I love this wood. I know, I have published pictures of similar wood in the past but I just can’t get enough of it. This might well be the last set that I have with this wonderful colour and texture. I took this little video just to show what this guitar would look like with no binding and purfling. Who needs extra decoration? Well, actually there is a good reason for those elements. The binding protects the endgrain of the top and back from changes in humidity and at the same time fromm knocks and bumps which can also cause cracks. Furthermore, softwood takes bumps very badly no matter what the grain orientation. The purfling, by sticking to the top on the long grain, holds the binding much better than if the binging were only glued to the endgrain of the top. This is achieved by the staircase cut shown in the diagram. The purfling gives long grain for the binding to stick to. The endgrain is only a problem at the endblock position but as the binding ends there it is very important that it does not unstick.

I am writing this today, and not on December 31, in the hopes that 2020 will not take any more guitar-makers. This has been a rough year and I think our quota has been reached. These are the sad passings that I have heard about this year. Ricardo Louzao, thought by many to be the greatest guitar-maker in Argentina. Fritz Ober, one of the best from Germany. Daniel Friederich without a doubt the best that France has ever produced. In Granada too we are missing Juan López Aguilarte, one of the founders of the Granada School as defined by Eusebio Rioja. Pedro Maldonado was born in Loja in the province of Granada but spent his working life in Málaga. What a year!

I was lucky enough to meet Juan here in Granada a number of times as he had a good relationship with my mentor Rolf Eichinger and I met Pedro through my friend José Ángel Chacón one Christmas in Málaga. I know the others through their guitars and reputations only but I am grateful for their legacies.

I am not sure where the future of music lies but you can be pretty sure that it is neither on vinyl nor in a jewel case. I was looking over the CDs I have that have been recorded on guitars I have made and find that some of them are not available for purchase in CD format. Spotify and the digital music purchase companies are certainly going to be the norm in the near future so I looked there to see what I could find. It’s kind of funny that all of my models are represented here. My old concert model, the Torres SE153, the Santos 1924 and the Antonio de Lorca romantic guitar. My new concert model is represented in the recording by the Korean artist Honam Ji below. The following albums are available on Spotify and so I made a playlist all of the pieces called it Johnguitar.com. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7aSRrSUzgGYduRBUz362Hz?si=bnk9HgTCS7qKHA862TdeKA

I know that there are more CDs either professionally produced or “homemade” using my guitars and I hope that you will all let me know when they are available. Here are some examples of recordings which have not made it to the digital platforms. Actually, I have been unable to find a way to get these physical CDs even.

I have a client who wants to sell one of these two guitars and I want to help him.
https://www.guitarristas.info/anuncios/gibson-byrdland/941285

https://www.guitarristas.info/anuncios/gibson-l5-lee-ritenour/899888

You can follow the links above or you can leave me a contact number or email address and I will pass it on to the seller. johnguitar(at)johnguitar.com