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Guitars
Photographs and simple text provide an introduction to guitars, explaining what they look like, how they sound, where they come from, and how they are played.
Book
A guide to playing the baroque guitar
James Tyler offers a practical manual to aid guitar players and lutenists
in transitioning from modern stringed instruments to the baroque guitar. He begins
with the physical aspects of the instrument, addressing tuning and stringing
arrangements and technique before considering the fundamentals of baroque guitar
tablature. In the second part of the book Tyler provides an anthology of
representative works from the repertoire. Each piece is introduced with an
explanation of the idiosyncrasies of the particular manuscript or source and
information regarding any performance practice issues related to the piece itself --
represented in both tablature and staff notation. Tyler's thorough yet practical
approach facilitates access to this complex body of work.
eBook
Cool Wooden Box
“In
Cool Wooden Box , Rand Smith has cleverly woven person,
social, and musical histories into a compelling narrative. In
doing so, Smith has illustrated just how, well, cool the steel
string acoustic guitar, its makers, and its players are.”
—John Thomas, author of
Kalamazoo Gals: A Story of Extraordinary Women and
Gibson’s “Banner” Guitars of WWII , and
field editor for
The Fretboard Journal Beginning with a comparison of
the American acoustic guitar world in the early 1960s with that
of today, then describing iconic performances at storied venues
such as The Ark in Ann Arbor while meticulously researching the
instrument’s top makers, Smith assembles a passion-filled
and eye-opening history of that “cool wooden box”
from the folk era through the pandemic. The author focuses on
both the playing and making of the acoustic guitar, concluding
that the instrument has been transformed in both aspects during
the last sixty years. On the playing side, Smith examines the
influences on, and the impact of, such guitarists as David
Bromberg, Elizabeth Cotten, Paul Geremia, and Norman Blake. On
the making side, the author takes the reader into the
tradition-minded yet dynamic world of lutherie. He traces how
the oldest, most revered companies whose reputations are based
on legendary breakthroughs in lutherie, Gibson and Martin, have
adapted as the new lutherie movement of innovative small-scale
producers, exemplified by interviewees such as Michael Gurian,
Bill Collings, Richard Hoover, and Dana Bourgeois, arose.
Starting small and then growing exponentially, Taylor Guitars
is a wholly different “player” in acoustic guitar
building, and Smith compellingly tells its story. Finally,
Cool Wooden Box considers the effects of globalization
on the industry.
Clocking thousands of miles and hours of interviews with
guitar makers, suppliers, and sellers, W. Rand Smith has
created not only a detailed history of the acoustic guitar, but
also a lasting tribute to an instrument he so clearly
reveres.
eBook
Amplified
\"For me, a truly compelling, fact-packed read all about how guitars are made, look, sound, and play. Atkinson admirably recounts a century of history, invention, and experimentation by experts and amateurs of a revolutionary instrument. Highly recommended for anyone who has a guitar, and for anyone who wants one.\"—KT Tunstall, singer-songwriter and guitarist \"Atkinson has put a fantastically exhaustive amount of work into this book for all of us global guitar nerds to enjoy. It's so much fun to dive into it full immersion, and glean everything from details on iconic artist guitars to strange inventions from creatives on the fringe!\"—Jennifer Batten, guitarist (Michael Jackson, Jeff Beck) \"A great resource for all guitar players, tinkerers, and enthusiasts. Atkinson's well-researched book provides essential and fascinating facts of this unique instrument's development over the course of more than a century.\"—Paul Brett, rock guitarist, journalist, guitar designer \"Atkinson has dug deep into the history of the electric guitar to create a detailed view of the ways in which makers and musicians have tried—and in many cases succeeded—to move its design forward. This engaging new book will be required reading for anyone interested in the development of one of the most popular and revolutionary instruments ever created.\"—Tony Bacon, guitar historian and author An in-depth look at the invention and development of the electric guitar, this book explores how the electric guitar's design has changed and what its design over the years has meant for its sound. A heavily illustrated history with amps turned up to eleven, Amplified celebrates this beloved instrument and reveals how it has evolved through the experiments of amateur makers and part-time tinkerers. Digging deep into archives and featuring new interviews with makers and players, it will find admirers in all shredders, luthiers, and fans of electric sound.
eBook
A Three-Dimensional Method for Analysis of the Body Mode of Classical Guitars Using a Laser Displacement Sensor
In classical guitar acoustic spectra, the lowest frequency body mode’s amplitude often significantly surpasses that of the string overtones. However, the characteristics of the body mode have not been systematically utilized to quantitatively represent the timbre of classical guitars. In this study, we propose a quantitative method for describing the body mode, which can effectively differentiate the timbre of classical guitars. Our approach involves three key parameters presented in a three-dimensional space, as follows: the frequency and quality factors of the body mode, along with the amplitude ratio of the plucked string note to the body mode in the soundboard’s vibration spectrum. This representation allows for the visualization, quantitative comparison, and classification of the body mode note and damping properties across classical guitars. The differences in body mode among guitars can be analyzed quantitatively using Euclidean distance.
Journal Article
Navigating Chord Changes in Jazz Guitar with Three Different Fingering Approaches: Vertical, Horizontal, and Diagonal
This article discusses the evolution of jazz guitar fingerings through three different approaches to navigating chord changes: vertical, horizontal, and diagonal. It explains the early limitations of vertical fingerings and how it was improved with the advent of the horizontal approach, evidenced in the jazz world by Pat Metheny in the 1970s. It also looks at how Kurt Rosenwinkel introduced diagonal fingerings to the broader jazz audience in the late 1990s. This article explains these three fingering styles and provides examples and a pedagogical guide for their study.
Journal Article
Performance of Acoustic, Electro-Acoustic and Optical Sensors in Precise Waveform Analysis of a Plucked and Struck Guitar String
This study presents a comparative performance analysis of three sensor technologies—microphone, magnetic pickup, and laser Doppler vibrometer—for capturing string vibration under varied excitation conditions: striking, plectrum plucking, and wire plucking. Two different magnetic pickups are included in the comparison. Measurements were taken at multiple excitation levels on a simplified electric guitar mounted on a stable platform with repeatable excitation mechanisms. The analysis focuses on each sensor’s capacity to resolve fine-scale waveform features during the initial attack while also taking into account its capability to measure general changes in instrument dynamics and timbre. We evaluate their ability to distinguish vibro-acoustic phenomena resulting from changes in excitation method and strength as well as measurement location. Our findings highlight the significant influence of sensor choice on observable string vibration. While the microphone captures the overall radiated sound, it lacks the required spatial selectivity and offers poor SNR performance 34 dB lower then other methods. Magnetic pickups enable precise string-specific measurements, offering a compelling balance of accuracy and cost-effectiveness. Results show that their low-pass frequency characteristic limits temporal fidelity and must be accounted for when analysing general sound timbre. Laser Doppler vibrometers provide superior micro-temporal fidelity, which can have critical implications for physical modeling, instrument design, and advanced audio signal processing, but have severe practical limitations. Critically, we demonstrate that the required optical target, even when weighing as little as 0.1% of the string’s mass, alters the string’s vibratory characteristics by influencing RMS energy and spectral content.
Journal Article