Guitar Making
Dec 31, 2009 Guitar
Guitar Making and the Types of Wood Used
This comes down to several reasons – one of the foremost is that a guitar maker’s choice of wood significantly affects the way any completed guitar sounds. While it is true that the shape of a guitar, how it is put together and other such considerations that can be learned at a training institution are exceedingly important sound-wise, the acoustic quality of the wood itself is also a major factor. Such characteristics as the amount of moisture the wood contains (the lesser the better) and the way it channels vibrations are extremely important factors in any guitar maker’s choice of wood.
Certain kinds of wood, called ‘tonewoods,’ are known in the guitar making industry for their ability to transmit sound, and can positively contribute to the overall sound of the instrument. Some examples of renowned tonewoods are Brazilian rosewood, maple and various kinds of mahogany. Different kinds of tonewoods can be used in different parts of a guitar, from the top, back and sides to the soundboard. As taught by master luthiers, varying combinations will result in various tones and timbres.
Another important consideration is cost and/or availability. Brazilian rosewood and other highly regarded kinds of wood such as yew and Maccasar ebony are sourced from species that are very rare, and thus it may be hard and/or expensive for guitar makers to use these sorts of wood. Other kinds of wood whose tonal qualities are also excellent, such as East Indian rosewood, alder and ash, are more readily available and can be less expensive, and so are quite popular in guitar making as well. Taking courses at a reputable guitar building school can help would-be luthiers maximize the tonal characteristics of different wood, making the most of each type’s unique qualities.
Resource Box:
Musicians Institute is a guitar making school without par in the industry. Having started out as the Guitar Institute of Technology (GIT) in 1977, a dedicated guitar school and the first of its kind, it has an unparalleled tradition of offering nothing but the best guitar education, and continues to do so to this day. Please visit MI.edu or call 800-255-7529 for more information.
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Steve’s Guitar Making Part 1 – Materials
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Wilton Guitar Cake Pan $8.78 Novelty Cake Pan: Guitar. The leader in cake decorating tools Wilton doesn’t mess around with anything but the best! Their bake ware is the choice of serious bakers for wedding cakes and other special occasions. Features: thick durable construction, pure aluminum for consistent and professional results. Constructed of Aluminum for rust resistance and easy washing. Package takes any two-layer cake … |
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ELECTRIC GUITAR NEW 3 UP Jobs Candy Mold Chocolate $1.99 This is a first quality, tough plastic mold. It is durable and reusable. It is not machine washable. Suitable for chocolate and soap making as well as plaster and concrete crafting. FDA approved…. |
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MUSIC, MUSIC, MUSIC Jobs Candy Mold Chocolate $1.99 This is a first quality, tough plastic mold. It is durable and reusable. It is not machine washable. Suitable for chocolate and soap making as well as plaster and concrete crafting. FDA approved…. |
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Chuck Berry – Hail Hail Rock ‘n’ Roll [VHS] $19.98 Two distinct portraits of Chuck Berry emerge in this lavish four-disc set built around Hail! Hail! Rock n’ Roll, director Taylor Hackford’s 1986 documentary/concert film. On one side there’s the Berry who wrote a catalogue’s worth of genre-defining songs (“Maybellene,” “Johnny B. Goode,” “Roll Over Beethoven,” and so many others), all of them filled with wit, delightful stories, and poetry. He’s a… |
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French Polishing for Guitarmakers … |
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Archtop Guitar Design and Construction with Robert Benedetto This 9.5 hour instructional video captures the passion and exquisite artistry of foremost archtop guitarmaker Robert Benedetto as he crafts his world renowned acoustic guitars…. |
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Boston $4.89 “Better music through science” was the Epic Records-coined slogan that Boston leader Tom Scholz hated, but this masterwork of studio-happy, high-school-parking-lot music earned it. Scholz fine-tuned his overdubbed guitar orchestra to a pitch that a thousand subsequent album-rockers couldn’t resist. And why should they? Where the band’s later records were hardly worthy of note, Boston pulls togethe… |
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Aja $4.81 History gives Steely Dan’s Walter Becker and Donald Fagen the last, hearty laugh on this, the crown jewel in their remarkable canon of ’70s Mensa pop. Sneaking onto the charts a half-decade earlier with sinuous, jazz-inflected “rock,” the dysfunctional duo’s acerbic, anti-heroic visions had been critically lauded for their band identity and killer guitar riffs, then promptly challenged when the t… |
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All Things Must Pass [BOXED EDITION] $12.00 It’s hard to imagine, but Beatles resident mystic George Harrison has arguably become the band’s most curmudgeonly cynic. We offer as evidence this splendidly remastered 30th-anniversary edition of his 1970 multidisc solo epic. If the mini-boxed set’s booklet and twin inner CD sleeves won’t convince you (the album’s familiar cover is colorized and altered to include backdrops of a freeway-tangled … |
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Dremel 335-01 Plunge Router Attachment $20.73 Anyone who’s ever used a router understands the satisfaction that a cleanly cut rabbet or mortise can give. But if you’re working on small-scale projects, such as jewelry boxes or models, that monster three-horsepower fixed-base router with the 1/2-inch bit is simply overkill. That’s where the Dremel 335 comes in. This plunge-router adapter is meant to be used with the Dremel rotary tools (models … |
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