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SOME COMMENTARIES AND INFORMATION ABOUT A WEEK-LONG CLASS IN THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF VOICING THE GUITAR; PART 1 OF 4

PART 1 OF 4

BY ERVIN SOMOGYI

     
There are plenty of classes available these days on how to construct a soundbox, in which the student makes his or her own guitar or watches the instructor make one. These classes offer the very real satisfaction of having completed a[n often] first guitar. But they offer nothing at all on the logic of its construction, its proper voicing, comparisons/advantages/disadvantages of different building methods, and the principles that regulate how some thin pieces of glued-together wood will make good tone. I teach an annual class that does. It’s seven days long. Its aim is to equip the instrument maker who already has some instrument building experience, and wants to know more than the mechanics of guitar building, with an understanding of what actually goes on inside the soundbox. It’s a really great class on many levels.

The class, at least at the time of this writing, has no fewer than seven students, nor more than eleven. The principal tools we use are the eye, the hand, and the ear -- although we use “real” tools as well. We focus on the feel of the wood and the sound of tap tones at various stages of construction: these are unsuspectedly rich sources of information that is rendered unavailable when we mostly use “modern” tools. A lot of people don’t believe in tap tones; they are typically thought of as being too subjective, vague, unreliable, and even meaningless. Yet, they are the voice of the soundbox at a given point in time, and the fact that no one has been taught how to use nor interpret tap tones does not mean that they are useless; quite the opposite, in fact. Tap tones tell us the resonances at which the top (and back) act. Tap tones are essential, in my approach, to evaluating the voice of the soundbox (and its various quadrants) and to tracking that voice as it is changed by one’s work. This is at the heart of voicing work, which is otherwise defined as (1) the setting of the body’s main resonances through the manipulation of its main plates, and (2) the manipulation of the top’s ability to engage in its principal vibrational modes. The Feel and Sound of the wood are the traditional focus of every skilled and pre-electronic-testing-equipment-era maker. These are learned over time: I don’t know of any shortcuts to it. You won’t learn all of this in this class, but you’ll learn how to begin to use these skills to add to your own experience in your future work.

I learned this approach through a combination of making lots of mistakes, thinking about what had gone wrong or right in the course of my work, listening to others’ advice and and bringing as much common-sense thinking to the things they said as I could, and comparing their wisdom with my own experience at the workbench. Eventually I was able to make a pretty good guitar every so often; and I’d find a piece of the puzzle to be validated. Overall, I found that simple common sense . . . combined with about twenty years’ work . . . was very useful. But first, came the mistakes, and plenty of them. At one point I got smart and I started to keep records and data: that was a huge help in sorting fact from fiction.   

Mainly, what I’m saying, is that I more or less needed to be my own chief resource. When I started out as a guitar maker there were very few resources available on the horizon. There were only two books (A.P. Sharpe's and Irving Sloane's), no videos, no schools, no conventions and symposia, no network, and no one knew anything. I certainly didn't. The mainstream system, as far as guitars were concerned, consisted of American factories such as Gibson, Guild, Harmony, Washburn, Martin, Gretsch, and Fender. The Japanese, Mexican and Taiwanese guitar factories were turning out ornamental crap and the only real luthiers people had ever heard of -- like Ramirez, Torres, Orville Gibson, Santos Hernandez, C.F. Martin, Simplicio, Hermann Hauser, and John D'Angelico -- were all long since dead. The pioneering steel string guitar making Larson brothers were both dead and forgotten. This was not exactly a lutherie environment rich in promise. But we persevered . . . and survived . . . and learned . . . and American luthiers in general have come a long way.

As far as I know, mine is the only class that teaches the techniques and possibilities of voicing the guitar. I've been teaching this for about seven years, and I learn something new in each class that I incorporate into the next one. It is a truism that teaching something is an excellent way to learn it, and I seem to be a good teacher. At least, that's what I hear J.

If you have any questions or comments so far, I'll try to answer them.Ervin Somogyi39086.5762847222

Mr. Somogyi,
I am so looking forward to being in your course in February. I am just finishing my fifth and sixth guitars. While I have a lot to learn, generally speaking, I feel that I know how to build a guitar now. I have absolutely no idea how to make it sound like I want. That is what I hope to learn from you.
My latest guitar lacked in bass response. Will I have a good idea how to predict and/or avoid that lack of balance after your course?

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Steve, have a look see at the five videos, your answer is in there. The videos are just a small sampling BUT very informative.

We would encourage everyone to watch the videos first, You may get some of your questions answered, you will certainly have more!

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

OK,
I will have time to watch this weekend.

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

Just watched the first one.

yeah, you gotta have the intros etc, but even that first half hour teaches alot that I didn't know.

lookin forward to getting the chamce to see the rest!!

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Would it be possible to get copies of the handouts that were passed around at the beginning of the class? Or will that same material be presented in these threads?

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

[QUOTE=martinedwards] yeah, you gotta have the intros[/QUOTE]

I don't understand what you mean. The handouts at both the symposium talk, and the class are supplemental material. They are not prerequisites to this.

Great articles for sure, but you don't HAVE to have them.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Brock-
I think that Martin may be referring to the introductory remarks made at the beginning of the session, before the talk got around to the 'serious content'.
Though I've only watched the first couple of segments, I've found it very entertaining and informative. My thanks go out to you and Lance (and of course, to Ervin) for making this material available.
It's by far the best info I've found on voicing. It's well-prepared and organized and presented by a speaker who is expert, a good communicator, and witty as well.
A slightly more polished version of the same talk, with some good sound files could (and should) certainly be sold commercially.
Thanks
John
PS- Any copies of printed material would be helpful, but the videos themselves have lots of 'food for thought', so as you say, they're probably not essential..

