Ruphus -> Fine luthiery; how is it done? (Apr. 28 2011 18:40:33)
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I remember a handmade classical luthier guitar in the display window of music store of a small German town, sometime in the late seventies. It was labelled with 5000 DM, something I hadn´t seen before, making me so curious that I had to just go in there and kindly ask whether I may give it a try. Disappointing, that thing couldn´t even compete with my good old Aira guitar ( a specimen with clearly classical attributes, wanting to be a flamenca just by its golpeador ). Apparrently, the maker and the shop thought they were entitled to a crazy price level, just because the dud was handmade. That experience together with a Hohner guitar, made me dismiss German luthiery altogether, until decades later when I learnt to gradually accept reality about fine German luthiery like from Hauser & co. And took even longer to update me on fine luthiery from France, North-America, Italy, Yugoslavia you name it ... even Japan, Korea, now China and meanwhile prepared to see great builts from pretty everywhere. ( Allegedly, even where I´m now. Gotta explore on it yet.) Anyway, as posted I received a flamenco guitar from Lester DeVoe recently, which surpassed most of my expectations without words. It delights me in all regards ( except maybe weight. It resides in the lower region of light category ). Corresponding to real life experience and recordings great responsiveness seems to be achieved by many reknown ( and likely lesser known ) luthiers today. Depth of tone appears not to be all too scarce either. What I consider to be still relatively rare could be classical guitars either of the very romantic type, or of a clay-like brilliance ( as I call it ) in the way of Hauser, which might mostly occure with specimesn of certain makers whose price range seems to start beyond ~ 10 grands. Maybe similar with extreme dynamic range, which must be another demanding challenge of the craft. And then there is what I estimate not too common property as well, like with the DeVoe; which would be not only surprising simultaneity of both, strong fundamental and overtones, but captivating precise harmonic align of second partial and overtones to the fundamental. ... Evenly with each and every note, mind you! I am interested to hear how a maker might be proceding to purposefully achieve such. More even as it must be hard to forsee / calculate such subtle yet significant attribute, until having things ready and stringed. No? Ruphus
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