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Posts: 401
Joined: Mar. 5 2010
From: Caves Beach Australia
RE: flamenco body styles and bracing... (in reply to estebanana)
I thought we were having quite a civil discussion, don't see any negativity here, just disagreement on the way a guitar functions, and that seems to me to be an important enough issue to warrant having strong views.
RE: flamenco body styles and bracing... (in reply to estebanana)
Seemed pretty civil to me, Steven was just pointing out how the emperor hasn't any clothes. Ervin S is not just a luthier that was asked his opinion once but is someone that is trying to lead a whole generation of luthiers with weak science. How would thinking of the guitar as an air pump help you in anyway with its design? Would a guitar built for maximum air displacement not be way to soft in the right hand, be to bass heavy and lack any real treble response? That's probably what would happen if I thought of it as just a simple air pump but thats just me.
RE: flamenco body styles and bracing... (in reply to estebanana)
I actually would not say anything bad about Ervin S., his shop is about three miles from mine. He's entitled to write about it the way he feels it, only thing is I'm not buying everything he says as gospel and he would likely agree you have to look at things your own way.
I'm just reasoning it out for myself in public why I don't agree. He basically wrote a book which opens you up to all his shop notes and experience with some anecdote and some hard science. I think there is information there, but I wager he prompts his students to seek methods of their own and he is simply providing information he gleaned during his years of building that you can use whole or in parts.
Books should be evaluated and talked through, something works for you great, something does not, explain why. Somogyi has written a lot of articles some of them I have found super helpful others not so good, and a few that I totally disagree with.
RE: flamenco body styles and bracing... (in reply to Sean)
quote:
Would a guitar built for maximum air displacement not be way to soft in the right hand, be to bass heavy and lack any real treble response? That's probably what would happen if I thought of it as just a simple air pump but thats just me.
I think the problem with long threads like these is that people just dig their heels in on their particular "side" of the disagreement, and don't actually bother to read what other people have said, as is made clear by your comment, or choose not to see any nuance in anyone else's thinking, as is the case for Sr. Banana.
RE: flamenco body styles and bracing... (in reply to estebanana)
Oh gee sorry if I neglected to take some point into account, but when it comes to making nuanced points I usually feel like my ideas are the ones getting ignored. I read it all, but that does not mean I have to address every detail.
I fully understand the difference between literally saying "A guitar is an air pump" and taking that at face value. I get that that is not what you're saying. But what you're actually doing is using the concept and words 'guitar is an air pump' and making them into a euphemism for something else. As a euphemism what does it really mean? Is it possible to drop the euphemistic and anecdotal jargon and make the language more precise?
That's all I'm getting at, paring back the language to say is that really what it does? I'm sorry but I'm not willing to accept a term just because it's 'tradition' or everyone uses it if it seems to be inaccurate. That not being intransigent or un cooperative, that's just critical thinking.
And I'm not saying this out of aggressiveness, I'm just sticking to my points and also making some references to string articles, and I fully admit I read Somogyi's writings and have learned from them. But there's my deal, there's heck of a lot of garbage language and ideas about guitar making out there and I reserve the right to think critically about them and cut through bullshiet to what I think is salient. It basically means I kick about 80% of it out of my way- and I don't know any good guitar makers, writers, photographers, painters, film makers, sculptors, auto mechanics etc. who don't do the same. It's because as a you grow you learn to edit faster and you learn quicker which things are important and what is just fodder to cast off.
I would expect in any field it's pretty much the same. Only I have a particular fault, and that is my fascination with precise language and games you can play with it, which seems to drive others up the wall. So where some see layers of nuance others just see stuff they have to push out of the way to go forward.
And I'm hardly writing this on the verge of tears or while throwing a tantrum, I'm just expressing my bad self. See Andy I'm not being a *diiick, I just like writing.
Posts: 401
Joined: Mar. 5 2010
From: Caves Beach Australia
RE: flamenco body styles and bracing... (in reply to estebanana)
Andy, this thread stated veering in a different direction when you made the statement "I like to think of the guitar as an air pump.
The wood doesn't make the sound. Vibrating air does. Just like in a flute, a drum, or a stringles."
We have addressed the air pump concept, the differences between a guitar and a flute, but what is a "Stringles" ?
Not living in the USA, I was not familiar with the term, but a google search indicated that it was a cheese snack. Is there an instrument by that name, or can you in fact produce music using cheese?
