Wednesday, November 19, 2014

“A Guitar A Day”
Installment #5 – the American Guitar Continued
Martin & Co. EST. 1833


Steel strings!

            “The robust steel-string guitar began to make its official appearance from instrument makers’ workshops in the late 1880’s. Apart from its suitability as an accompanying instrument for the voice, the guitar was portable and very cheap. The Sears Roebuck catalogue of 1908 was advertising guitars by mail-order from $1.89 to $28.15. Otherwise the local country store sold a variety of guitars. For $1.95 you could purchase one of the “Spanish models with patent head, maple wood, red shaded, varnished soundboard, good quality in pasteboard box”; for $5 there was a wider choice. But even these were often out of the reach of the poor country boy and many learned on home-made instruments.” The quote above comes from page 287 of Guitars: Music, History, Construction and Players from the Renaissance to Rock by Tom and Mary Anne Evans. I really enjoyed reading this so I thought that it would be a great idea to give you the direct quote.   
Our guitar for today’s blog, having steel strings, was best suited for music styles ranging from bluegrass to gospel, to country western and maybe even some bottleneck blues. But wait. I just remembered that there was one really famous dude that played classical guitar repertoire on steel strings as opposed to gut. His name was Agustin Barrios Mangore. Was he wacky for doing that? You decide! I’ve included a link below in case you’re interested in knowing more about his colorful and remarkable life. He’s considered to be one of the greatest composers to ever live – at least among classical guitarist. In contrast, the nylon Bay State guitar from yesterday was more suited for classical guitar music, which was very popular with guitarists such as William Foden and Justin Holland. Their musical styles included instrumental arrangements of popular songs, arrangements of famous operas and music from European composers like Sor, Giuliani and Carcassi.
Lawrence K Brown modeled today’s guitar after an 1898 Martin style 40. It has a pyramid bridge, Indian Rosewood sides, anglemen spruce top, African mahogany neck, ebony fingerboard and any ebony bridge. It was finished with garnet orange shellac and French polish. The bracing is light making it quite necessary to use extra light silk and steel strings so as not to damage the guitar. After all, a heavy gauge of strings could pull the bridge right off the top of the guitar!
One more thing before we wrap up. Let’ not forget Francisco Tarrega who is recognized in history as having developed a number of performance techniques directly related to the new construction standards that were set by Antonio de Torres. Some of Tarrega’s improvements included specific left and right hand positions as well as the precise use of a footstool. He also indicated where each note should be played on the guitar neck for specific compositions in order to be able to take full advantage of the incredible tonal qualities of these new guitars. Tarrega was an incredible virtuoso classical guitarist and a quintessential romantic.
Here’s a video of an 1890 Martin Guitar by O’Brien Guitars – very similar to mine – steel strings - you can hear how beautiful this guitar sounds.

Check out this Martin Guitar from 1889 with nylon strings – similar to the Bay State but I think the Martin sounds much better then mine.

Agustin Barrios – here’s a fun article in which the use of steel strings by Barrios as opposed to gut strings is discussed. By the way, it sounds like Andre Segovia was not down with Barrios using steel strings. Segovia referred to steel strings as “wire fences” – ouch!



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