Alvarez Guitars Catalog
Classical Guitars
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A classical guitar can be a good choice for the occasional player
because the strings are soft nylon—easy on the fingers. The sound
is more muted, and has a rich organic tone that steel strings
can't duplicate.
I spend about half an hour adjusting each guitar. I sand and polish
the frets and put graphite in the nut slots for the strings. I oil the
fingerboards and run my fingers on the edge of the neck and check for
properly filed and crowned frets. If I find any rough edges, I file them smooth.
Frets on all Alvarez guitars are made of German silver, which is good for
long life and a smooth feel.
High-crowned Alvarez frets touch only a small section of the string,
allowing a clearer pitch than a flat fret, which deadens a wider area
of the string.
A guitar top is designed to act as a resonator, an acoustic
amplifier that moves a larger mass of air than the strings could move by
themselves. The resonating surface must be able to respond freely without
sacrificing strength. I use a mirror in the sound hole to see if the internal
braces are tight, well-cut and sanded. If they're fuzzylooking and roughly
formed, the rest of the interior is probably the same. A good clean finished
interior means the guitar is well made.
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Sidebar 3
 Fernando Sor (1779-1839) was the greatest guitarist of the Romantic era.
The guitars of Sor's time had a mellow but weak tone; he encouraged guitar makers to produce lighter instruments for him, with top, ribs and back made of very thin woods, supported by interior bracing that distributed the vibrations of the strings, via the bridge, to the entire top surface, rounding out the bass and enlarging the sound of the whole instrument.
After Sor's death these design principles were finally codified and perfected by the great luthier Antonio Torres. |
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