Building guitars is greatly satisfying and can be the perfect job or the perfect hobby. It is, however, rare that a maker is happy to churn out exactly the same thing time after time. Some expand into bowed instruments, others into period instruments and some just experiment and improve within the very constrained and limited classical guitar aesthetic. Since my beginnings I have been interested in the 19th century and how we got to the guitar we make today. My first copy was Antonio de Lorca and since then I have come across a number of instruments which have been so great or so unusual that I just had to make copies: Torres, Vicente Arias, Santos Hernández, Marcelo Barbero and Rolf Eichinger . The success of some of these copies, especially the Torres and the Santos, has brought me a reputation for this sort of work.

The current owners of La Invencible made by Antonio de Torres have asked me to make a new model which will be a copy of this great guitar. Please visit the website they have created in order to share this marvel of Torres’ work. Last month I travelled to Barcelona to photograph and measure every detail of this instrument. Aside from belonging to Federico Cano and being one of the higher quality instruments it is a fantastic-sounding guitar. I took photos and videos of the inside and outside and can safely say that the top is original, contrary to what a few jealous guitar-sellers have maintained. One of the defining features of this guitar is the open transverse bar below the soundhole. This allows some of the fan braces to extend up alongside the soundhole. Other relevant features include the minimal thicknesses of the top and sides and the typical seven strut configuración with two extra struts in a V on the outside of the fan.  Thank you so much Jordi and Carlos for the opportunity to study this wonderful guitar.

The conservatory of Santiago de Compostela presents Marcos Socias in concert april 18 20:15 and masterclass 19 and 20 from 10:00 to 20:00. Register at this link.

Manuel Bellido and mathematician José Miguel Contreras presented the “golden guitar” yesterday at the University of Granada. The two collaborated using the golden ratio for the design of the guitar. This ratio occurs all over nature and is used in design to create things that the human eye finds immediately appealing. The golden ratio has been postulated for violin design perhaps more often than for guitar but on this occasion it seems to have been quite a success. Both Bellido and Contreras addressed the public and guitarist Marcus Toscano was responsible for the musical portion which was well-played and very nicely chosen. Among the attendees were many guitar-makers and aficionados, it seems that every day brings more activities centred around the guitar to our fine city.