registers). A baroque guitar will have a different "sound aesthetic" than a 19th century guitar, i.e. a differing colour-spectrum in the various registers (low, mid, high) and a different duration of attack (response of the instrument).

The "sound aesthetic" is determined by the sound characteristic of notes in specific registers (an instrument's low notes has a different relative timbre, than its high notes).

It is interesting to note the historical parallel between musical styles (baroque, classical, romantic, spanish nationalist, flamenco, jazz) and the style of "sound aesthetic" of the musical instruments used: Robert de Visée played on a baroque guitar with a very different sound aesthetic than the guitars used by Mauro Giuliani or Luigi Legnani - they used 19th century guitars.

Whilst the difference between baroque guitars and 19th century guitars is large and immediately obvious, one can also identify differences in style within the 19th century guitars themselves: They are part of the same family, but one can distinguish early italian instruments (Fabricatore), then french instruments and viennese instruments, etc.

[edit] Guitar making in the 19th century

In the 19th century there were many ideas for the construction of guitars, and for realizing specific acoustic aims. To get a picture some of the ideas, it is interesting to list some newspaper reports of guitar-related patents (note that the newspaper reports given in the crossreferences are only brief mentionings, with the actual patent papers providing more details and drawings etc.)

• Johann Georg Staufer and Johann Ertl^[6][7]
• Bernhard Enzensperger^[8]
• Franz Besetzny^[9]
• Lacote, Carulli: Décacorde^[10][11]
• J.F. Salomon: Harpolyre^[12]
• Ventura: Harp Ventura (modification of harp and guitar)^[13]
• etc.

The are also 19th century mentionings of Lacote winning a prize for the quality of his instrument - the second prize went to Laprevotte.^[14] In the competition organized by Makaroff, it was the guitar of Scherzer that took first place.^[15][16]

[edit] Contemporary classical guitar making

The basis of most modern classical guitar designs was developed by Spanish luthier Antonio Torres Jurado in the mid 1800s. Earlier guitars were simpler, smaller bodied and sometimes highly decorated. Torres enlarged these instruments, and used lighter materials for construction. Perhaps his most influential modification was the development of a fan bracing system, which were wooden strips glued inside the body to provide support and resonance, however this bracing was used before by the spanish builder Joseph Páges, after him Louis Panormo used a fan bracing too in his guitars from 1830-1850. He increased the string length to 650 mm, which is still used as the standard length. Torres' guitars were louder and better sounding than earlier guitars, and many luthiers assimilated his ideas into their own guitars.

The designs Torres developed were later adapted by several very influential luthiers; Manuel Ramirez (1864–1916) and his brother Jose Ramirez (1858–1923), Hermann Hauser Sr. (1882–1952) and Ignacio Fleta (1897–1977). Today, luthiers utilize the ideas and designs of Torres, Hauser, and Fleta in their own guitars. They often develop their own system of bracing to create a unique tone quality, and some also offer cutaway, acoustic electric and composite top models.

For years, Brazilian Rosewood was the industry standard as the best wood for the backs and sides of guitars. Unfortunately, the export of Brazilian Rosewood has been restricted due to the endangerment of the species. Much of the Brazilian Rosewood used for guitars is of poor quality, and the inflated price of the wood has caused many luthiers to search for alternative tonewoods. There are many other good very dry woods for guitar construction. In fact, of the surviving Torres instruments, the most common back and side wood used was maple. Many guitars made today use East Indian Rosewood because it is a close substitute for Brazilian Rosewood, is readily available in high-quality, and has desirable characteristics as tonewood. There are many other woods with the characteristics to make excellent guitars and which are excellent alternatives: cocobolo, maple, bubinga (African Rosewood), African Blackwood, Camatillo Rosewood, Spanish Cypress (used exclusively for flamenco guitars), grandillo, ebony, and ziricote, among others, are excellent choices for backs and sides.

Various books are currently available that describe the history and methods of classical guitar making. There is a biography of Torres by the great 20th century luthier Jose Romanillos, for those who would like to know more about the early development, and Amilia Ramirez, the great granddaughter of Jose Ramirez and the current shop master of Ramirez Guitars has just published a book on the 125 years of Ramirez guitars. Though there are many who think they were not the first of their kind.

