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New
Bridge Plates
Q I’ve
got a 1968 Martin with the large rosewood bridge plate many say
kills the tone. Would it make sense to remove it and install a smaller
maple bridge plate?
Stephen
Boyd
Santa Rosa, California
A First,
if you’re happy with your guitar as it is, the best advice
is to leave well enough alone. That said, the large rosewood bridge
plate does impede top vibration a bit, and most players who have
replaced them with conventional smaller plates have reported satisfaction
with the results. Once you’ve paid a lot of money to have such
a job done, however, there is an irresistible tendency to hear an
improvement. So I tend to be skeptical when I hear of miraculous
transformations brought on by simple changes, although I do believe
that a minor improvement can be heard most of the time.
The process of removing
a large bridge plate involves heating the wooden parts, thus softening
the glue to avoid damage to the spruce top. Such heat can penetrate
the top and cause serious finish damage if not properly regulated.
Removing the plate can tear bits of spruce away from the inside,
and occasionally some damage occurs in the process. Considering
the risks involved and the relatively minor nature of the improvement,
I don’t recommend the procedure unless there are other reasons
to replace the plate, such as cracks or severe damage around the
bridge pin holes.
—Frank
Ford
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Brazilian
Rosewood
Q In
spite of what we hear about environmental protection, guitar manufacturers
continue to make new guitars out of Brazilian rosewood, a protected
species. Is this wood truly from old supplies? I don’t want
to play songs about protecting the environment on a guitar that
violates my principles!
David
Fishken
Arlington, Massachusetts
A The
vast majority of Brazilian rosewood guitars built in the last ten
years or so in the U.S. were made from legal rosewood that was in
the country before the CITES agreement banned the international
trade of Brazilian rosewood in 1992. Besides being acoustically
ideal, what makes Brazilian so precious is its deep chocolate-brown
color and inky-black spiderweb lines–features that result from
the chemistry of the sandy soil near the coastal region of Bahia.
Sadly, that particular subspecies has been completely logged out.
But there are countless other subspecies of rosewood trees still
alive in Brazil that grow in dramatically different soils, with
lumber of dramatically different colors and grain patterns. Those
trees, technically also Brazilian rosewood, have been made scarce,
primarily through illegal trafficking; those that remain are mostly
young and immature. Their unfamiliar color patterns and narrow size
make them useless to guitar makers. So, if you see the familiar,
rich, dark stuff on a good guitar, you’re probably looking
at legal, pre-CITES Brazilian. But because other prized tropical
hardwoods may soon be banned also–some, like mahogany, are
virtually irreplaceable to guitar makers–players will have
to accept guitars made of substitute materials that are sustainable
and earth-friendly.
—William
R. Cumpiano
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Name
the Notes
Q
I help
my students learn to connect what they hear with what they play
by asking them to close their eyes while I play an open string on
the guitar, then open their eyes and try to play the same open string.
What other techniques help train students’ ears?
Bob Walter
Boulder, Colorado
A If
you have students who want to really learn the notes on the fingerboard,
try giving them the "name the notes" exercise. Ask them
to move up the low string, playing just the natural notes (a C-major
scale) from E to E. Have them name each note aloud as they play
it. It’s harder than it sounds. After they’ve mastered
the low E string, they should move on to the A string, the D string,
etc. By the time they’ve learned all the strings, they will
be able to grab all the "white notes" on the fingerboard
(the notes that correspond with the piano’s white keys) without
having to think about it.
—David
Hamburger
Send Questions, tips, or observations to Acoustic
Guitar’s online discussion forums at www.acousticguitar.com
or write to Q&A, Acoustic Guitar, PO Box 767, San Anselmo,
CA 94979-0767.
Excerpted from
Acoustic Guitar magazine,
June
2002, No. 114.
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