Lutherie Demystified Ep. 16 | Guest Lecture: Guitarists, Luthiers and Physics

Incredible video. Thanks a lot for the idea and the pedagogy !

Great video, making the mysterious guitar voice so clear.

very informative thank you

Yourself and Jim Lil have done so much to sidestep the bullsh1t and clearly demonstrate facts. Bravo, simple to understand and elegantly demonstrated. Sweet builds too!

The first guitar I ever played was purchased new in Franco’s Spain in the late 50s—my dad paid $20 for it. It was a folk instrument with toolmarks on the back of the head stock, etc. And it had gut strings—the only instrument I’ve ever played with such. He bought it for my mother—but was a classical pianist (her father conducted the CBC Symphony Orchestra—virtually identical to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra) and she summarily hung it on the wall like an ornament. It stayed there for years until the table split up the middle—right about the time Johnny Horton’s “Battle of New Orleans” was topping the charts and a school chum’s visiting cousin showed us how to play it on his big western guitar. Much to my mother’s horror (my grandmother, too, who used to play piano with the CBC Symphony live-to-air and was very snooty—and wouldn’t even mention what she thought of pop guitar music) I came home and started to practice the G, C, D like I was shown. But I loved rock-a-billy so the E, A, and part of a B came along serendipitously. My folks thought I was too young to be playing the Blues on my ma’s wall ornament. I was supposed to be doing my piano lessons. My dad walked through the room one day as I played hooky on the ivories: “That’s the Blues,” he said, and I didn’t have a clue what he meant. Later a friend’s dad made me an electric guitar out of spare parts (only a few of them actual guitar parts); I eventually bought another big electric guitar from a pawnshop in “Hogtown” (how we called Toronto—or “Toronna”) with more pickups, knobs and switches than I can remember. Then I hit the road… I was a prodigal son; I didn’t play guitar for a few years of mouth-organ itinerancy out on the West Coast, but every time I came back for a visit that little Spanish classical was still hanging on the wall—it kept looking like it was shrinking over the years, and that crack got wider and wider. Last I saw it there was a reefknot on a green E-string—but the gut strings were still there until that very time—mustard been over two decades old! Eventually I’d come home with a low-end Fender acoustic and I think I broke its heart. I still have the F-35 fifty years later but I don’t know what became of my first little guitar with the gut strings. Love your channel. What led me here is a perennial question I have for luthiers: why not western hemlock for an acoustic guitar top? I’ve never heard of or seen one. Is there a reason for this? Great show. Thnx!

9:35 such a great view, i dont think ive seen that before

Great introduction to top resonance and tap response.

Man, I love your videos. Great info break down and great demonstration of resonant frequencies. I would love to learn how to manipulate the higher order resonant frequencies you discussed (after playing the A note) as opposed to the lower order three (main air, main top, and main back). Those are a little easier to understand and manipulate. But those elusive higher order resonant frequencies are trickier. Haha! Thanks again. I will be following along for future videos!

Thanks, Garrett, for sharing.

Thx for sharing your findings Garrett, very interesting.

Awesome video! I'm a violinist learning guitar, and I wonder why violin has soundpost that connects the soundboard to the back, but guitar doesn't? Guitar has a lot of bracing, but violin only has one bass bar. And I find it interesting that your fingerboard is not glued to the soundboard, but the neck runs all the way to the soundhole.

I love this video, but I would also love to hear you talking about Carbon Fiber and some other similar composites used in making acoustic instruments. There is videos of Carbon Fiber violins and violas, which do sound amazing, so I could imagine this would also apply for guitar, it does have a different sound, but is not a bad one at all. There is "acoustic" guitars made out of this material, but I haven't seen classical ones being made with it. I am talking about the shape of the guitar and also about the type of string it uses when I refer to classical and acoustic, since at the end they are both acoustic

Great video!

This was excellent!!

very interesting info, thank you! However, i now have cravings for enchiladas.......

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That huge utility knife is completely useless! They didn't add the ever important spray can of shark repellent!

I saw the thumbnail and I tought it was another video about debunking "tone woods" on electrical guitars, great video nevertheless I remember seing Torres "cardboard" guitar in a museum, he basically made the guitar to make a point about only the top(tapa) soundboard being important, the sides and back could literally be made of cardboard(paper maché) and would still sound 90% like a normal guitar.

I wonder if you could run a tone through the body with sensors at various places to allow you to know which part of the top is stiffer, allowing further balancing of tone.

Thanks a lot for sharing your knowledge. It's really important for me. Seeing the experience on chladni patterns, and the result on opposing the movement with a transversal bar... I'm wondering.. so, the bridge fixed on top is kind of a problem on frequencies response? How do you deal with this?