Official Luthiers Forum!

Dear friends,

We're very lucky to have Fabrizio Alberico guest write an article for us. I asked Fabrizio if he would write something on how he might approach designing a guitar specifically for Celtic players and he responded with a really superb piece on not only looking at the design aspects but also an indepth analysis of what players would expect from such a guitar and also how to go about getting one!

Although intended for players, I thought you might find this interesting too as there are some very insightful comments within!

I reproduce a short segment as I do not have permission to give you the full article, but if you like what you read, please point your browser here for the full article:

http://www.guitarbench.com/2010/07/14/a ... e-article/


There is arguably no more demanding test of a guitar’s quality than putting it in the hands of a skilled Celtic player, and following along with your imagination in tow. A fine instrument in the right hands will evoke sounds that blur the lines between string and wind instruments, drawing forth bowed, plucked, and percussive sounds, and you might even hear voices singing at times.

Celtic music is far older than the modern guitar, having been forged into our collective conscience over centuries by fiddle bows, pipe bellows, human breath passing over vocal chords and through flutes, all anchored by deep harp resonances. And so the very definition of Celtic music has become inextricably linked with those and other traditional instruments, and the particular sound colorations imparted by them.

It’s only in the last few decades that the guitar has been used as a melodic solo instrument for playing Celtic music, and that evolution has happened hand-in-hand with the so-called “modern” sound that many contemporary guitarmakers have begun to define. That sound, in a nutshell, consists of a balance that tips toward the upper midrange, “fat” trebles, clarity and focus across the entire frequency range, and an airy, complex tone.

I’m not sure I’ve ever heard Celtic music played on a pre-war Martin Dreadnought, but as wonderful as those instruments are for styles like Bluegrass, I would argue that they wouldn’t be capable of producing believable Celtic music. I say “believable” because ultimately, any guitar playing Celtic music is to a great extent pretending to be another more traditional instrument, such as a fiddle, pipe, harp, or human voice.

The desire to imitate subtleties like changes in bowing or bellows direction, trills and drones, etc. has given rise to all kinds of new playing techniques, and those techniques put particular demands on guitars and their makers.

One such technique, the “harp effect,” consists of never playing consecutive notes of a phrase on the same string, allowing each note to ring out much like the open strings on a harp. The technique can obviously be used on any guitar, but it’s much more believable and “authentic” on a guitar that manages to maintain consistency of tone between open and fretted notes, and affords seamless transitions between wound and unwound strings. Other techniques are aimed at imitating the trills produced by pipes and flutes, which requires an uncommon responsiveness and clarity or else it ...

read the full article here: http://www.guitarbench.com/2010/07/14/a ... e-article/