SNIP

 

Ed Said:

 

I agree that familiarity helps, but to date, I am unaware of any testing that
shows that someone can call out a material from the sound of a guitar.  Mahogany
family is different from Rosewood family is different from maple family etc, but
mostly not much.

 

END SNIP

 

Ed:

 

Yes, well, I agree, to a point.  I don’t know anyone who can sit blindfolded and
identify, say, Spanish Cedar or Sitka Spruce.  However, I do know (slightly,
through Russ Cleveland), concert guitarists who will say words to the effect of
“That is a very mellow, romantic tone – is it cedar?” or “wow, that has the
clarity and directness of the best spruce.”  And they’re right.  So they
identify the timbre and associate it with certain wood.  Mostly the tops,
though.  I have heard discussion of the sound quality of rosewood bodies et al,
but nobody who could tell, with one exception.  Almost everybody, even me
sometimes when my ear was in tune, could call out cypress.  There is nothing
quite like the tone of a cypress guitar.  The gypsies and flamenco musicians
love of for its cutting edge.  Of course, a cypress flamenco guitar is usually
all cypress, body and top, or I should say that those I have seen are.

 

Then they want to know about the bracing.

 

Not to appear to boast, because I have nothing to boast about except that I
worked for Russ for 10 years – but he is a very wealthy investment manager who
lives for the guitar and is a musician himself but is not much of a guitarist.
He has a very good ear.  He had a choice of music or tennis scholarships to Penn
back in the 60s, but he was a clarinetist.  Somehow he got a passion for
guitars.  So he haunted shows and shops for about 25 years.  About three or four
years ago he was going to auction off all but a select handful, but Guitar Salon
got wind and cut him a very large check for the lot, a multiple of what he had
paid.

 

Sitting on the end of a couch and facing another one in front of a fireplace in
a cedar lodge and listening to three guys sitting only feet away, all of whom
have soloed in Carnegie Hall play his instruments was a life high point for me.
Another was when Parkening played in the Symphony Hall here, and borrowed
Segovia’s personal Jose Ramirez A-1 from Russ for the performance.  Russ gave me
tickets front row center, about 5 feet from Parkening.  Wonderful.

 

The guitars you made are lovely.  I have long envied your craftsmanship.

 

J

 

Joseph Sullivan