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When is top wood too weird to be a top?
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3321
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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 RE: When is top wood too weird to be... (in reply to estebanana)
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When I ordered my spruce/Brazilian classical from Abel Garcia years ago he showed me some spruce Romanillos had given him "from early in his career." It could have been the next board in the tree from the top of my '73 Romanillos, or the top of Bream's famous #501. The grain was wide. Narrower near the center, much wider toward the edges, then slightly narrower, then wider again.
I told Garcia, "You are the Maestro, you choose the top for my guitar."
When it arrived, the top showed very narrow, very uniform grain, with a lot of "silk"--medullary rays.
I called Abel to thank him and praise the new guitar. As the conversation went on I reminisced about the wood from Romanillos he had shown me.
"It's great wood," Abel replied, "but you might have a hard time selling a guitar with a top that looks like that, without Romanillos's label in it." [Translated]
In an article in American Luthiery Simon Ambridge quotes Romanillos saying guitar wood was hard to come by in England in the early 1970s. Those tops were from re-sawn 'cello blanks. The Brazilian in #501 was from a table bought at auction.
RNJ
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Date Oct. 17 2022 23:28:46
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estebanana
Posts: 9000
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: When is top wood too weird to be... (in reply to estebanana)
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Now I’m left contemplating my navel.
Why do I build guitars? I ask myself. I’m capable of getting a doctorate in art history and teaching, were there actually teaching positions that would gratify my mind and my sense of integrity, or obsessive demand for integrity. Which is a burden more so than a personal attribute. And privilege to even obsess over integrity.
I’ve played and others have played countless guitars that have given satisfaction and have not been constructed with rare materials. What is it about rare materials that are important? If we are satisfied by common materials why are rare materials, Brazilian rose wood, more important? On the marketplace level there’s an economy based on rare materials, but we still have a dual understanding that the commonest of materials can transform into a guitar that is satisfying, and capable of producing satisfying and even transcendent musics.
Sometimes I think is it really the sound of the guitar that’s important to me, or the transgression that I derive satisfaction from? And the transgression is of the market, I derive pleasure at at giving the market place the finger by not exalting the fetishization of the ‘exotic’ or rare woods.
I get off on the hunt for slabs of wood that slip under the rare wood radar. I get satisfaction from finding the unlikely board and ripping it open to see if I scored something unique, but still common. Commonly unique, so common it’s not in the market place desired as prime commodity. I’m drawn towards the gamble that I’ll find woods that are undesirable or un fetishizable, like rare conventional guitar materials are, it’s not that I really have anything against rare rosewoods, except that extracting them is an unsustainable environmental act no matter how guitar makers justify it; politics are important and guitar making isn’t immune to criticism.
Anyway all this is for sale, by way of commissioning a guitar, and I’m booked until mid spring. But just wanted to write this to understand for myself why I’m not drawn to rosewood guitars. It’s partly that I’m addicted to the hunt for the commonest of materials that can make a guitar that creates satisfaction for the user, and the satisfaction is based purely on the merits of the guitar itself and not because the guitar is constructed with the materials that the market place dictates. I give the finger to the marketing and also acknowledge my own survival depends on marketing.
Good morning.. welcome to my head trips
 c
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https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Oct. 24 2022 14:12:25
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RobF
Posts: 1424
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
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RE: When is top wood too weird to be... (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
I give the finger to the marketing and also acknowledge my own survival depends on marketing.
There’s no getting around it, marketing is almost certainly more influential than anything you can personally do with the craft, at least in the near term.
My take is individual makers using alternative woods are fighting a steep uphill battle unless they’re willing to enlist the support of dealers, who will then proceed to dictate the terms of engagement, regardless.* Mind you, the internet helps, but it doesn’t take much reading back over the two main forums to see how entrenched the buying public is. Especially in Flamenco. There is very little sense of adventure in flamenco when it comes to guitars, and a huge amount of misinformation.
