The national classical radio station here in Spain has a programme on Sunday nights dedicated to the guitar. Last week they played music from the two albums that Javier Riba has recorded. The first one, with music from Albeniz was recorded with my Torres copy and the second one with music written for Andrés Segovia was recorded with the 1900 Vicente Arias.
Javier Riba was in town this week for some fret work and while he waited he was working on the pieces for his upcoming concert in Italy. I asked him to record something for me on the Torres copy and the same thing on a cypress concert guitar. I made the Torres copy in 2005 and the cypress in 2010. The video was made with a digital still cam, there was a thunderstorm, and a few car noises so sound is about as bad as it gets, let’s say this is just for fun. Tárrega’s Prelude No. 1
Cypress concert guitar
Maple Torres copy
This guitar is defined by its very thin, flexible top, light overall weight and a relatively small body shape but what makes it very different from other guitars architecturally is the internal back. Is that part of the secret of this guitar’s beautiful sound? I don’t think so because although the guitar is definitely something special, many guitars from that period have been widely acclaimed for the beauty of their tone; Torres before and Manuel Ramirez afterwards so I believe that it is the “the spanish construction” as well as the talent and experience of the makers that give us that sound. Perhaps the double back is analogous to the tornavoz in that it changes some character in the sound. For example, the tornavoz changes the fundamental frequency but does not make for an improvement in the musical possibilities of the instrument. As a matter of fact both these “innovations” have long since been abandoned as serious improvements to the guitar.
In any case I was asked to make a copy and making the back has its challenges regardless of whether it improves the sound or not. Firstly there is the presence of the two “soundports” in a guitar which has obviously had its back removed (inexpertly) some time after it was made. There is some very slight chip-out on the inside from the drilling of the holes so I would say they were made from the outside of the internal back. This reference of a double-back Arias guitar shows no soundports in the back. http://www.blogger-index.com/3364636-romantic-and-old-guitars. At the same time whether the internal back is designed as a part of the resonant structure or rather as a way to reduce the body volume it seems to me that making holes in it would undo those effects. As a matter of fact, someone looking to make the guitar sound like it had no second back might well do just this: make holes in the back. The only evidence that supports the idea that Arias designed the guitar with these holes in place is the presence of another guitar from the same year ( ACCORNERO, Giovanni: La Chitarra. Quattro secoli de capolavori. Italy: Edizioni Il Salabue, 2008) reported to have a double back and two symmetrically placed soundports. However both guitars were property of Gabriel Ruiz de Almodóvar and if he asked a guitar maker (Arias or someone else) to modify one guitar, why not modify the other as well?
The second question is how was the back made and fixed to the guitar? The two backs (after the removal and refitting of the one effected years ago) are so close together that a light pressure on the back in holding the guitar will cause them to touch. This is what alerted me to the fact that the interior back has bars in the outside as well as on the inside in what seems to be the same positions. It was impossible to get the magnet from the Hacklinger gauge to pass into the chamber under the soundhole of the top which would have allowed me to measure the thickness of at least that part. However, using a small block of wood and progressively widening a sawcut in it I was able to determine an approximate thickness for the internal back.
Next question: Is there any reason to give a curve to this internal back? Should the lining be parallel to the contour of the external back? Am I missing something important because I can see neither the exterior side of the internal back nor the interior side of the external back? The edges of the back will have to be completely fixed so that there is no possibility of vibration and any change in angle in the linings will have to be smooth and gradual to ensure contact throughout. I will post pictures of this process when I get to it. In the picture below you can see both the soundport and the height of the bars.
I didn’t manage to get the colours exactly the same but I can assure you that they are closer than it seems from this lousy photo from my cell phone. If you follow the central wavy strip you will see some slight irregularities in it. These are exactly the type of irregularity you can find in the original so in a funny way I am pleased. It tells me that I chanced to put the rosette together in the same way that Arias did. The strip, composed of three veneers, must be wetted so that it will take the curve, otherwise it breaks and at the same time the ebony half circles must be forced into the channel one after the other to trap the strip in that shape. As the ebony pushes against the wet strip, the heat from the new glue causes the old glue to slip and the triple strip ends up looking a bit fatter on the crests and valleys.
I will apologize now for the quality of the images in most of the posts to come. If I am going to be able to do this and keep up my rhythm of work I can take quick and dirty shots with my cell phone and post them straight up. On the other hand I will try to take better shots of guitars that come in for restoration.
I had to play around a bit before I figured out exactly how to make this one. I consulted a few of the more experienced guitar makers here in Granada but no one had ever done anything like this before. In the end a luthier friend turned these ebony tubes on the lathe and that solved some of the problem.