Building acoustic guitars that respond best with fingerstyle technique
has been my passion. Though I enjoy building custom instruments
for any style of playing, most of my experimentation as a luthier
has centered around the fingerstyle guitar. In fact, the main
thing that compelled me to build that first instrument, was the
desire to own a guitar with a fingerboard a little wider and flatter
than that of the standard steel string. At the time, I was performing
on both classical and steel string guitars. I noticed that some
of the music easily played on the classical guitar was difficult
to play on the steel string. I envisioned a guitar that felt and
played like a classic but sounded more like a steel string.
In designing a fingerstyle model, my typical fingerboard is 1
7/8" at the nut with a string spacing of 2 1/4" at the bridge.
These dimensions are midway between those of your average steel
string and classical guitars. I have found this small amount of
extra width a great help to clean execution for both left and
right hands. I have balanced this modification with a neck that
is a bit thinner in cross section. This makes it comfortable and
still easy to wrap a thumb around the neck to catch a bass note
if you wish.
Another concern I had was responsiveness. It is my contention
that an instrument ideal for hard flat picking is probably not
the best guitar for fingerpicking and vice versa. My aim in constructing
a fingerstyle guitar is to make it responsive to a light touch.
When a player has to extend a lot of energy toward just being
heard, there isn't much room left for expression. My goal is a
round, full sound with lots of sustain produced with little effort.
I believe that I have made great progress toward this goal with
my latest instruments. I have designed my fingerstyle guitars
using elements of both classical and steel string guitars. They
are braced lighter than the typical steel string but heavier than
the typical nylon string guitar. The strings I recommend for these
"hybrid" guitars are the "Silk & Bronze" type strings made by
GHS. They also have the added advantage of being easy on the fingers.
My hybrid fingerstyles were designed from the start with these
strings in mind.
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