To me, the wood looks gorgeous as back and sides, but would probably be a hard sell as tops. Even as back and sides you’ll be fighting the “purists” if used for flamenco and, if used for classical, it’s quite likely the best/easiest way forward to move the material would be to go whole hog and do a “modern” classical, complete with raised neck, laminated sides and (possibly) back, and lattice braced or double-top - the whole sheebang. If only because the clientele looking for “cutting edge” will more likely be accepting of the use of alternative woods. Otherwise, you have to accept the role of “voice crying in the wilderness”, at least until the acceptance becomes more mainstream.
Just my own fevered thoughts…
*my first teacher made a guitar with a three piece back and shipped it off to a dealer in California. Not long after that, he got a call from the dealer thanking him, saying the guitar sold within hours of arriving at the store, but please don’t send any more with three piece backs because they are hard to sell. 
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Date Oct. 24 2022 17:53:58
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3321
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: When is top wood too weird to be... (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
...were there actually teaching positions that would gratify my mind and my sense of integrity, or obsessive demand for integrity. Which is a burden more so than a personal attribute. And privilege to even obsess over integrity.
------
I derive pleasure at giving the market place the finger by not exalting the fetishization of the ‘exotic’ or rare woods.
------
it’s not that I really have anything against rare rosewoods, except that extracting them is an unsustainable environmental act no matter how guitar makers justify it; politics are important and guitar making isn’t immune to criticism.
----------
I give the finger to the marketing and also acknowledge my own survival depends on marketing.
I have been acquainted with around a dozen successful guitar makers, who have enjoyed a varying range of commercial success. All have been individuals who, in my perception, exhibited exceptional integrity. I have liked all but one of them.
Every one of them has had to deal with conflicts between their personal prefernces and the marketplace. Even Jose Ramirez III, the most successful commercially, complained that the flamencos would not put up with any departure from tradition--although he sold many more cedar topped flamencas than spruce.
When I asked Abel Garcia about wood for back and sides he seated me upon a stool, and sat a little higher on another, across his workbench from me. Abel published a book on guitar making woods. His ten minute lecture reflected his knowledge and expertise. He concluded by saying he could make me guitars of the same quality from Indian or Brazilian rosewood, Palo Escrito or Cocobolo. He likened using Brazilian rosewood to "putting jewelry on the guitar."
I replied, "Maestro, I am old school. I would like Brazilian."
Abel took me to his temperature- and humidity-controlled wood storage area and showed me the most beautiful straight grained quarter sawn Brazilian I had seen in twenty years. I chose a set. Then I asked him which he would have chosen.
He indicated a slab sawn set. "¿Porqué ese juego?" I asked.
"Es mas blanda."
Stephen, your thoughts prompt me to analyze my choice.
Playing a guitar is an emotional experience. Favorable (or unfavorable) experiences form preferences. I had played a number of Brazilian rosewood guitars, from Ramirez III, Bernabe Sr., Contreras Sr. which gave me great pleasure, and I owned a couple at the time I spoke with Abel. The sound, looks and even the aroma of these instruments all were influences on my choice.
Successful luthiers are the experts on sound, playabiity, durability, materials and other practical aspects. Each has his or her own preferences based on individual experience and preference, which are inherently subjective.
Successful dealers are the experts on what is likely to sell, and what the cusomer may be willing to pay. Their evaluations are to some extent subjective, but I believe commercial success depends largely upon objectivity.
To the extent that luthiers and dealers may depend upon one another, or are their own dealers in fairly high volume like the Spaniards I mentioned, compromise is likely to be required.
I know at least one successful luthier who appears not to depend upon dealers at all. I would never buy a guitar from him because of his offensive behavior. Not dishonest, not lacking in integrity, just offensive. He's the only successful luthier I know whom I don't like.
But his success indicates that a maker of good instruments with some reasonable social skills might be able to succeed with little compromise to his or her ideals.
RNJ
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Date Oct. 24 2022 19:21:03
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