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estebanana -> RE: Building a Parlour Guitar (Feb. 28 2017 1:57:13)
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Remember my last project investigating smaller sized bodies? I think there a lot to learn- I'm still on the path of unique tone quality over loudness. Loud is a formula, make a guitar with a thin top and a lot braces. We have better and better microphone technology for flamenco players especially, 'big' guitar remain the goal of builders in general, but I'm not really concerned with big, that is a whole market. Classical players are obsessed with 'big sound' - the same thing happened in opera in the late 1970's through the 1990's singers and conductors were focused on big blown up voices, we found out how that worked, not well. People got tired of the sound and many singers trashed their instruments. Listen to the recordings of Kathleen Battle, she over extended herself to great detriment.
These things are trends, 'big' sound vs. projection that is perceived as smaller, but is simply more focused and individual. When I first stared thinking about guitars in the 1980's the trend was cycling back to smaller guitars with Hauser scale lengths, then in the late 90's the trend was to blow up the sound again. Now we have LOUD guitars, but I hear many ,many players saying ok it's loud now what? These are cycles of what is popular or how awareness moves through the guitar community.
The guitar is an instrument of limited capability compared to a trombone for example, by nature and design it's not very loud. One can make it louder for sure, but there are trade offs. The guitar always goes back to its home base of design after a flurry of lateral development into loudness. There are plenty of good makers who ride those trends, but staying in the home territory just prepares you for the return of the player who just wants an old guitar that sounds like an old guitar. I'm never going to be a star in the world of building, so why follow other stars?
Arnold Schoenberg was very misunderstood, not because of his music, but his teaching. He taught at UCLA for the latter half of his life and he wrote the definitive book on how to teach traditional western harmony. He did not teach his US students 12 tone music composition, he taught traditional harmony work as a foundation. John Cage was his student, Cage asked AS to allow him to work with the 12 tone system, AS told him that was none of his business. AS was known to have told students - "There are still thousands of great works to be written in C major."
Why steel strings, it's because the area I am in most people play dreadnaughts and I'm tired of fixing them. I want to sell small steel locally to keep those f-ing dreads out of my shop.
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