Instruments used

Some words have allready been said about the used instruments here.

and the story around these instruments will be told further in this blog.

At first I will mention my Vicente Arias from 1899 of which I'm the proud owner.

This instrument obviously underwent different restauration processes during its

lifetime. This year we visited Bernhard Kresse, one of the worldwide known

restorers of old and valuable guitars. Besides that he builts copies of historic

instruments as well. "This guitar sounds like a cathedral' he proclaimed when

playing the instrument. The way it sounds for me depends heavily on weather

condition and especially humidity. Vicente Arias' guitars are very difficult to

catch in a recording process. In fact it is simply not possible. You have to hear

the guitar in reality. It is able to sing in a lot of different voices and then I'm

pointing towards its overtones.

Nicolas Bonafon who in fact is known as a Paris based violinbuilder built the

guitar represented on number 21 of the CD. It is in fact not original anymore

as it must have been built around 1810 / 1820. Most likely the fingerboard and

head have been changed and probably the bridge as well.

It is the first guitar I had to rebuilt allmost completely: New sides and back.

It is a more intimate sound as compared to more modern instruments but it

certainly still has a kind of livelyness.

The National "Havana" Resonator guitar is a bit of a strange move on this CD

though I'm convinced the piece "Paris Texas" has a real classic value.

National didn't built guitars theirselves though they tried in the beginning.(1928)

Later Kay and even Gibson produced guitars for National. The inventor of

the resonator which was proprietorship of National was Ed Dopera who later

changed his own invention in order to be able to start the Dobro company.

This guitar has its original cone but I replaced the top of the bridge with ivory

as the wooden resonator guitars tend to sound a bit muffy.

Now the wood adds a nice warm low end to the sound of this guitar.

José Ramirez clase 1A guitars was the standard for many classical players in

the past 40 years. José Ramirez started this dynasty of guitarbuilders but Ramirez II

was more a businessman and interested in production. José Ramirez III made their

guitars the way Andres Segovia wanted to sound them. That's where it actually

started for the concertplayers. Having one way of building in mind it was possible

that different luthiers that were active in Ramirez' workshop produced guitars that

at first ear sounded quite similar. My first Ramirez was a 1974 model made by

Arturo Sanzano. Though it was a beautiful instrument I had to work on it to let

it give away its' best. I was totally blown away when I heard this 1981 Ramirez

at an auction and I had to buy it. By that time it was unplayable and needed a

neck reset which is very difficult and expensive and can be of influence on the

tone of the guitar. I wanted to avoid any risks so I decided to change the neck

angle by lowering the fingerboard towards the head. Results were that this guitar

feels great for my smaller hands and the original sound is still there.