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Ricardo -> RE: Friction pegs vs Geared tuners (Apr. 3 2023 13:39:43)
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Some folks hear about how the poor gitanos had no guitar or cheap guitars etc., and this was the life of flamenco artists until late in the game. For some folks that never read the report of Estebañez Calderon, observed in Triana in 1838 (published 1847), about El Planeta and his vihuela. After describing his outfit (a rich guy’s bullfighter costume), he describes the instrument he was carrying (my translation)
“This personage, as revealed by his dress full of majesty, and the certain deference that everyone around him paid, carried under his arm, in a purposeful and unencumbered manner, an expensive vihuela. It was unnecessary to hear it played in order to realize it had come from Malaga, an authentic construction from the exquisite and intelligent hands of the ancient artisan Martinez. Such a guitar was wide at the base, marvelously outlined in the cut, the neck calling back with graceful elegance, ebony bridge, frets, the pegs with eyelets were made of Blackwood, the headstock with ivory, white and red decorative filaments. The instrument was orchestral, in that it had 6 courses, and the finest sonorous silver strings. It was like the “master organ” of this “cathedral”, or the Druidic harp of this conclave, and functioned as a choir master who was to guide and give intonation to all the instruments summoned there. [other guitars and bandurrias etc,]. As the stairway to the garden gate descended, the man with the vihuela (taking it out from under his arm and holding it in his right hand), said to the one who followed him closest, in a professional and prescriptive voice, these words: ‘I tell you El Fillo, that rough scratchy sounding voice is crude and not acceptable. And as for style, it is neither refined, nor earthy. So, I beg you, please (giving his voice more authority, like a leader of the brotherhood) that you do not walk through its waters, and stick to the ancient pattern, and do not stray from the sacramental rite of the beaten path’. El Fillo responded ‘I was already working on that Mr. Planeta’. “
The observations of this event ring strangely familiar to me, in the sense that flamenco as the artistic genre we know today, is much older than thought, and the idea of this elite group being a bunch of poor street beggars creating music from poverty seems to be a romantic myth. Expensive peghead with ivory buttons was normal and likely traditional, just like the vocal technique and music itself. My interpretation of course.
For the record, there is quite a bit more than “a handful” of luthiers that make or offer peg head flamenco guitars.
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