Lutherie Demystified: The Inner Pathway To Sound
Lutherie Demystified is a continuing video series by classical Luthier Garrett Lee that explores the world of classical guitar building--from techniques and theory to commentary and perspectives about the instruments, players and lutherie profession. It’s for players, builders and anyone interested in learning how things are made.
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00:00Hi, it's Gary and thanks for joining me in this video which is personally one of
00:04the most meaningful presentations that I've ever done. It's about my approach to
00:10controlling sound and it's part strategy session, it's analysis, and I hope it's an
00:17encouragement to those of you who are developing luthiers. And for those of you
00:21who aren't guitar builders, I think it'll be pretty interesting for you to see
00:25what preoccupies the minds of most luthiers. I call it the inner game of
00:32luthiery because controlling the sound is really the next big frontier after
00:37you learn how to do the construction part, the actual woodwork of putting a
00:42box together. And this part about controlling sound is what fires the
00:48imagination, the curiosity, and the creativity of most builders. This video
00:54which is conceptual in nature will set up the next several videos that you'll
00:59see, and I hope it serves as a conceptual framework upon which you can build your
01:05own experiences, ideas, and building methods. And I hope in the process it
01:10will begin to take away the mystical nature of guitar building. By mystical, I
01:16don't mean that it will take the romance and fun out of guitar building. I don't
01:21think that luthiery will ever become mechanical and cold because it's just
01:26too much fun. And these little wondrous boxes of strings that make beautiful
01:31sounds just have so much challenge of complexity and discovery that it will
01:38never become cold. So what follows next is my conceptual roadmap of how I
01:47control sound through structure. And I know that guitars are so complex I will
01:54never know it all. I will never know all the secrets within a resonating body
02:01like a guitar. But I do know that through experience that there are certain things
02:08that influence the sound more so than others. And I know that if I capitalize
02:15on those and do those things well, and if I'm consistent in my methods, I have a
02:21really reasonable chance of reproducing a guitar's sound from one guitar to the
02:26next or even moving the sound how I want. So let's begin with the chalk talk now
02:33and let me describe to you what this inner game really is about. Imagine that
02:40the space within this funnel represents all the possible ways we could build a
02:44guitar and that the funnel's borders are the constraints set by the laws of
02:48physics. Yeah I know I said physics but don't worry you don't need to know
02:52physics. Next, imagine that this marble marks the path through every decision
02:58and manipulation we make during the construction process. As we go through
03:03the process of establishing more structure, we steer the possible sound
03:07outcomes. When the marble exits, it will land somewhere in this red sound zone
03:15with a set of sound characteristics which are governed by the structural
03:19changes we made. And for example, if we made another guitar and made some
03:24different choices during construction, the guitar's sound could end up over
03:29here. And for simplicity, a couple sound characteristics could be bright on the
03:36left or dark to the right. But in reality, there are probably on the order
03:42of 10 to 100 possible sound attributes that highly skilled players could name.
03:47And let's face it, those characteristics aren't concrete because what players and
03:51audiences perceive is some fascinating and even bewildering amalgamation of
03:56acoustics and psychology. Imagine now a slightly more realistic situation with
04:04two types of comparisons in play, bright versus dark and loud versus quiet. The
04:12sound characteristics of this particular guitar is that it's bright and has
04:16slightly above-average loudness. Now you can think of how individual guitars have
04:21combinations of different characteristics and you can think of
04:24guitars you've played and have enjoyed and I think you'll understand the
04:28complexity of traits that different guitars have. Some other traits might be
04:32good sustain, large color palette, and evenness of notes across the range. The
04:39interesting thing is that even guitars that land close to one another, in other
04:44words, they sound similar to one another, they can often easily be distinguished
04:50by highly skilled and experienced players. Sometimes the difference can be
04:54one note that is weaker in one guitar and really good instruments are often
05:00judged by the number of their weaknesses rather than the number of
05:03their strengths. And we know in reality there's no such thing as a perfect
05:08guitar. That might drive some people crazy, but I and many luthiers get hooked
05:13on the challenge of trying to build one. Getting back to this original idea of
05:18different construction paths, the key thing to recognize is that some of the
05:22things that we do during construction have more influence on the sound than
05:26others, and the key is to learn through experience or through others what these
05:31rules are. And in my experience, I found that there's a hierarchy of influences.
