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Radical Classical
New developments in contemporary nylon-string lutherie.

By Teja Gerken

If you're not a nylon-string lutherie expert, you might mistakenly think that classical guitar making has followed a rather time-worn path, with little in the way of innovations. Granted, at first glance it can be difficult to discern the difference between a traditional guitar that is a reproduction of Antonio de Torres' mid-19th-century design and a cutting-edge, carbon fiber-reinforced creation by the likes of Australia's Greg Smallman or Germany's Matthias Dammann. This is primarily because most of the radical innovations in classical guitar design have taken place inside the guitar, not outside.

While many pioneers of contemporary classical guitar design introduced several radical elements at once—such as the elevated fingerboard and lattice bracing on Thomas Humphrey's Millennium guitar, or Smallman's ultralight, carbon-reinforced top and a heavy, arched back—many luthiers now combine features in what could almost be called a mix-and-match process. Some luthiers specialize in instruments that don't fit into the traditional classical and flamenco categories, offering guitars that a jazz or contemporary fingerstyle player may be more comfortable with. To get a sense of the current state of nylon-string lutherie, I recently talked to eight innovative builders about their work.

Mario Beauregard and Jean Rompré

Jean Rompre classical. Photo Credit: Jean Bruno

From their separate shops, both located just outside Montreal, Canada, Mario Beauregard and Jean Rompré have been collaborating on a modern nylon-string design. Copying each other's body molds, jigs, and construction techniques, Beauregard and Rompr� developed the body design—which includes an arched back, stiff sides, carbon-topped radial braces, and an elevated fingerboard extension—together before tweaking it to fit their individual needs. Steel-string flattop and archtop luthier Beauregard's goal is to make an easy-to-amplify nylon-string that will appeal to a jazz player, while Rompr� wants to push the envelope for classical concert guitarists.

"We didn't invent anything, we just assembled different builders' ideas and put them in one package," says Beauregard. Jean wanted to do a version of a Smallman, so I showed him how to carve a back and set the [elevated] neck. He built the first prototype, and when I saw it, I said, "We have got to do a jazz version of this." Rompré feels that the arched back is part of what gives their guitars excellent projection and balance, but he also points out that it is one part of a system that includes stiffer sides. Both luthiers agree that the recarve of the back (the dip in the arch, close to the back's edge) is very important, affecting tone and sustain in various ways.

Beauregard's guitar has a narrower neck that feels more like that of an archtop than a classical, and he says he's aiming for a tone that is " a little more restricted in the overtone aspect, more percussive, and not as boomy as a classical guitar." Rompré aims his guitar toward contemporary classical players and hopes that eventually, new instruments will inspire new music as well. "There is so little music written for ensemble featuring guitar because most of the time they just can't compete in terms of volume," he laments. "As luthiers, though we absolutely must have a goal in sound, we also need to work in collaboration with concert guitarists to be grounded in reality."

Gregory Byers

Gregory Byers cedar and cocobolo guitar.

With a client list that includes David Russell, David Tanenbaum, and Scott Tennant, northern California luthier Gregory Byers has been fortunate to get feedback from some of the world's best classical players. With the exception of his raised fingerboard � la Thomas Humphrey's, Byers' approach is less about breaking the mold of traditional design than about attention to detail. Though Byers realizes that most contemporary players want a loud guitar, he finds that many of the methods luthiers use to increase volume compromise the tone he strives for. "My approach has been to maximize the power and volume I can get out of a traditional design, because that's where my ears tell me the guitar sounds best," he says.

Like many of his contemporaries, Byers builds a stiff rim around the inside of the soundboard to increase the body's overall rigidity. His bracing pattern uses two floating bars (which are only attached to the guitar at the sides) in the lower bout, and he includes a heavy maple transverse brace below the soundhole to help isolate the lower bout from the upper bout, which he feels gives him more control over the sound.

Byers has also found ways to improve the guitar's intonation. "I cut the fingerboard short at the nut by about a millimeter and then compensate each string individually," he says, describing his method for adjusting the effective scale length at the nut and saddle." Byers usually sticks to traditional wood combinations such as spruce or cedar and rosewood, but he's interested in exploring renewable woods and would like to use maple for the back and sides more often, but has not yet received orders for such instruments. He also continually strives to improve the guitar's balance. "The biggest challenge is to make a classical guitar with a first string that is really even, really powerful, really singing and sustaining," he says. "The first string is the most difficult to make well; that's the first thing I look for. A lot of instruments, particularly wind instruments, increase in volume as they go up, and with the guitar, that's very hard to do. That's something I focus on a lot."

