All my various classical guitar junk

Shopping

• Guitar Salon International Great shop. Great forum. Have purchased a guitar from them and it was a great experience. Highly recommended
• http://www.classicalguitarnet.com/ The guy in Boone Iowa. Some really fine guitars.
• http://www.classicalguitarstore.com: Little store in philidelphia. Another I'd like to check out when on the east coast some day.
• http://www.gspguitar.com/ - GSP has quite a bit of sheet music that is not found elsewhere.
• http://www.guitaraffecs.com/ - Some cool stuff.
• http://www.guitars-int.com/ - Popular one on the internet. In Ohio I think. Always has lots of nice guitars
• http://www.kirkpatrickguitar.com/ - Place near mom and dad's work. Would really like to hit it up sometime when we're out there.
• http://www.lamancha.com/
• http://www.luthiermusic.com/ - Odd little site I found wandering around the web.
• http://www.rosewoodguitar.com/classic.html - Rosewood Guitar. Not sure how much they update their site. Have some interesting guitars once in a while.
• http://www.sprucetreemusic.com/guitars.html - Not too far away from Minneapolis. Good to keep an eye on.
• http://www.theguitarsalon.com/
• http://www.thepodium.com/ - Local guitar store near the University of Minnesota campus. Trying to sell a guitar there right now.
• http://www.vintage-instruments.com/navigate/catidx5.htm - Some crazy vintage intruments.
• http://www.zavaletas-guitarras.com/ - Dealer in Handmade guitars. Some beautiful ones for sure.

Manufacturers and Luthiers

• http://www.guitarrasramirez.com/english/inicioEn.html - The english site for Ramirez guitars.
• http://www.rebrune.com/main.html - Luthier
• was - http://home.mn.rr.com/harringtonguitar/index.htm Harrington Guitars - This is the guitar I have now. Looks like this site has moved again, or maybe is just gone altogether
• Classical Guitars by Fritz Mueller. He's big into double tops.
• German Vazquez Rubio
• Johnny Walker Classical guitars. Says he's tried walnut and it worked pretty well. Always wondered about that. Fun to keep an eye on.

Community Sites

• http://www.delcamp.net/ - Good forums and some sheet music.
• http://dirk.meineke.free.fr/classical.html - interesting idea
• http://icking-music-archive.org/ByComposer.php - some sheet music for more than just the GUITAR
• http://www.guitaralive.org/playlist.html - Classical guitar alive! playlists. And their site in general. Someday I will actually listen to some of this stuff. Looks really interesting.
• http://youtube.com/group/ClassicalGuitar - You tube's classical guitar group. Some really great videos.
• http://www.acousticguitar.com/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum;f=7Classical corner over at Acoustic Guitar's web site.

Randoms

Much to know and learn on the old classical guitar. Going to use this little section for documenting all the fun. What songs I would like to learn or have already been working on can be found in ClassicalGuitarRepertoire. After I get to a certain point I would like to get all the songs I know recorded here. Been checking out a lot of stuff on ClassicalGuitarBuilding so I will start that page. There is a new forum at http://www.digitalguitararchive.com/index.php that is brand new. Should keep an eye on it. Oasis is the name of that cool humidifier that stringsbymail has. Would like to try one or more of those some day.

Finding sheet music online

• http://www.muslib.se/ebibliotek/boije/indexeng.htm - Cool public archive of old guitar music.
• http://gallarda.narod.ru/ - This place has just about every piece of music I've gone to look for plus some of them are Segovia transcriptions which is cool in it's own right. Keep finding more and more resources online, so we should now have a ClassicalGuitarMusic page.
• http://www.sheetmusicarchive.net/ - Lots of original scores. Who's up for transcribing?
• Free sheet music on CreativeGuitar.org - Quite the collection from around the internet.

Jazz thoughts

Thinking if I ever start playing more serious jazz on the classical one of these http://www.godinguitars.com/godinwhatsnewp.htm might be just the ticket. Something to think about. There was a write-up on them in one of the recent GuitArt magazines. Sound like a really cool guitar.