05:36So let's talk about these hierarchies now. At the top of the hierarchy is the
05:42guitar's design. I'm not talking about just a bracing pattern, which is just one
05:48of the many design elements, but for non-luthiers, bracing is often the only
05:52thing that can be easily seen. That is, if you look inside. But as we'll see shortly
05:57in an upcoming videos, bracing is only one of many important factors that
06:02influences sound. The type of design that I'm talking about is more of a complete
06:07system, such as the top assembly plus the infrastructure that supports it. So think
06:12in terms of style, such as a steel string acoustic that has a pretty sturdy
06:17construction to withstand the high tension of the strings, or a classical
06:22that is lightly built because it has lower tension strings. And then even
06:27within these styles, you can further divide, such as in classical, you would
06:31have maybe a traditional Taurus style guitar, which would be very different in
06:36sound than an Australian lattice brace guitar. And no matter who builds these
06:42styles of guitar, generally the sound within a certain style will sound very
06:48similar. That's because the overriding factor is the design. The point is,
06:53depending on what design you're currently using, your marble will start
06:57in a different place at the top of the funnel and will be predisposed towards a
07:01certain sound. Such as, I build double top sound boards on light but rigid sides,
07:07which have a very different starting point from, say, Australian style lattice
07:12brace guitars with heavy and rigid back and sides, which might start over here.
07:17These different designs will predispose each towards a slightly different sound
07:21path. Maybe you use a more traditional design which will start in yet a
07:26different position and will probably sound different compared to either of
07:30these two when we finish them. Next on the order of hierarchy is material
07:36selection, predominantly the top wood. In my opinion, selection of wood is less
07:41about spruce versus cedar, but more about the material properties such as
07:46stiffness and weight, which I alluded to in episode one. We'll talk in detail
07:51about this in episode six. Perhaps you can think of additional levels of
07:57hierarchy, but I think the last level is execution. The actual bench work we do,
08:01which is not only the last step in the whole building process, but I think
08:05represents over 95% of the work we do. This realm is huge because there are so
08:11many steps. I once counted about 200 steps in my own guitars, and there are so
08:16many choices to make about techniques and the order in which you do the steps.
08:21Yes, order matters a lot because doing a certain step at a given time can
08:26eliminate your options, and that can be problematic if you need to change course.
08:30Finally, there's the whole question of whether or not you're skilled in each
08:34technical step, because if you're not, that can really mess up your design
08:38intent or consistency if you don't have the skills to execute. You could argue
08:44that execution has a higher level of influence over material selection, but I
08:49just feel that material properties of the wood have an ever-present, overarching
08:54effect on everything that we do, and execution is also the last step in
08:59construction, so I put it there at the end of the funnel. So revisiting this
09:04mental exercise, I submit to you that this is the inner game of luthiery, and
09:08that the reason why I started with this video ahead of jumping right into
09:12techniques, it's because I know that for developing luthiers, or even someone like
09:17me who's done it for a while, it can feel daunting trying to control sound, as if
09:22we are in an endless universe of possibilities searching for a needle in
09:26a haystack. But by reminding ourselves that there are boundaries set by
09:30acoustic principles, and that there is cause and effect in play, we will feel
09:35less lost, more likely to ask the right questions, and be more open to the
09:40answers when they present themselves. Now let me dive deeper into some ideas about
09:45material selection and execution, and as I mentioned in episode one, the
09:51resonances in vibrating bodies like guitars are heavily influenced by
09:55stiffness and weight, and so naturally a lot of guitar building is about
10:00modulating stiffness and weight, building it up, taking it down, in order to
10:05optimize the sound. So let's start talking about some specifics now. In
10:11material selection, we can measure and choose material based on density. By
10:15doing that, we can decide on both stiffness and weight. Then when we start
10:20the execution stage, the actual construction, when we thin the top,
10:24stiffness goes down, weight goes down. When we add doming to the top, we add
10:31stiffness but not weight. And when we add bracing, we add stiffness but not much
10:37weight compared to the weight of the top plate. And then finally, when we carve the
10:42braces, we decrease stiffness and decrease weight by a tiny bit. Now here's
10:49the big question you've probably been asking yourself. How do stiffness and
10:54weight translate to sound? Well, the Rosetta Stone that explains the
10:58relationship of the physical structure to the guitar sound is this. In general, a
11:04stiffer structure results in a brighter, more treble-oriented sound, whereas a
11:09heavier structure results in a darker, more bass-oriented sound. And conversely,
11:14something that's more flexible will be darker sounding, and something that's
11:18lighter will be brighter sounding. It's not the only thing, but my experience has
11:24been that this bright versus dark characteristic is a big parameter in
11:28guitars because it encompasses many issues about a guitar's perceived voice,
11:32such as overtone content and the relative volume of notes at different
11:37ranges of pitch. If you can get basic control over bright versus dark, then you
11:42can further nuance a guitar's voice through different design elements and
11:46altering the spatial distribution of stiffness and weight. We'll talk more
11:50about this in upcoming videos. Now I hope you can see where we're heading with all
11:55of this, that we're not just grasping at something nebulous. And even if we don't
11:59understand all the complex acoustics that are going on in the guitar, if we
12:04keep detailed notes on our construction path, we have a good chance of
12:08reproducing the sound that we created, or if we intentionally deviate from that
12:14pathway, we can move the sound in a rational way. And the point is, is that we
12:19now have reference points. So let's move ahead, let's move forward, and on the next
12:25video we'll talk about material selection in more depth. So I hope to see
12:29you on that video.