Frederich Holtier

A Frederich Holtier spruce double-top guitar.

A native of Romania, Frederich Holtier began building guitars in his home country before setting off for Germany in 1988 and later emigrating to the US, eventually settling in Ohio. Even though Holtier builds traditional classical and flamenco guitars, his unique double-top instruments have been getting a lot of attention. "I like to combine good ideas from different makers," he says. "My instruments look like a combination of Smallman, Dammann, and Torres." While most of the recent double-top designs consist of a center made of Nomex (an extremely lightweight synthetic material with a honeycomb structure) sandwiched between two extremely thin pieces of spruce or cedar, Holtier's double tops are 100 percent wood. He machines a honeycomb-like pattern partway through a slightly thicker-than-usual top, then covers the quarter-inch diameter holes with a thin layer of wood (about .5 mm.).

Holtier first experimented with hollowing out almost the entire top, but today he focuses primarily on the lower bout. "I lose about 30 percent of the weight of the top in this area, and it increases the stiffness exactly where I need it," he says. He also uses a stiff frame around the top and rigid sides, which he feels increases the instrument's power and projection.

Holtier's design is the result of ever-increasing demands from players. "We're seeing a big improvement in technique," he says. "Kids are now playing what Segovia was playing in his time." He also thinks that modifying the traditional Spanish sound, as he and other contemporary luthiers are doing, is an important part of the instrument's evolution. "Modern players all play modern guitars. People have changed, and now they accept the sound."

Paul McGill

Paul McGill's acoustic-electric Super Ace

Based in Nashville, Tennessee, luthier Paul McGill's clients include Earl Klugh, Muriel Anderson, Peter White, and the late Chet Atkins. Known as much for his resonator guitars and acoustic-electric steel-strings, McGill takes particular pride in his nylon-string designs, which include both classical and acoustic-electric crossover models. McGill has developed a patent-pending body reinforcement system, based on contemporary Australian classical de-signs such as Smallman's, that allows him to build more lightly braced tops. "What really makes the more contemporary Australian designs work is their rigidity," he explains. Referring to Smallman's ultra-lightweight carbon-topped bracing system, he says, "If you look at instruments with a similar type of top construction [but not the rigid body], you won't find that kind of volume."

McGill's standard classicals have been favorites with Anderson and Klugh, but his most innovative model may be the acoustic-electric Super Ace, which uses pickups by Richard McClish of RMC pickups and incorporates the rigid body design. "I wanted to build a stage instrument that could also be a main instrument," McGill says. "Richard has pretty much solved all feedback problems, and that has opened me to building a completely acoustic instrument that has a new aesthetic." McGill often builds his Super Ace models with maple back and sides, and he uses a fan top bracing that is "somewhere between a classical and a flamenco." McGill is clearly not concerned about bucking tradition. "To make guitars better, you have to use concepts that challenge traditional sound," he says. "How else will you move forward?"

Fritz Mueller

Fritz Mueller spruce and cocobolo double-top.

Fritz Mueller, who hangs his hat and tools in rural British Columbia, Canada, has a knack for combining the traditional and the radical. Mueller learned to appreciate old-school lutherie while studying with Jeffrey R. Elliott, and he continues to use the Hermann Hauser design for his body shape and resonance. "I tend to use the resonances of Segovia's Hauser," he says. "The fundamental air resonance is an F, and the fundamental top resonance, which you get when you tap in the bridge area, would be a G. When you tap anywhere on the back of Segovia's Hauser, it's an A."

Mueller's quest for tone has led him to sandwich tops. "The first one I heard was David Russell's [Matthias Dammann], and I was overwhelmed by it," he says. Luthier Gernot Wagner, who helped pioneer the sandwich top, helped him understand the concept. "He gave me a few clues, and I learned what the inner material was," Mueller says. "I spent a couple of years making tops before I actually showed an instrument. Mueller learned that there's more to the technique than just sandwiching a Nomex core between two layers of top wood. "The differences are in the middle layer, the location and amount of the non-Nomex, where we're putting the wood," he explains. "I graduate the top, much like you would with a solid top. Some places are thicker, some are thinner." Though it took him awhile to perfect, Mueller is sold on the sandwich top. "This is a medium that allows one to combine volume and projection with beauty," he says. "It's a great 'halfway' between, say, a lattice top and traditional construction. The double top is remarkable for the [tonal] beauty it's capable of." Mueller also likes to include a sound port in the side of the upper bout. "It's part of the experience of these instruments," he says, "to be able to be so in tune and so involved with the sound." He also includes an access panel in the tailblock area of some of his guitars, which allows him to easily reach into the body for fine tuning or to install electronics.

