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RE: volume of a guitar
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Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
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 RE: volume of a guitar (in reply to Ramon Amira)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Prominent Critic
quote:
the builder took it to the Reyes shop and showed it to the old man, and Reyes Sr. thought he had put his label in one of the Reyes guitars.
I'm sure Reyes Sr. was just being polite - I doubt if he actually thought someone had put a different label in one of his guitars. In an interview from the sixties he said he doesn't number his guitars because he knows every one by sight and sound. I believe him. Of course he is getting on a bit . . .
Ramon
Ramon, it is not a point to be argued. For example: In 1965 I was going to a movie with Paco del Gastor, I believe the old 50's black and white "Detective" with Kirk Douglas, and as we walked down a main street in Madrid, he looked at me and said, Tomas, you mother is Spanish, and I said, No....He then said, your grand mother is Spanish, and I said, No....
Then Paco said, You can't play flamenco music this way without having Spanish in your blood. I tried to tell him that it was not about the heritage but about the love. But I don't think he ever understood what I was saying.
This is the same way with guitar building. And the 53 years of my building career I have stumbled on certain facets of the old masters that have come closer to the original intent of their own builds. This is what I like to do; take an original style and make it sing.
More than a handful of Luthiers in Spain know each others work and they understand propio sello, so I believe that it is very possible that a good luthier could replicate a master if he cared to.
_____________________________
Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
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Date Feb. 13 2014 13:16:05
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: volume of a guitar (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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quote:
In Tempe, AZ the temperatures are getting up to the mid 70s during the day.
Hey, Miguel,
Enjoy the delightful weather in Tempe! I recall fondly my visit to Arizona last October when we met up for lunch at Rosita's in Tempe. For eight months of the year the weather in the Tempe-Phoenix-Scottsdale area is exquisite. (Summer gets a bit hot!) Here in the Washington, DC area we have had some real winter weather over the last month. Quite a few days with highs in the 20s and lows in the teens. And just last night and this morning we had eight to ten inches of snow. I have been spending all day by the fireplace, enjoying the fire and re-reading some Sherlock Holmes stories.
Marta and I will be seriously checking out homes in the Phoenix-Scottsdale-Tempe area this year, as we want to anchor ourselves there before too many moons pass. Take care and enjoy the lovely spring.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Feb. 13 2014 19:53:54
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: volume of a guitar (in reply to Tom Blackshear)
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Actually I agree with Tom, you copy until you pull your own style out of the work of the past masters. We are all standing on the shoulders of giants and to not recognize that is silly. The basic Torres guitar is the root of all this and we are all merely building a variant on that instrument. There's nothing terribly original about Spanish guitar making, each maker brings something personal to the method because we are all individuals; if you think your ideas are original it usually means you don't have a tight grasp on the history of the building methods, or use "original designs" as part of your sales concept. It is no different to claim original designs as a selling point just as those who follow a master maker use that as a sales point. At the end of the day everyones guitar making work is a pastiche of the hard core traditional mannerisms with personal stylistic flourishes added on top. Each maker decides which part of that mix of the tradition and your own touches you can best sell. It's all about naming which parts you can sell so I don't buy any arguments about who is doing more valid work based on claims of "originality" over "tradition".
If you want to be "original" these days learn to write computer code and be a genius at it. Good luck with being original in this world. "There's nothing new under the sun"...Bible quote.
I would also challenge the idea that Americans are copyists while Spanish makers are not.
Moorish design elements constitute yet another of the colors one can pick up off the pastiche palette, and I would agree with Anders that the "Moorish" themes and motifs in guitar making are modern style mannerisms introduced to emphasize Spain's history and that flamenco has a partial Arabic influence. However the Moorish elements in headstocks and rosettes, etc. are more like 'Orientalisms'- fetishized or fantasized references to Spain's past which don't have any bearing on the actual development of the modern guitar. ( See 'Edward Said' for more on the concept of Orientalism as a cultural romantic notion)
Two examples of design motifs that do not fit the Mooorish profiles are Torres' head stocks and rosette tiles.
I attended a demonstration lecture given by R.E. Brune' in which he spoke about the Torres head stock and showed that it was derived from the shapes and patterns of Andalusian Christian grave stones. The three hills motif of Torres head stock is a direct reference to the three hills at Calvary where Christ was crucified. It is in no way shape or format Moorish. The "Moorish influence" that people speak of is a romantic overlay of Arabic design fragments introduced later in the 20th century to create a sales talking point to connect flamenco guitars with Arabic romance and picaresque stories. Think more of tourists going to see the Alhambra and wanting buy a momento of the visit. You see even the label in Manuel de la Chica's guitars want to make an Arabic reference.
