Classical Guitar Building: Derivation, Material & Alternatives
Modern Classical Guitar, where it Begins
The first modern classical guitar, as generally acknowledged, was made in 1856 by Antonio de Torres Jurado.
The main feature of this classical guitar is what we call full size classical guitar today. Because of the size and shape of the guitar body. Now it is universal, but during that time it was quite experimental.
The size of Torres body, with a length of 18.27 in. (464mm), is larger than Romantic classical guitar. Modern full size classical guitar is usually a bit larger still, typically with body length 0f 19.25 in. (489mm).
There are also other features that to be taken as symbols of modern classical guitar.
Before, the bracing system of the soundboard of classical guitar was introduced ladder layout. Torres used fan-layout with seven bars arranged symmetrically around the centerline. Besides, the neck joints the body at the 12th fret which is also called 12-fret neck. We all know that at the early age, the strings were tuned by wood pegs, during Torres period, it converted to geared turners.
Before WWII, the name classical guitar was not as widely used as today. It was generally called Spanish guitar which is still be used today.
Dimensions of Classical Guitar
We can find various dimensions of bodies of acoustic guitar, electric guitar ,etc. However, the body dimension and shape of classical guitar is almost standardized. Although there is no universal design, modern classical guitar closely follow the proportions of the 1856 Torres.
Typical Materials for Classical Guitar Building
Although we can see there are solid top classical guitars and even laminated guitars today, only full solid classical guitars are considered as the instruments for performance.
What is full solid classical guitar? It refers to the classical guitar made of wood. We should admit that there are some alternative materials being used in classical guitar building. But classical guitar design is still strongly influenced by tradition and unlikely to change in a short time.
Following are typical wood material in classical guitar making:
Top: Spruce or Cedar
Side: Brazilian rosewood
Back: Brazilian rosewood
Neck: Spanish cedar or Mahogany
Fretboard: Ebony
Bridge: Ebony
In this group,Brazilian rosewood catches all of our eyeballs at the first time. Because of the excellent tone performance, the wood was widely used and soon became endangered. Now, the exportation or international trading of Brazilian rosewood and its products is totally banned. For classical guitar makers, it is necessary to use alternative wood material to build classical guitar. Luckily, there are excellent alternatives. Indian rosewood, Cocobolo rosewood, Madagascar rosewood are recognized as good ones.
For classical guitar top, Spruce wood is the most commonly deployed material. However, there are types of them. Sitka Spruce, Engelmann Spruce, European Spruce, Lutz Spruce and western red Cedar are commonly used wood for top building. Among them, Lutz Spruce is only used recently. European Spruce is also called Norway Spruce, German Spruce and Carpathian Spruce.
Nowadays, during classical guitar making, some wood material application is also quite experimental, such as Mahogany for back and side, Maple for top and even the whole guitar body, etc. But we should say that some of the combination also achieve excellent tone performance.
When making the choice of the wood, there are some considerations, like economic, durability, sound, etc.
Final Thoughts
We just spied a few aspects relevant to classical guitar making. There are more things need to be discussed. And we will discuss later.
However, dimension and material are the most important aspects that related with modern classical guitar building.
Although there are solid top classical guitar, laminated classical guitar today, here, we just talked about making of all solid classical guitar.
If you are interested about this topic or want to custom classical guitar, it is a good idea to Talk with Us.