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estebanana -> RE: unusual cutaway (Jul. 5 2015 2:30:31)
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In 2005 I made a mock up of the 'Divet' idea by slicing out a piece of rib from old guitar and fitting in a new swatch of wood in the divet. I was not at all impressed with the accessibility to high frets and decided not to follow that route.
Make a mock up with a section of 1"x3" for a neck and build the top of the guitar with a chunk of foam block. Then try it, then cut out the divet. Very little difference.
The problem really is not the hand, it's the wrist. I've analyzed this problem really carefully and to play naturally the wrist needs to flow down the neck and not change shape in relation to the hand. This this thing really does not do much, if you are going to make a cutaway just take out enough for the wrist to move below the 12th fret and be done with it.
Well made cutaways don't lose sound, either. That's kind of a myth. Some guitarists have arranged their material up higher on the fingerboard for a reason. They need cutaways. Ben Woods and Jason McGuire are two, and I think more players would but there is a stigma against the look of a cutaway in flamenco.
I opted to go with this idea as my cutaway. The cut flares back to the heel cap and blends in with it. The advantage is that is gets the BACK out of the way of the wrist. If you carefully analyze the situation you find it's not the face of the guitar in the way, it's the back where the wrist needs to get lower. If you sweep the cut into the heel cap it gets al that out of the way of the wrist and a more natural position can be held higher up the finger board.
The problem the Elevated Fingerboard concept and this divet in the top is that the player must still change the hand and wrist position to ascend to high frets and climb up over the front edge of the guitar. A swept cutaway facilitates the movement without significant wrist shape/articulation change.
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