[edit] Contemporary Innovations

[edit] Double-top, sandwich-top and composite-top

The terms double-top, sandwich-top, and composite-top all refer to a relatively new way to construct the soundboard of a guitar. Composite tops are built by luthiers like Matthias Dammann, Jim Redgate, and Gernot Wagner. A double top often consists of a material called nomex which is sandwiched by two thin pieces of tonewood. Nomex was originally designed by DuPont Chemical Co. to be a lightweight material for use in the aviation industry, but many luthiers have found nomex to possess desirable acoustic qualities, and have designed double top guitars. Though the construction of a double top significantly differs from the traditional soundboard, a double top guitar looks just like a traditional guitar.

[edit] Lens Resonance System(R)

In 1999, Kauko Liikanen and Uwe Florath of Liikanen Guitars of Finland invented and patented the Lens Resonance System (LRS) of soundboard construction, for use principally on classical guitars.

The LRS soundboard is stiffened with a wooden cross-braced grid, under the bridge in the middle of the lower part of the soundboard. A thin plate of wood is glued under the grid. The cross-section of the whole construction is a lens shape and the soundboard around the bridge area is much stiffer and better controlled than it is in traditional soundboards.

Because the vibration energy produced by the strings is evenly distributed to the soundboard via the stiff middle area, a guitar with LRS sounds very responsive and it has an exceptional sustain. The resonance-curves of LRS soundboards are more even than they are in guitars with traditionally built soundboards and undesirable harmonics are reduced.

• Liikanen's fuller description of LRS
• Liikanen H Model Guitar with LRS Reviewed by Stephen Yates

[edit] Side Soundport

A number of luthiers are now incorporating an additional small soundhole on the guitar's side, usually facing the player. This is said to allow air to move more freely in and out of the body of the guitar as it is vibrating, and to have the advantage of allowing the player to better hear the sound projecting from the guitar. The only published formal research on the latter subject suggests however that players may not be able to hear any difference in a soundport equipped guitar.^[17]

[edit] Finger board

Improvement of intonation and playability . it to left hand plays

[edit] Elevated fingerboard

Some guitar makers like American Thomas Humphrey (who patented such a system in US patent 4,873,909), Frenchman Antoine Pappalardo and the Canadian Fritz Mueller make Elevated fingerboard guitars. The primary advantage is to improve left hand playability on the upper frets, although the increased distance between the strings and the top is also advantageous for the right hand. The elevated fingerboard is visually unobtrusive from the front, and the instrument retains its traditional appearance.

[edit] Curved fingerboard

Some guitar makers like the French Antoine Pappalardo make a Curved fingerboard to improve the playability.

[edit] High frets

High frets facilitate vibrato and barreing, and generally aid in the development of a “lighter” left hand.

[edit] Multiple scale length fretboards

The seventeenth century wire strung instruments, Orpharion and Bandora are early examples of instruments featuring multiple scale fretboards.

[edit] Armrest

Some guitar makers, like Greg Smallman propose an armrest integrated to the guitar. An armrest provides three primary benefits: it lessens damping of the top caused by the right forearm; it is potentially more comfortable for the player; and it absorbs the wear to the finish that would otherwise happen on the top, the binding, and the side. These benefits are of particular importance for ultra-thin-topped instruments, such as Smallman’s, but will subtly improve any guitar, including double-tops.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Luthier
• List of classical guitar makers
• Brahms guitar
• Classical guitar strings
• Classical guitar accessories

[edit] External links

[edit] Technical drawings (Plans) of guitars, historic guitars etc.

• Crane (by Makoto Tsuruta)
• Technical drawings Ringve Museum, Trondheim (instrument-photos)
• Technical drawings Edinburgh University Collection of Historic Musical Instruments
• Technical drawings Cité de la musique, Paris (for instrument-photos: under Instruments et oeuvres d'art use one of the following inventory-numbers for "Numéro d'inventaire": E.30, E.1411.1, E.375, E.986.5.1, E.0748, E.540, E.1028, E.547, E.546, E.529, etc.)
• Technical Drawing of The Rawlins Stradivari Guitar, 1700 (link) National Music Museum - University of South Dakota
• Technical drawings Royal College of Music, London (photos of stringed instruments from the museum)
• Technical drawings (pdf) Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung - Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Berlin)
• Technical drawings (pdf) Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg (guitars at the museum, ref)
• Technical drawings from the Hill Collection of Musical Instruments The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (see also)
• Technical drawing Guitar by Johann Gottfried Scherzer (1861) (see also, 2)
• Technical drawings Guild of American Luthiers (early guitar, classical guitars)
• Technical drawings Kenneth Sparr
• Technical Drawings of Musical Instruments in Public Collections of the World
• The guitar of Andrés Segovia (published by Dynamic) Segovia's 1937 Hauser guitar, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (images and information : 1, 2, 3)
• Torres plans (see also)
• Technical drawings by Roy Courtnall-Summerfield
• Technical drawings (Luthiers Mercantile International, Inc.)
• Technical drawings (Guitar Granny)