Fabio Ragghianti

The soundport of Fabio Ragghianti's MXM.

One glance at Italian luthier Fabio Ragghianti's latest MXM guitar makes it easy to peg him as a radical luthier. But Ragghianti feels that it's important to look at the combination of elements that make up a guitar and not just those that are new to the instrument. "Many contemporary 'new ideas' are variations of 19th-century inventions," he says. He points out that such "contemporary" elements as fanned frets, soundports, and the raised fingerboard (all of which he uses in his MXM design) have been used on lutes and other instruments in the past.

While Ragghianti builds a range of guitars, including traditional classicals, flattop steel-strings, and archtops, his MXM is the culmination of his design experiments. The first M stands for monitor, referring to the port in the guitar's side, which Ragghianti feels improves the instrument's overall tone and increases volume. The X refers to the X-bracing that supports the guitar's domed back, which is designed to achieve good tonal coupling with the guitar's top. The last M stands for multiflex, the name Ragghianti has given to the process he uses for laminating the wood for his sides to a thickness of six mm., creating a frame without kerfing or an endblock: "a continual and uninterrupted internal cavity."

Ragghianti enjoys living in a time of innovation and experimentation. "I think that the standard for classical guitars hasn't been set yet, as opposed to violins," he says. His more radical instruments may not be for everyone, but Ragghianti suggests that contemporary classical players may need more than one instrument to cover all their tonal needs. "Classical players should learn from pop and rock artists to be onstage with more than one guitar and to change instruments according to what they play," he says. "They could use old and new guitars in the same concert, changing tones and atmospheres."

Gary Southwell

Gary Southwell A Series guitar.

British luthier Gary Southwell first became known for his reproductions of instruments by such makers as Hermann Hauser, Louis Panormo, Johan Scherzer, and Johann Stauffer. While the majority of classical guitars have their roots in the Spanish tradition, Southwell's distinctive A Series guitar draws its inspiration from the 19th-century Viennese school of guitar making. Like Ragghianti, Southwell notes that many of the more "nontraditional" concepts in contem-porary classical guitar construction have been used in the past, and he feels that "the dominance of the Spanish guitar in the late 19th century pushed aside such designs." While his A Series retains some of the distinctive look of old Viennese guitars, including a neck that adjusts with a clock-key mechanism, Southwell brings the design into the 21st century with a cutaway, unique rosette, and futuristic headstock.

Southwell uses a floating fingerboard to allow the A Series top to vibrate more efficiently and carbon-fiber rods in the upper bout to distribute the tension. He offers a cutaway as an option, and he's concerned about other ergonomic aspects as well. "A cutaway on a classical concert guitar is unusual, but it's something I think we will see a lot more of in the future, especially when players hear that it has no adverse effect on the sound," he says. "I also use a narrower and thinner neck, in conjunction with shorter scale lengths, 645 mm. being my standard. This makes stretching around the fingerboard much easier."

With such clients as modern virtuosos David Starobin and David Tanenbaum, Southwell finds that his most important challenge is keeping up with the players. "As in the past, the reason to change design is mostly to do with the music and the players of the time," he says. "Today that means music that demands a greater use of the guitar's range (particularly in the higher registers), strong dynamics, extended techniques, and complex harmonic structures. This means that the guitar has to be able to be pushed further in terms of power, balance, and flexibility."

The Future
These eight luthiers are only a few of the builders expanding the parameters of nylon-string guitar lutherie. Goals such as improved volume, better intonation, and more refined tone are universal concerns, and the different approaches luthiers are taking to deal with these issues may find their way into other types of instruments.

Luthier's Featured
Mario Beauregard
(450) 787-2555
www.beauregardguitars.com

Gregory Byers
(707) 459-4068
www.byersguitars.com

Frederich Holtier
(440) 235-3391
www.holtierluthier.com

Paul McGill
(615) 354-0070
www.mcgillguitars.com

Fritz Mueller
(250) 476-1172
www.classicalguitars.ca

Fabio Ragghianti
(39) (0) 584-796050
www.fabioragghianti.com

Jean Rompré
(819) 474-2498
www.jeanrompre.ca

Gary Southwell
(44) 115-914-9294
www.southwellguitars.com

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This article also appears in Acoustic Guitar, Issue #147

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