Fran López Montoro and Raúl Enrique Navarro, both great-great grandsons of Antonio de Torres have finally been able to release their documentary about the seminal figure of the guitar. The Association of Guitar-makers bought a copy last week and I recently received it. I am not a fan of Amazon but it is the only place I have been able to find it so far. https://www.amazon.es/Espa%C3%B1ola-Torres-DVD-Hermann-Hauser/dp/B08LHXHLDG/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_es_US=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&dchild=1&keywords=la+espa%C3%B1ola+la+de+torres+dvd&qid=1610700010&sr=8-1

The idea was to have a viewing all together but it looks like we will be watching it one at a time in the privacy of our homes so I guess I had better get busy and watch it since I am first on the list. It seems to have been made in Spanish but has English subtitles. Check it out!

The video below was just posted and reminds me what a great thing the guitar festival has been for Granada. Once more I would like to praise Vicente Coves for his tenacity and organisational skills. In a year that saw a great number of festivals and concerts cancelled he was able to secure support for the Granada festival once again and to put together a great programme. I can only imagine the difficulties he faced in adapting everything
to the COVID requirements and getting the permissions and support he needed. This video summarizes the activities of the 2020 festival and gives us hope for a 2021 festival, this time perhaps with visitors from all over the world as we had in 2017, 2018 and 2019. As I have often reported here, the great thing for me and other guitar-makers is that the city fills up with players, teachers, students builders and concert-goers.

In 2017 the Badalona Guitar Associacion organized an excellent event centred around the figure of Antonio de Torres Jurado. Events included a competition for young guitarists, an exhibition of copies of Torres’ guitars, concerts and some very interesting presentations. I was invited to talk about my work restoring historic guitars.

We like to stay away from flat-sawn wood in guitar-making because it tends to be less dimensionally stable and will shrink or swell to a greater degree with humidity changes. The main exceptions are when we want something to bend easily (guitar linings) or because the flat-sawn wood is nicer to look at. This is the case with bird’s-eye maple. I have included a photo, not of the beautiful look of good bird’s-eye but rather the endgrain showing the tree rings so you can see that the wood is totally flat-sawn. If you cut the same maple radially as you would any other wood for guitar-making the eyes don’t show up. You are looking at a the side of the guitar with the binding rebate cut exposing a clean view of the 2mm thick back. You can see fine dark lines in the maple which are horizontal – just the opposite of the dark vertical lines you see on the end of a typical top or even on the inside of the soundhole.