One of my favourite pieces to play. This was recorded on one of my handmade traditional classical guitars with western red cedar top and indian rosewood back and sides. This guitar is my research guitar, I use it to carry out experiments. Have a listen to the youtube video, please forgive the errors, the technique (was trying to keep a quiet and efficient right hand, the ‘i’ finger is just is too busy) and the bung notes. The advantage of being a player as well as a builder/luthier is that you get to hear and feel the differences in the guitar and you really understand the importance of a great set up.
After recording this I took the bridge off and replaced it with a bridge of padauk which weighed in at 12.5 grams. The ebony bridge that was on this guitar weighed in at over 30 grams. By reducing the weight of the bridge the guitar is now a little louder, trebles are not as strong but the overall sound is a little fuller. The padauk bridge is one that I use on all my lattice guitars as it works very well when you have a very lightweight soundboard.
I then took off the padauk bridge and replaced it with an Indian Rosewood bridge. Indian Rosewood as a bridge material is fine and from my research a number of the great makers would use rosewood and stain it black. It’s lighter than ebony and weighs in at around 20 grams and it still holds a lot of the trebles and gives a nice even response.
No more ebony bridges for me…