The Problem With Perfection

Is there such a thing as a perfect guitar? Perfect for a given player of course - everyone has different needs. But given that limitation, is it possible? Recently I acquired an instrument that might be very close. And that's a problem, because it stops the habitual tinkerer dead in his tracks.

Weight? Super light. (check) Pickups? Responsive, perfectly adjusted and balanced. (check) Neck, frets, tuning stability, switching options, strap stability... (check) Finish color, wood selection, basic shape... (check)

The Paul Reed Smith McCarty Hollowbody I is damn near perfect for rpguitar. Perhaps the only imperfection is its daunting price tag. But perfection is very valuable indeed. Or is it? With perfection one is freed from viewing the guitar as an obstacle. It ceases to be a link in the creative chain that must constantly be assessed, modified and/or replaced, and pondered obsessively.

And what fun is that?!

So this is why I am utterly thrilled, but also perturbed by this acquisition. At least I can customize its look with some nifty wooden pickup mounting rings and other trifles. But I may very well have ascended the proverbial mountain, and while there are other mountain peaks in the range, the one I'm on offers a stunning view.

Guitar, the Ambassador

I am an American who ordered a guitar from a Danish luthier living in Spain, after hearing of him on a forum hosted in the United Kingdom. And I shall play on it music from Spain and Brazil, among other things.

Not so profound, but pretty cool nonetheless. And of course, I pay him with a mouse click, which effortlessly transforms my nearly worthless American dollars into Euros. By far the hardest part of all this is waiting for it to be built. There are no shortcuts to that, which is probably a good thing.

This guitar is the natural evolution in my exploration over the past year into flamenco and Brazilian music on the nylon stringed guitar. I wanted an instrument that was very much a guitarra flamenca blanca, with its quick action, bright woody tone, and earthy vibe. But voiced a bit more open, with extra harmonics and sustain. Not a classical - too stiff and not as organic - but a hybrid of sorts.

Anders Eliasson agreed to the project, and together we came up with the following basic specs:

- Cypress body
- Cedar top
- Ruck style 1" sound port on upper bass bout
- Built like a flamenco, bracing modified per Anders' design for more "air"
- French polish finish

The picture on this post is the first I've received, and shows the cedar soundboard, handmade rosette, and rough headstock. The guitar is hopefully due to be complete at the end of 2008. In the meantime, I am entertaining my imagination with the excellent DVD on Anders' work called El Guitarrero. Oh, and practicing my rasgueos and picado like a bloody fool. Because playing flamenco is actually WAY harder than waiting for a guitar to be built!

In Praise of a Classic: Gibson ES-175

In all my talk about modern ergonomic designs - and I truly am a convert - it is impossible to ignore how perfect some old things are, too. Case in point: Gibson's 16" laminated electric archtop, the ES-175.

I won't seek to give a history of this instrument, as such details are available elsewhere. I'd rather tell the story of my own. She was made in 1957, and she is blonde. I wanted one like this for close to twenty years, ever since I discovered Pat Metheny as a college student in 1986. I saw his Group play in New London, CT just before Still Life (Talking) was released.

Along my guitar buying and sellling journey, I balked at the price of a blonde 175. Instead, I bought a 1992 ES-775, a rare fancy variation that was made only for few years in the 90's. I loved that guitar, but it was not the same. It was fairly heavy and had a slightly different sound.

Ten years later or so, I picked up an early ES-175, made in 1950, with a single P-90 pickup. It had great vibe, but I sold it eventually to acquire something else.

On January 3, 2005, I was casually reading the posts in the Usenet newsgroup rec.music.makers.guitar.jazz. And I happened upon a For Sale ad for a 1957 ES-175. I always check out things like this, just for fun. Such is the nature of a guitar hunter. This 175 had been completely restored from some unknown but supposedly poor state. Everything was replaced on it, except - critically - the original first year PAF humbuckers. The seller seemed rather casual about that, but the market for PAF's is crazy. They sell for thousands of dollars!

The price for the whole guitar was $1500. I snapped it up! What luck.

And it is, of course, blonde. An ES-175DN from 1957; one year apart from Pat Metheny's 1958. I would never rip out the bridge pickup like he did, or cobble a synth driver with duct tape to the tailpiece, but I do relish the association nonetheless. There is a sound that the 175 gets that is unique. It's got a very dark, rich electric jazz tone. But with the right picking technique you get a desirable "ping" on the attack that gives it an alive, acoustic flavor. Totally cool.