Mr Somogyi-
Thank you for making this material available. Hopefully some day I can listen to you in person.
Do you have any more info on the Japanese tools/knives/chisels that you refer to at the beginning of your talk?
Regards
John

                      paul harrell39086.7189930556

I just watched them all .. is it possible to get the missing few minutes between 3 and 4 ??? Where Ervin is talking about the effects of the bridge, and whether it lowers or raises (or stays the same) the frequency ??? The end of that discussion is missing all together. If its possible, if not, I guess we wil just have to go and ask him ourselves !!!!

BTW - lots of interesting stuff in here .. I am going to the shop to tap a couple finished bodies now ..

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
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Ervin, sir, may I thank you. I really enjoyed the first episode....gonna watch more tommorow as I absorb what you have said.

Thank God for the internet. Sam Price39086.7832060185

The gap between 3 and 4 - oof! Secret information? Should we have a group vote where the tone was going? I think what was happening to a certain extend was that the complexity of the overall spectrum of the response was getting reduced - there is probably a much narrower response peak. It seems at first like the tap tone is dropping, but perhaps what is happening is that there is simply a reduction in overtones?

Can anyone see the writing on the blackboard? I can't.

This is a really interesting idea - I'm so glad that the OLF-meisters have arranged to do this.

General question - If you put your body together by gluing on the back first, would it make sense to voice the top while it's clamped on the remainder of the already assembled body? Since most guitars are built with a level rim on the top side, it would be possible to do this, wouldn't it?

Jim

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

There is a good chance I was switching tapes during the missing part. OR its hidden in a vault only to be discovered later..

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Jim good idea. Lets see what everyone comes up with for the difference in the tap with and without the bridge on.

What I noticed is that with the bridge off, the top sounded more "echoie" and with the bridge on it sounded less "echoie".

So with the bridge off, it was more like hitting a church pew in an old, vaulted roof church....

And with the bridge on, it was more like hitting the church pew in a padded room.

So the bridge would have IMO restricted the length of the vibration of the top, not change the tone.

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Jim, I tend to agree with what your saying about the sound once the bridge was put on. Wish I could have heard and seen the rest.

I cannot see the blackboard either

I have finished the first three tapes and it is very informative.

What I have learned or had some clarification on so far

In a sense, we all start out with a bracing style, pattern, approach that are the same on most all of our guitars. What was interesting is that, done right, each top has it own voice or ability to perform if you will and so our bracing approach is just a start if we want the top (ultimately the guitar) to reach closer to her full potential. This is especially important considering that most of us buy soundboards off photos or listings and only until we start the process will we know what variations in shape, size, configuration and weight will that particular top need to reach this potential. Elementary to some folks but after the first 3 tapes his explanations seem to simplify this complex issue and for that I do appreciate.

Did I hear right, Mr. Somogyi puts the top on first and strings his guitars up throughout this process noting true change beyond tap tone differences?

Mike

Lance,
I am using dial-up and 30mb file would take over 3 hours. Is it possible to Zip each file and send to me?
Thanks Lance,

Bobj,
Zipping a wmv file probably will not make it smaller. Most video files, especially those distributed over the net, are already compressed. Perhaps a download manager where "resume downloading" is an option. That way if someone calls in a knocks you offline you don't have to start the entire download over. You could leave your dialup connection on overnight and download one a night or something.

As far as easing server load on OLF.
Beside someone mirroring the wmv files I think the only other option would be to use a Torrent for distribution.

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The bridge is going to mostly stiffen up the top across the width, restricting the cross dipole movement, yes? To my ear the tap sounds lower with the bridge on. So perhaps it's reducing the higher frequencies associated with cross dipole movement, but still allowing most of the monopole (bass) response.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

[QUOTE=letseatpaste] The bridge is going to mostly stiffen up the top across the width, restricting the cross dipole movement, yes? To my ear the tap sounds lower with the bridge on. So perhaps it's reducing the higher frequencies associated with cross dipole movement, but still allowing most of the monopole (bass) response.[/QUOTE]

That is the way I see it too... I do think that you might lose a little monopole just due to the sheer mass of the bridge but I think that is a good way to look at it.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Makes a lot of sense and i appreciated the comparison with the guitar and the monocoques building, light building, just enough for what the purpose is, make sound.

I will have to relisten to all the sessions because of my tendancy to translate to my French speakin' brain but i really enjoyed the first listen, it appears to me that in Mr Somogyi's approach, there is a real balance between math or science and feel, our hands can really be great teachers too, nest-ce pas Mr Somogyi ?

Thanks

Serge

Edit: Moved to new threadletseatpaste39088.4059490741

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

[QUOTE=LanceK] There is a good chance I was switching tapes during the missing part. OR its hidden in a vault only to be discovered later..[/QUOTE]

Just don't send Heraldo Rivera to find it....or that will guarantee that it will never be found.


Sorry...couldn't resist.
Don Williams39087.4491319444

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Ervin,
Thank you for doing this. I was fortunate to be at the ASIA session last June and it has certainly changed the way I approach bracing and voicing the top. I still have a lot to learn and am looking forward to this discussion. Reviewing the videos has made me aware of a couple of things that I forgot.