Arabic influence in guitar design is an artificial construct introduced later after the modern format was well established. And there is nothing wrong with that, but lets understand the way Arabic influence is used in guitar making to create an "Oriental mystique". If one were to take a long view survey of the fragments of Arab motifs in guitars you see it creeps in most after the 1920's and 30's- and most significantly it is not created by using actual Arabic geometric methods, it is just drawn to look "Araby" and had nothing to do with Moorish design practice and proportional relationships.
The tiles of rosettes are not Moorish in origin either, they reach farther back into time and are truly motifs and working methods that come from Roman mosiac art from the Betica period when Romans occupied Andalucia. The rosettes tiles and motifs from the makers who Torres _copied_ before he forged his own style are clearly of non Arabic origin because the geometry, and the resulting shapes derived from the use of that style of geometry create patters which do not generally match the motifs of the rosettes of Torres' precursors. A visit to the library to check out books on Roman mosaic work, or better yet to a museum which has a collection of Roman mosiac dating from the Betica time sequence would clearly show in the borders, fields and images of Roman mosiac work many of the same motifs present in Torres and pre Torres Spanish inlay work. Furthermore, the same Roman mosaic work motifs are known through history of Spanish furniture and decorative arts and design and express in almost all cases either a Roman or Northern Christian influenced flavor. I also maintain that aside from true historical buildings in Andalucia that are Arabic in origin or post arabic architecture from transitional times from Islamic rule to full Christian rule, precious little in Andalucian design is truly created using Arab geometric concepts, least of all guitars.
The modern guitar as is was developed in Spain was largely a result of Roman and Christian philosophy and geometric principles that are classically derived. The geometry is more Greek than Moorish, each society cultivated different sensibilities in the way they used math to create design. If we are going to throw around religion and who copies from whom, lets think deeper and substantiate our claims with reasoned out historical examples and not just throw religious mud balls. And I'm fine with anyone contesting my ideas, but you better have a historical and iconographical set of references to counter argue your point. If not then you're not digging deep enough. When many of you argue I get the feeling you don't know what you are talking about or are too lazy or angry to provide actual evidence to support your thesis.
For those of who find English challenging, I feel for you, but you'll have to get help in the form of a dictionary or simply ask someone to explain the concepts you do not understand. I'm happy to oblige, or help. I'm also tired of hearing about someone's level of language skills as an excuse for being nasty and disruptive.
_________________
So loud guitars~ My thought was that the guys who played for Carmen Amaya needed loud double tops with carbon graphite braces-
and the guitarists of today need copies of Santos guitars, because Santos made some of the loudest guitars ever and it would save you guys from struggling with buying all those microphones.
The real answer is a time machine. -
______
Via con basura amigos !
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Feb. 15 2014 1:31:42
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Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
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RE: volume of a guitar (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
I would also challenge the idea that Americans are copyists while Spanish makers are not.
I remember sort of a humorous story. When I first came to Madrid, I was in Felix Manzanero's shop and a few Spanish guitarists were visiting there.
They saw me playing some Sabicas solea por Bulerias, trying out one of Felix's guitars, and they asked me to show them the falsetas, which I did, and when we finished the short course they thanked me, since, at that time, there were very few records or people playing his music that they could learn from.
I think this same ideal applies to guitar building; you learn to make guitars from a well known pattern, then you proceed to create your own, if that's what you prefer.
Personally, I have found that it is much more difficult to build a tonal copy of a master that create my own.
_____________________________
Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
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Date Feb. 15 2014 3:16:37
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Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
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RE: volume of a guitar (in reply to Anders Eliasson)
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quote:
It was a very intuitive way of understanding what was going on.
And its interesting to see how some very different approaches can lead to a result that is more or less the same tonal result.
I have to agree that no two guitars are the same and that we all have our different approaches to building, to some extent, and that we arrive at a certain tonal result that is very close.
But the basic understanding in fine tuning, which is mostly intuitive, is that we go a little bit further to finish out the art of tonal results. And this is determined by each individual builder.
When I met Manuel Adalid for the first time, he impressed me as being a guitar maker who wanted to know what I knew, he didn't say his way was the best but that he wanted to learn other techniques to possibly improve what he was already building.
After the fine tuning class in my shop he went home to Valencia armed with additional knowledge to make improvements with his build.
So the question is, should we settle into a relative mind set that says we know it all, or do we seek to refine what we know and build a greater instrument, as we go.
If a Spaniard came to me and said he had a perfect way to refine sound, and that he would show it to me, then I would be gracious and accept what he had to show.
Manuel Adalid has done the same...which is the mark of a great man.
To do less, would be disrespectful to either party.
_____________________________
Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
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Date Feb. 15 2014 11:52:55
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