Later, I managed to find this original post on the same jazz guitar group where the previous owner described a bit more about the guitar's origin. Folks didn't seem to impressed at the time. Oh well! This guitar is refinished, but the original wood is gorgeous and speaks with 50+ years of musical energy. The neck, nut, and fretwork are perfect. The old PAF's chime with an authentic and expressive voice. And it weighs less than anything Gibson puts out today, which gives it excellent acoustic resonance despite its laminated construction.

Here's a video of me playing it. Long live this humble classic!

Ergo Unplugged! A New Quest Begins.

In 2007 I became a total convert to ergonomic electric guitars based on the Klein lower bout profile. This design feature allows the guitar to sit on one’s leg in perfect balance, with the neck pointing up in an ideal angled playing position. This simple change in body curvature has major ergonomic benefits, primarily to the seated guitarist. The instrument does not tip in either direction; the neck is angled upward in an optimal playing position; and the neck does not require left hand support to keep it in place. Also, the guitar’s upper bass bout is extended farther back then usual, providing a resting place for the picking arm. This also allows the picking arm to anchor the guitar in place, close to one’s body.

The only trouble with adopting these new physical attributes in my instrument was that I also play acoustic guitars. Acoustic guitars are big-bodied, symmetrical, and have traditional headstocks. Exceptions to classic design templates are rare, and even fewer of these exceptions are geared towards improved ergonomics. So now my Martin dreadnaught and blue Adamas seem more awkward than they used to. I have to lean over to reach the neck, and my right arm gets fatigued hanging over the large upper bout. Just like before – but now I know there is something better out there.

The only way to get my hands on an ergonomic acoustic guitar is to have one built! Enter Texas luthier Chris Forshage, the gentleman who built my orange ergonomic electric guitar last year. In April 2008, I began to work with Chris on an acoustic guitar design that uses his electric body style as a launch point. The guitar’s basic requirements are as follows:

Basic Requirements

• Headless design for balance and weight reduction
• Flat top with traditional bone saddle and wooden bridge
• Traditional bone nut
• Sound port on upper bout to improve projection for the player
• Wider neck for fingerstyle playing
• Full size acoustic guitar body width
• Lower bout profile in the Klein style
• Unobtrusive contact transducer pickup with endpin jack

Woods
Chris’s initial suggestion was very traditional: Spruce top, rosewood back and sides, mahogany neck, and his favorite fingerboard wood – cocobolo. I had two requests to change this configuration. First, I wanted a warmer top wood that would respond well to fingerstyle playing. For this, I selected redwood, which I’ve heard rave reviews about. Second, I really prefer a dark ebony fingerboard on my acoustics.

Body
Chris emailed me a draft drawing of the acoustic adaptation and it is spot on. He later showed me how the electric body overlays on it, and the lower bout and overall height are identical. The soundhole is also drawn as a traditional circle at the base of the neck. I countered with a sketch of an oval, offset soundhole, but I think we’ll probably keep things “normal” on that front for this instrument.

Neck
For fingerstyle play, I decided on a 1 13/16” nut width. The radius will be 16” and the scale length 25”. Chris will use his natural binding technique to expose mahogany at the edges of the ebony fingerboard. There will be a tiny “micro-headstock” with his logo inlaid. This small extension allows the nut to be a different width than the dimension required by the string headpiece.

Bridge & Tailpiece
A headless acoustic guitar with a clamp style headpiece requires tuners at the bridge end. Chris proposed the ABM tailpiece, which is metal with integrated tuners, to be mounted on the top into the tailblock. At my suggestion, he offered to encase the “guts” of the ABM in a custom ebony cover of some kind. This was much more appealing to me than an ugly slab of metal on an organic acoustic instrument. Now for the bridge and saddle. We had to find a way to get the strings over a flat, glued saddle and anchored on the ABM. A pinless bridge, similar to the designs of Lowden and Ovation, could be employed. The strings would pass over the saddle, then angle down through holes in the back of the bridge. The strings would then pass over the extreme rear of the top and anchor on the ABM tuners. I’m currently doing a little informal research into the nuances of pinless bridges.

The “Wedge”
Finally, I am very interested in a design feature pioneered by luthier Linda Manzer called the “Wedge.” This is an acoustic guitar design whereby the bass side is shallower than the treble, made so by the height of each respective side member. The effect of this is that the guitar nestles closer to the player’s body, and also the neck is angled slightly towards the player’s eye. I’ve just brought this up with Chris, so I don’t know how he will receive it yet.