[edit] Manuals, Treatises and Books

[edit] Acoustics

• Acoustics for violin and guitar makers by Erik Jansson (KTH - Kungliga Tekniska högskolan: Dept of Speech, Music and Hearing - part of School of Computer Science and Communication)
• Music: a Mathematical Offering by Dave Benson
• The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of the guitar (presents a physics perspective, but is somewhat unrelated to actual guitarmaking) PhD Thesis by Howard Wright
• Area Tuning and Hints for Area Tuning the Violin by Keith Hill
• (German) Die Theorie der harmonischen Abstimmung der Resonanzplatten bei der Geige ... (1907) by Max Grossmann
• Videos on Soundboard Tuning and other topics by Custom Guitar Video (search "tap tuning", or "tune top", or "soundboard tuning", etc.)
• Acoustics articles by Alan Carruth

[edit] Historic Luthier Manuals

• Manuel du luthier (1834) by J. C. Maugin alternative
• Make Your Own Spanish Guitar (1957) A.P. Sharpe
• See also (Resources at archive.org)

[edit] Varnish for musical instruments

• Varnish for Violins and similar instruments (archive.org)
• Instructions for Making an Acoustically Proven Varnish Using only Five Ingredients by Keith Hill
• The finish by Jose Oribe

[edit] Books on guitars

• Cahier d'atelier : la construction d'une guitare classique by Robert Bouchet
• The century that shaped the guitar by James Westbrook (see also)
• Guitars through the ages by James Westbrook (see also)
• La Chitarra di Liuteria - Masterpieces of Guitar Making by Stefano Grondona and Luca Waldner (preview)
• Gitarren von Richard Jacob "Weißgerber"
• The Guitar; by Sinier de Ridder; published by Edizioni Il Salabue; ISBN 88-87618-09-7
• La Chitarra, Quattro secoli di Capolavori (The Guitar: Four centuries of Masterpieces) by Giovanni Accornero, Ivan Epicoco, Eraldo Guerci; published by Edizioni Il Salabue
• Rosa sonora - Esposizione di chitarre XVII - XX secolo by Giovanni Accornero; published by Edizioni Il Salabue

[edit] Articles

• Acoustical Technology Training by Keith Hill
• (German) Aspekte des Gitarrenklangs (alt) by Angela Waltner
• Classical Guitar Intonation (alt) by Greg Byers
• Intonation by Mike Doolin
• Intonation by Jeremy Locke
• Improvement of intonation and playability of guitar fingerboard. by Sebastian Stenzel
• Article on Doubletops by Fritz Mueller
• Article on Doubletops by Alan Dunwell, steel-strings guitar maker
• [1] Transcript of Ralph Novak’s Lecture on Scale Length and Tone to the 1995 G.A.L. Convention From American Lutherie, published quarterly by the Guild of American Luthiers.

[edit] Luthier Videos

• Custom Guitar Video
• Gourmet Guitars
• Online Apprentice by David Schramm (see also)
• Build your own lute by David van Edwards

[edit] Associations

• Guild of American Luthiers. Non-profit educational membership organization, formed to advance the craft of string instrument making and repair through a free exchange of information.
• Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans (A.S.I.A.) Association established in 1988 to help provide a sense of community and professionalism to the field of stringed instrument making and repair.
• Classical Guitar Museum (UK)

[edit] Sound-documents of historical guitars

• Recordings by Brigitte Zaczek: Sound samples (Extraplatte)
• Museum Cité de la Musique
  • Les instruments du Musée de la musique : campagne d'enregistrement 2004
  • Les instruments du Musée de la musique : campagne d'enregistrement 2006
  • Les instruments du Musée de la musique : campagne d'enregistrement 2008
  • Ecoutez les instruments du musée
  • Concert - Citéscopie : la guitare : concert-lecture : concert-lecture enregistré à la Cité de la musique le 14 octobre 1995
• Weißgerber-Klangdokumentation
• Die Weißgerber-Gitarren des Musikinstrumenten-Museums Markneukirchen played by Christof Hanusch (Richard Jacob "Weißgerber", Musikinstrumenten-Museum Markneukirchen)
• Gitarren von Richard Jacob Weißgerber (1877-1960) played by Thomas Müller-Pering (Instrumentarium Lipsiense - Vol. 4)
• Zavaleta's Classical and Flamenco Guitar MP3 Sound Gallery
• Guitars Audio Tour Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

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