Eloy Cruz
Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:54:33 -0700
Dear Bill, Waling, list I've never seen any historical references to guitars made out of a single piece of wood, the closest is the little story Minguet tells about how he himself learned how to play the guitar: when he was a boy he bought a guitar tutor (Amat?), he then went to a carpenter's apprentice and asked him to saw the outline of a treble guitar out of a piece of wood, and to add to the contraption a bridge, a "ceja", 5 pegs (and strings) and the 4 necessary frets, then he used his tutor to taught himself, and continued his self-teaching using the books of Sanz and Murcia. The jaranas and requintos jarochos and other traditional guitars are made of a single piece as well, which could attest certain practice in old times: fine guitars assembled, and humble pop guitars carved. Waling is right when he says it's easier to carve than to assemble a guitar. And it's much faster: a baroque-guitar maker will make you wait at least a year, the jarana maker will have the new instrument in one-two weeks... Best wishes eloy To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html