Guitar Tone - Spruce v. Cedar

Where did I find this?
Question: I would appreciate some guidance on whether to choose cedar or spruce as a top wood. Jeannouel van Leeuwen, Netherlands Antilles--July 1998.
Answer: A full account of the difference between these woods is not easy to put into words, but let's give it a try. An important luthiery consideration when using these woods is that cedar is generally lower and density and has a little higher stiffness/weight ratio than spruce. Cedar typically produces a sound which is warm and "Spanish." Spruce is more likely to produce clarity and a larger tonal palette. Cedar guitars are usually louder up close, although some spruce guitars (but not all!) project better from a concert stage than might be expected in an up-close comparison with a cedar-top. Opinion varies as to why this might be so; it is my conviction that the primary physical variable is fullness in the overtone structure of the treble notes, e.g. the upper partials. (The human ear treats partials as additive, which can make a musical instrument sound louder than a decibel reading recorded electronically might suggest.)

It's rule 3471 in Dana's handbook of life. Do something you enjoy every day.

Yesterday was full of things I enjoy. First and foremost Kate and Sam returned from visiting Nana in Cedar Rapids. Hanging out with the beautiful Kate and Sam I am is always top on my list of things I enjoy. I would like it here or there. I would like it anywhere! Yes.. more new pictures...

Then I had the chance to sit down and tear into a guitar I recently picked up from eBay. It is a Benjamin Garcia, and a pretty nice guitar in my opinion. The craftsmanship isn't top notch, but that was the main reason I made the purchase. Gives me a chance to fiddle and fuss without feeling too bad for the guitar. So last night I began work on replacing the tuners, nut, and saddle. Next on the agenda is the finish on the top. Props to Katie for letting me set up shop in the house wherever I happened to be when the thought to start this project crossed my itinerant mind. I try not to make too much of a mess. Here are some pictures of the work in progress. My fingers are still recovering from sanding.

Unfiled

• online apprentice
• Luthier Schools
• http://my.execpc.com/~nostberg/
• http://www.madinter.com/
• Musical Instrument Makers Forum
• http://www.cybozone.com/luthier/ - Interesting links of reading materials. Looks like they are working on getting something up and going someday.

Luthiers

• http://www.reynoldsguitars.com/

Pieces and Parts

• http://www.gilberttuners.com/ - Gilbert tuners. Nice.
• Allied Lutherie
• http://www.stewmac.com
• http://www.lmii.com

When last you heard from this topic I was trying a bunch of strings. Here's a mini update for those who care. Back in March I put the La Bella 2001 Series strings on my cedar guitar. I'm happy to say they are still on there as of this writing. At first the bass sounded too splatty for my taste. But as they settled in the splat was replaced by a nice even pop. I have been really happy with these strings. The package said they were the medium tension, but they feel incredibly light. I haven't really noticed any extra buzzing or other problems. So in all I would have to say Yes it's a good string. Still figuring out what to put on the Ramirez next. Considering I don't play it too often (maybe a couple of times a week) it will be a while before I really need to consider it. On the spruce side of life we left off with the Hannabach 815 hard tension strings. After a few hours of practice with these puppies I realized I was not in my pay grade. My hands were killing. Granted it can be a good thing if you are into that, but I was wanting to make music - not muscle. Off they came. On went a set of Augustine Regal Reds . These are advertised, accurately I think, as medium/hard tension. The basses for Augustine strings are denoted by the color and the trebles by the line (Imperial/Regal with the Regals being a slightly harder string) . These strings were awesome. Made me want to pick up my guitar over and over. Great sweet sound with a brilliant bright tone. Does that even make any sense? Hard to describe sounds. From there I installed a set of Augustine Black basses. These are quite a bit lighter than the reds and had that same splatty sound I had criticized earlier in the La Bella 2001 's. In the same light they have improved over the weeks, but still lack the punch of the reds. You think I'm finished? Ha! Think again. Embracing change, as I am want to do, I then opted to go from the Regal trebles to Augustine making my overall string tension on the light side of medium (at least in my book) . This combination is extremely easy to play and has a very bright tone, but still lacks that punch of the Regal trebles. That is where things sit today. I ordered quite a few more and varied sets of strings from http://www.stringsbymail.com Strings by Mail and am looking forward to reporting those results. What a wonderful experiment!

