October 3, 2011

I’ve completed a new and unusual classic guitar: it’s got a koi fish carved into the top. You can see what this looks like in the accompanying photographs.

I like to make an extraordinarily decorated guitar from time to time, but when I do so I limit the ornamentation to the upper bout, which is acoustically not very important, or other non-acoustically critical parts of the instrument. The lower bout of the face (the area around the bridge) is acoustically critical and I won’t mess with that. I want those instruments to have as full a sound as anything else that I make.

This is a beautiful guitar. One of my witty friends took one look at it and commented that it ought to be great for playing scales. Ho ho ho.