Alvarez Guitars Catalog
Artist Guitars 3
Click for PDF |
I can tell a lot about a steel string guitar by looking at the tuning heads. Good machine heads are extremely important. Open gears fall victim to dirt and grit; they wear badly and make your guitar hard to tune. Enclosed gears are the only way to go on a steel string guitar, and that's the only kind of head you'll find on Alvarez Artist Series six string guitars. The gears have a 12-1 ratio. They're internally precise mechanically; they won't slip and you get fast accurate tuning.
A lot of these Alvarez Artist guitars have bookmatched backs. Bookmatching is a way of cutting the pieces of wood for the top and back: a single piece is sliced into two sheets, each the same length and width as the original but only half as thick. It's like opening a book at its center and laying out the two symmetrically "rained halves. It looks very nice.
Alvarez Artist Series guitars have unusual woods and unusual inlays. Even the bridges and saddles are special: tight-grained rosewood to transmit stronger vibrations from the strings to the top of the guitar, dense saddles to withstand string pressure without abrading--the little extras that tell people you're serious about your music.
Sidebar 6
Sor's "Method pour la Guitare," published in 1830, examined all the components of guitar-playing: the finger and wrist positions of both hands, the position of the instrument and the player's body, and the manner of striking the strings.
Sor said of his book, "Even at the risk of contradicting established tradition I have written about the experiences and reflections that have enabled me to regulate my playing." His book remains the most remarkable book on guitar technique ever written.
|
|