So here were are, at the starting line of a new project. I’m excited about it and look forward to reporting more as it progresses.

Guitar Ergonomics: A Quest Satisfied

I have played guitar since I was about 9 years old. That would be the year that America celebrated her Bicentennial anniversary. I even dressed in colonial era clothes, grabbed a flag, and paraded with other similarly put upon youngsters down a street in my town. All through high school and college I happily slung my axe, a small semi-hollow Ibanez Artist. Songwriting, jamming, and learning to solo were my primary interests. I was never distracted by the demon of gear lust. There was no internet, and I had no money anyway.

But when I began working in the Real World, the combination of income and less leisure time unwittingly invited this opportunistic beast to take over my mind for good. And since then, for perhaps the ensuing 16 years, I lusted; I bought; I collected. Occasionally I sold. I had this idea that I'd find one of "everything" and then I'd be done. But I struggled with the demon of conspicuous consumption even as I licked my chops at my growing arsenal of beautiful guitars.

One weekend afternoon sometime in early 2006, I clicked my mouse on yet another "Add To Cart" button, this time on the MusicYo website, which distributes modern Steinberger guitars. I had no headless guitars, you see. Having come of age in the 1980s, it was obvious I needed one. I had no idea what would unfold. Literally, a new paradigm of guitar geometry was about to reveal itself to me.

The Steinberger GM shape was small, and it nestled in a nice position on my lap such that the neck pointed up, which made it easier to play. And that neck - light and precise. Headless. Perfect intonation and even tone. I was hooked. But I knew that the 'Berger was but the ticket of entry to a more sophisticated world that I suddenly felt utterly unprepared for. So I began in earnest to explore this unexpected tangent in my otherwise well scriped guitar quest.

Here is a video of me playing my Steinberger GM7-SA.

The quintessential solidbody, premium headless guitar is (was) arguably the Klein Electric Guitar, named for its inventor, luthier Steve Klein. Klein sold his business to former employee Lorenzo German, who then refined the model over a period of several years from the late 1990s to 2005, when he suddenly and enigmatically "disappeared." Mr. German apparently developed a debilitating and potentially career-ending illness, and stopped responding to customers. Much brouhaha ensued, including threatened lawsuits and spewed vitriol within the KEG user community.

But the main outcome of this unfortunate state of affairs was that the Klein guitar, already an expensive creature at around $3000 USD, began to demand ludicrous prices on the used market - if and when one surfaced, which was not often. Sales of $5K, $6K, even $7K and above were seen.

I wanted one.

But I couldn't really see myself paying that kind of money. So I began to crawl the web, looking for others who had faced the same predicament and found alternate paths. And on the rec.music.makers.guitar.jazz newsgroup, where I post from time to time, someone mentioned Texas luthier Chris Forshage. Chris had tried a Klein that was brought in by a customer for repairs. He was intrigued by it, but also found its lack of truss rod to be a design flaw he couldn't live with. Being a guitar builder, he studied it, changed a few things, and built one for himself. It was no longer a Klein... it was a Forshage ergonomic guitar.

Here I am demonstrating mine.

To make a long story short, 9 months later I had one in my hands. It has become my #1 guitar. It is great for jazz, with its Gibson humbucker in the neck position. And it's got lots of Strat-like character courtesy of two Lindy Fralin single coils. It's light, courtesy of its mostly chambered mahogany body.
It's headless, yet it accepts regular single ball strings. It's comfortable and the neck feels great. Ironically, I soon had the opportunity to purchase a Klein on Ebay at the low end of the market value range. So I now have two phenomenal ergonomic electric guitars, and aside from brief spells of curiosity during which I pull one of my "old fashioned" headstock guitars off the wall, they are all I play.

And they are complementary. The Forshage excels at near-archtop jazz tone. And its natural brightness makes for a very dynamic, sparkling rhythm tone. My Klein is just unsurpassed for touch-sensitive, effortless playing and expressive nuance with its solid Brazilian rosewood neck and Trans-Trem. It's warm and smooth as can be.

And with that, my electric guitar acquisition period of 16 years abruptly ended during the summer of 2007. Next, I'll explore my ergonomic guitar pursuits into the acoustic guitar realm, which is a natural progression after experiencing the enhanced comfort and playability that these guitars have afforded me. Until next time...