RE: flamenco body styles and bracing... (in reply to estebanana)
*sigh* Jeff, you've really got to educate yourself if you want to call yourself an instrument maker my friend. I can't believe you've never heard of a Stringles™
I still think that all instruments produce sound in the same way. Instead of "vibrating air" just substitute "vibrations in the air". Where the energy comes from that excites the vibrations is different, obviously. A flute does not have strings last time I checked.
Posts: 401
Joined: Mar. 5 2010
From: Caves Beach Australia
RE: flamenco body styles and bracing... (in reply to estebanana)
If you want to learn more about how different instruments produce sound, I would recommend Bart Hopkin "Musical Instrument Design". It is a very accessible and easily understood book covering basic acoustic theory and instrument design and is well worth the read.
RE: flamenco body styles and bracing... (in reply to Jeff Highland)
quote:
I would recommend Bart Hopkin "Musical Instrument Design".
I like Bart Hopkins books, I think he compiled and edited a book of instruments made by unorthodox -art instrument makers, One of the most breath taking things I've ever seen was in that book:
This one artist /composer made a string instrument by cutting a big branch about 6' long off a tree and trimmed it back so there was one small trunk branch with lots of smaller, but still strong minor branches reaching out from where it attached to the tree. Then he drilled small holes along the lengths of the smaller branches and reamed them out with violin peg reamer and inserted a few dozen violin pegs in the fanned out branches. He strung the thing up and it was a beautiful branch harp, but it likely did not make much sound, there where no resonating chambers any kind made.
RE: flamenco body styles and bracing... (in reply to estebanana)
ahem...........
back to my original post. is there a site where i might find soundclips and explanations of the different styles of Flamenco guitar builds?
I simply want to know what it means when someone says Torres style or Reyes style-that sort of thing.
Regarding Ervin S, i think he tends to build more steel string guitars these days rather than nylon, and doesn't he get something like 20 grand for one? I've played one steel string and it was a superb guitar. His 2 book set sells for around $300 give or take. I just got a set(used) and they are extremely interesting.
RE: flamenco body styles and bracing... (in reply to estebanana)
See why one of us selling guitar for 3300.00 to 4800.00 is a steal?
Flamencos are made in two basic ways, one is with top you arch in the solera and the other is braced more or less flat and then pressed into a solera and the glue blocks hold it there then you arch the bottom of the bridge and suck the top up into it. There are lots of minor personal variations on those main ways of doing it. Reyes followed Santos and Barbero to get started and he's not the only one who makes guitars the way he makes them. He's just one of the most famous of them.
The Torres idea was to push the top into a solera and press the braces into the top when glued to create a laminated arch held by the braces. later Hauser got some credit for developing this way of bracing flat and then springing the bridge into the top. He may or may not have invented it, I don't know. Some people say he came up with this as a response to seeing Santos guitars and eventually making a hybrid of a Spanish Torres guitar with the Viennese flat topped guitars he already made.
It's hard to say who did what first, but if you had to break it down there's the Torres model/concept and lots of minor variations on it, and one major variation which is what Hauser did. Everything is basically playing off of Torres ideas one way or another.
The complete "official" taxonomy is tricky because everyone wants to get their teachers or their idols in the history book pie. These guys who came earlier were just trying to make a living and experiment, they were not trying to give things Linnean names which fit neatly into kingdom, phylum, class, genius species.......so the better question might be to ask : how many ways can you build a flamenco guitar ? and not get into naming particular style or building method.
People will talk about the geometry and the different was you can angle the neck, but it's just that; different neck angles have some bearing on the way the guitar performs. But many different makers a the main regions where guitar developed in Spain tried different neck angles. You find it in Madrid and in the South just because someone works with the neck angles does not make it a separate "school".
And so it goes, it's all mainly variations on Torres and the taxonomic drifts in to different schools are traditionally regional. Granada has it's thing Madrid _had_ it's thing, Sevilla has Barba and there was Gerundino, et al. All these things were regional differences and some are still around. A certain region may sustain a continuity of thought about details and style, but in the end it's all still basically Torres.
You can choose to be a taxonomic "lumper", or a taxonomic "splitter". A lumper would be like I think, it's all coming from a main source and the family tree is tall and narrow. A splitter would want to parse out each little invention and name it and have a big bushy tree.
I prefer guitar making lineages ordered to look like tall straight spruce trees.
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