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(Ervin, thanks for sharing the video. I am planning to take your class next year, onec I complete a couple more guitars myself)

In the video, Ervin talks about the importance of the back. I've heard this before and I would like to hear more about it?

There seems to be two types of back design:
1. Make the back absoultely tight, or very stiff, because it gets dampened by the players belly, so you want to take it out of the equation.
2. Make the back work together with the top (usually half or full tone higher than the top resonant frequency?)

I think Ervin falls under the #2 camp. Or do you change it to stiff back design if it is going to be a "bluegrass" guitar, like you mentioned in the video. In that case, how should the back be tuned? Just real stiff, or does it need to have some musical relations to the top resonace?

This sounds very similar to drum tuning to me. Except that the drums, the default tuning is to match the top and bottom heads to the same frequency. You do vary it for different scenarios, but it is different from guitar/violin where I've heard you don't want the top and bottom to be tuned to the same because it tend to cause "wolf notes".

thoughts?