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!