We live for creating beautiful instruments and selling them to great players. Hearing truly beautiful music played on an instrument that you have made is as good as it gets. However, since so many of them go far away I find satisfaction often comes from something closer to home . Completing an instrument and hearing the first golden notes is definitely a high but just admiring the beauty of the wood we work with is food for the soul as well.

The Antonio de Torres Museum has organized an exhibition “Five centuries of the Spanish guitar” with a guitar made by Thomas Durán as its central piece. I am looking forward to attending later this month if I can manage it. The main strength of the museum as I have experienced it is the temporary exhibitions as well the concerts and conferences organised by the Sociedad Guitarrística de Almería – Antonio de Torres. In this case the person responsible for the exhibition is the luthier Carlos González from Almeria.

This festival includes a competition for young players, masterclasses and some very interesting concerts.

Another incursion into my guitar bookshelves has reminded me of a book by a spanish maker: Jerónimo Peña Fernández. The title is “El Arte de un Guitarrero Español” and although it makes for an interesting read in Spanish , it is not what most people would expect from a method book and perhaps there are much better choices for the novice.

Above is a photo from that book showing a  bracing system that was surely his own invention. Lattice bracing that I have seen is made up of diagonally placed braces which cross each other but there are many variations on that theme. I remember reading somewhere how the Smallman type lattice came about but nobody mentioned this guy who has been building for 50 or 60 years. I don’t know when he started using this system but it was a long time ago. He is known all over the world and even seems to have a street named after him in his home town. In the book there are drawing of other systems some of which include diagonal braces.