In my recent endeavors to learn classical guitar I have been on the supreme quest to find the perfect strings. Searching around the Internet this story can be found in many places, but this is my story. The story of the strings - The uncompleted task. First off I'd like to plug our good friends over at http://www.stringsbymail.com/ Strings by Mail . They are a small operation trying to make good by selling mostly strings for acoustic guitars and some odds and ends. The guy posts in a forum I read quite often and seems to be a generally affable type. Just yesterday I received my first order from them. Great prices and great service. I will be ordering from them again in the future. This is not a paid advertisement. Let us take things in chronological order...
I don't feel like making links to everything I'm talking about. If you really want to read more about the different strings head on over to http://www.stringsbymail.com/ Strings by Mail and browse around. D'Addario Pro Arte Silver EJ45: After purchasing my first classical guitar I had no clue which strings to try. My years of electric guitar told me that D'Addario made some pretty darn good strings and it was all they did for a living. Figure it would be as good a place as any to start. Turns out I was right. The strings were easy to tune and sound really good to a beginners ear. Tuned up pretty quickly and stayed in tune quite well. So for the first set I don't think I could have gone wrong! Augustine Imperial Black: In typical Sergent fashion the second I changed my strings I hit the Internet and read all sorts of articles, news group postings, forums, anything I could get my hands on. Couldn't decide. Ordered a sampler pack from Guitar Salon. Slapped on the Augustine's. I have to say at first I was a bit disappointed. Here's what I noticed.
The intonation on the G and B strings seemed a bit weird. I thought it was my guitar that was set up improperly, but later I'll find out differently. The Imperials also took forever to settle down. For almost a full week every time I would pick up the guitar the first 2 or 3 minutes would be spent tuning up the strings again. And in that first week they seemed to go out of tune frequently. So there is the bad. The brighter side of this story is that these strings sound beautiful once they are settled in. The intonation seems to improve. The sound is bright, but not tinny. Sweet, but not soft. On a cedar top they sound great and seem to have quite a long life. Very romantic. That rough spot starting up is just a killer. Savarez Corum Alliance 500AR Red Card: Next up in the sampler pack was the Savarez strings. I'll make this one short and sweet. They are good strings. Excellent in fact. I can understand how some people love the sound. My preferences are different and I didn't like the snappier bright sound. They were almost tinny they were so bright. Great volume and a good feel. A good string for people looking for that sound. It's just not me. Hannabach Silver 200 900 Wow. That is all I can say about the Hannabach's. This particular set is labeled as Medium/Hard tension, though they feel closer to the hard end than medium. As I write this they are still on my cedar topped Ramirez. They tune up quickly, settle down quickly, and have fabulous intonation. Love the fact that they are a little thicker. I think it helps my bigger fingers to be a little more accurate. Also for me it makes performing barre's easier. Most people find the harder strings harder to barre. For some reason I found the opposite. Still figuring that one out. These strings sound awesome. Bright, bold, powerful, round.. pretty much every good quality that I look for in a classical guitar sound. Am I giving it away that these were my favorites? La Bella 2001 Series: I have yet to try these. They are next on deck for the Ramirez if I can get myself to take the Hannabach's off. Lets see.. It was the night before last I put some Hannabach 815's (hard tension) on the Hill (spruce top) and it seems to have cleared up many problems I thought I was having when I had some Augustine's on there. Because the harder tension seems to be the way to go on that guitar I ordered up another set of the 200 900 Hannabach's and a set of Augustine Regals which are supposed to have a little better quality than the Imperials. Only one way to find out. Practice practice practice. The fun way to wear out strings. And thus ends my dissertation on classical guitar strings. Figure this will serve as much a memory jogger for myself as well as helping someone else out that might be going down the same path. Still more experimentation to go. I hope to update as I learn more.