estebanana -> RE: Luthier's first flamenco guitar vs. production model (May 18 2021 3:35:29)
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quote: The guitar maker is really good at steel string guitars and studied the flamenco carefully they would probably be able to make something good. I honestly feel that many luthiers believe that flamenco guitars are easy to build compared to any other guitar, but as a player I really see the opposite. The requirements of flamenco guitar in terms of feel looks and sound seems very constrained by comparison and I am thinking that has to be more challenging. Just talking about the bridge and action set up. I once visited a luthier wh This is really true, Classical guitarists may have particular qualities they are looking for in how a guitar feels and plays, but it's usually based on criteria like the repertoire they are working with on that guitar, and issues like how the guitar projects...lots of things qualify a classical guitar for a player, whether they are an expert or a beginner. I got a valuable lesson from Marc Teicholz, a fantastic guitarist who teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory. I brought him a guitar to play, it was a cypress Santos style. He played it and said it was strong on some areas and weak in others, but he gave context to why in his situation of recommending guitars to students that these criteria were important. He continued and gave me a lesson in why modern classical guitarists choose the instruments they do. He explained why some repertoire lead guitarists to choose guitars that emphasized chords more like a piano, because it was more suited to working with harmony, and why other guitars with a more romantic ( spanish*) sound were better at other tasks. He contrasted a Jim Redgate with another makers Maple Cedar, more Torres style guitar. The gulf between a Redgate from the mid 2000's and Maple Cedar Torres model is W-i-d-e. The lesson being, classical guitars can come in many varieties of sound envelope, feel under the hands, size, weight, and finally how it emphasizes the differences between romantic character and 'Bosendorfer piano' harmonic precision. All these qualities can be useful and sought after in what's labeled as a 'classical guitar'. For that reason, classical makers can find a personal sweet spot and stick with it even though that may not be what's hot in the moment. I've been involved in guitars long enough, since seeing Segovia as a teenager, to witness cycles of guitar development and reconsideration. Long scales used to be considered normal, then it trended back to shorter, scales, then even shorter, then it trended back to longer...the market loves to eat up new gimmicks and then reset to a more 'old style' normal. Flamenco guitars by contrast are different, or the classical guitars are different. Flamenco guitars have evolved in the minds of consumers into a narrower field. And from the point of function they are narrower. Classical guitars and Flamenco guitars used to be more or less the same thing, but the market was manipulated to create a binary Spanish guitar world and the flamenco guitar got left to develop by itself. But the development remained in the service mainly of how the instrument feels under the hands. And the basic design hasn't needed to be developed very much past Torres brace design on order to be effective. Flamenco makers build for the way the guitar feels ( this is my opinion) more over how the guitar will sound. The way the guitar responds happens because you build it lighter in the right places, or work for a certain geometry and maybe even consider how the golpe sound will work, ( do people still golpe anymore?) and in trying to get to these qualities of playability; will the guitar rip alzapua without effort by the player? - ( read with pauses to contemplate at commas) The attributes the flamenco guitar maker aims for, direct the design to automatically take form as a good flamenco guitar, because the maker is working for how it feels, not how it sounds. If a guitar rips alzapua and doesn't feel like it's going to bottom out or is not too tough on the hands, then it is in the sweet spot. Flamenco guitars built into that sweet zone almost always sound correct and flamenco. If the guitar feels right when doing rasgueado, it will sound right. That's the thing that classical or steel makers have to come to terms with if they want to make successful flamenco ( Fleming lol) guitars. The guitar making manuals that emphasize how to use technology and sound testing to make a guitar are very good, I own a few of them and have learned a great deal from them, but almost useless when it comes to getting a feeling for how a rasgueado should feel and recover when you drag your thumb and fingers through the strings. If the flamenco guitar rips alzapua, has the right recovery feel, it will work, the sound is a personal thing, you may or may not like it. I worry like 80% on how the guitar will feel, and know that the sound will be there if it feels correct. If the player does not like the sound, well ok, but they should be able to play in a cuadro with the guitar and not get torn up. In a cuadro a good flamenco guitar will keep you from getting tired, it will be a fun satisfying experience, the guitar should not get in your way. Making a guitar that stays out of your way in a cuadro is trickier than it sounds, most classicals would be in your way. Can beginner players and builders discern all these things yet? Probably not. Let them learn by doing and not just making safe purchases of cheap guitars. Buy a Yamaha flamenco for $500.00, it will last until you can actually play. or have the local guy make you a guitar. It's just a different on ramp to the same highway. The thing I'd say to someone making a flamenco guitar that has already made steel string guitars, study the bridge of the flamenco guitar and make a few of them. If you can make three or four flamenco bridges and understand that first, I'd say go ahead. If you can't pull off a couple of bridges that any good flamenco maker would say "Yeah, that bridge looks right." Don't attempt a flamenco guitar until you figure that part out. Otherwise you'll build all the other stuff without understanding what it's supposed to connect to. That kind of sounds condescending, but it's the truth.
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