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converting classical guitar to flamenco
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Flamingrae
Posts: 220
Joined: May 19 2009
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 RE: converting classical guitar to f... (in reply to aqualibguitars)
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Ok, so I'm right in the middle of one of these........
and yes, it's a labour of love and may never be as good as if I built from scratch but thats not why I'm doing it.
Won a guitar holiday about six years ago - great. Did I want to take a really good guitar away - no. Buy a cheap Admira classical over there, do course, bring guitar back......Passage of time and thinks I might just do a conversion, see what it's like inside and hopefully lighten up the instrument to give it a more flamenco feel. It's my souvenier and I've learnt a load doing it. I think it will sound better, look better and play better and I can give it a French polish. Whats not to like?
Right in the middle of doing proper bindings having lightened up bracing on .....wait for it ..... a plywood top ha! taken a great chunk of wood from the front top cross brace away, cut the body depth down and you know, it's beginning to sound really quite responsive in the tap.
It's the journey, not the arrival and my memories, learning curve and little piece of Spain from a particular time - thats all, and I bet it will sound more flamenco than when it was.
Go Aqualib.........and conquer. 
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Date Feb. 28 2014 16:54:33
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3437
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: converting classical guitar to f... (in reply to gj Michelob)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: gj Michelob
quote:
Only NEED to lower bridge (perhaps plane ebony if it equals too low action to just lower saddle and possible bridge material to below 10mm string to golpe plate)...and put golpe tap plate. Easy job if you don't have to plane any ebony.
Weren't Sabicas and our own Ramzi, in fact, playing classical guitars with such simple adjustments?
Early in his career Sabicas played an Esteso, of which I have no knowledge. However, Esteso and Santos Hernandez, his fellow Manuel Ramirez oficial were among the pioneers of the divergence of the modern flamenco guitar from its ancestors, the designs of Antonio Torres and Manuel Ramirez.
Richard Brune argues, convincingly I think, that 19th-century Spanish guitar design was more strongly influenced by flamenco tocaores than by classical players, since there were many more tocaores than classical players at the time.
http://www.classicalguitardelcamp.com/download/file.php?id=22751&mode=view
Of course Torres was strongly influenced by the classical players Julian Arcas and Francisco Tarrega. Players of both styles were known to frequent the shop of Manuel Ramirez.
By the time I saw Sabicas the first time in the early 1960s he was playing Barberos, and at least once an Arcangel Fernandez, by Barbero's disciple. These were both decidedly what we would nowadays call flamencos.
Later in his career Sabicas played a Ramirez blanca--and always seemed to have one or two available for sale. Except for the cedar top, this guitar is a very flamenco design. Jose Ramirez III comments in his book that he could introduce no innovations in his flamenco guitars, due to the conservatism of the tocaores. I have had a 1967 example of this model since it was new--it's definitely flamenco.
A different flamenco design, the tablao guitar of Manuel's older brother and teacher, Jose Ramirez I, didn't last much beyond the lifetime of its originator. It had a considerably larger plantilla than the Torres/Manuel Ramirez design, and a shallower body.
RNJ
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Date Feb. 28 2014 18:32:54
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3464
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: converting classical guitar to f... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
English doesn't have the utterly pervasive gender awareness of many other languages.
So true. Among the most interesting is German. German not only has the masculine and feminine genders ("der" and "die"), it also has the neuter ("das"). And to make it even more confusing, it's not the actual person, place or thing that has gender in German, but the WORD that stands for the actual thing. That's why a “car” can be either das Auto (neuter) or der Wagen (masculine). One of the terms for "girl" is das Madchen, neuter when one would expect feminine.
And that's just the easy part of learning the German language. Mark Twain once observed: "It's easier to decline two drinks than one German adjective."
Back to the gender of the guitar. Here German has it right and keeps it feminine: die Gitarre.
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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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Mar. 1 2014 21:58:19
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