Popular Guitar Woods

Today’s blog will talk about the most popular acoustic guitar woods. 

     The characteristics of this wood lie somewhere between Maple, Koa and Mahogany. African Satinwood is noted for producing a very balance tone.

     Brazilian Rosewood is a protected species and increasingly hard to find.  Brazilian Rosewood is considered to be the premier tone wood by both luthiers and guitar players.

     A favorite among musicians, Indian Rosewood is one of the most stable rosewoods and has a deep, rich tone.

     Hawaiian Koa is beautifully figured and produces a rich sound somewhere between rosewoods and maples.

   

     Mahogany is one of the most stable tone woods and is also used for soundboards. It produces a balanced woody tone with a powerful midrange. 

     While Maple may be most often associated with violins, its application as a guitar tone wood is just as successful. It is light and produces a brilliant clarity and separation of notes. 

      Stay tuned for next weeks blog! I will talk about the variety of soundboard woods that range from Engelmann Spruce, Adirondack Spruce, Sitka Spruce, Sitka Spruce, European Spruce, Carpathian Spruce, Lutz, Curly Redwood, Western Red Cedar, Sinker Western Redwood, Koa, Mahogany. 

     Well here you go, I hope was post was informative for any guitar player or musician looking to buy a new instrument. As always, Sound Theory here, thanks for reading!

Ten Tips For Beginners

To accompany my last post on beginner guitar, this blog will touch base on what beginners should do before picking up the guitar. These are some of the things that I have done myself and learned from others through out many years of playing the guitar and playing with other musicians. This tips will surely improve your experience as a guitar or musician. 

•       Be prepared to practice. Do some stretching exercises. Relax; take a few deep breaths before you play.  Getting in the habit of stretching reduces overuse injuries like tendinitis and back stiffness from sitting.  
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•       Get an electric tuner at first. Then learn how to tune without it.  
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•       Practice simple songs. Playing scales, and exercises get boring real fast when you don’t have a reason to practice and improve.
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•        Want to build calluses fast? Bends, hammer-ons/hammer-offs, vibrato outta do the trick!
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•      Tired, stressed, finding it hard to concentrate and retain info?  Don’t try to learn new things when you’re tense. Also sleeping on a problem or difficult technique helps.  Parts of your brain actually grow when learning an instrument. Take 15 minutes before bed, to go over any material that you are learning.  Don’t worry about playing it perfectly just go through it once.  Even doing this in your head without a guitar helps.
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•        Plan ahead. Get a beverage, ashtray (if you smoke), fan, asthma inhaler, pez dispenser, whatever creature comforts that could distract you from practicing.
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•      Talk to other guitar players. Lots of people play guitar.  Tell people you meet that you want to learn to play the guitar better; you’ll be surprised how happy people are to share their knowledge.  Jam with others every chance you get and try to pay as much attention to what the other jammers are playing.
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•      Don’t expect miracles, it takes years to develop the confidence to play with a group in front of an audience.  Creating a unique style and “mastering” the instrument usually takes much longer.
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•       Practice visualization. When not physically playing guitar, close your eyes and imagine playing scales, songs, chords, tuning, holding the guitar correctly, hearing the strings and the relationships of notes.
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•      Warm-down too, especially if you can feel your hands straining from a long session. Musicians put a lot of stress on their hands and most people don’t think about doing stretching exercises until they feel discomfort

What are some of tips or techniques that you guys practice? Comment below!

Picking Up An Acoustic Guitar

     One question that aspiring guitar players always ask is what kind of guitar they should buy to start out with. Should they buy a beginners guitar, novice, advance, professional guitar? Should they buy a cheap or an expensive guitar? Choosing a first acoustic guitar can make or break a successful experience on learning to play the guitar. It seems like most of the advice that aspiring guitar players come across from most sources recommend that someone learning how to play guitar start with an inexpensive acoustic beginner guitar. This can be fine (sometimes) but an instrument that's too cheap might be a piece of junk that's very hard to play or is impossible to setup correctly and or a complete waste of money.

     

     This is the case because most people don't know anything about guitar price or quality, try a few guitar lessons with a cheap guitar, then decide it’s too much work and give up. I believe that having a good guitar could keep them enthusiastic about their new adventure. If most new guitar learners started with a quality instrument, something between cheap and expensive then not as many of them would give up from pure frustration.

     

     My first real guitar was an acoustic guitar, a vintage Sigma Guitars DM-1; I believe it was an off brand from C.F. Martin & Co. It did not sound that great because the fingerboard split apart from the neck and some of the frets are worn out and at the time it was a major discouragement because it just didn't sound good.

     

     I think that for any new guitar student or beginner should have that passion to learn how to play. If not, then the student will buy a guitar and then that guitar will be nothing but a dust collector. But one choice that can inspire someone to greatness is buying a guitar that is best for the type of music the beginner wants to play.

     

     Acoustic beginner guitar choices do not have to be expensive to sound good. It can help but it's not necessary. Some well established companies such as Yamaha, Epiphone, even Fender put out some great beginner guitars. There are some very reasonably priced acoustic beginner guitars that are quality products and sound great.

Basic Guitar Chord Progression

     Basic chord progressions will give any musician an understanding of chord groupings used in writing music. Although it is not necessary to know when writing music, it can make song writing a much simpler task. Advance musicians who know their music theory tend to be more creative in songwriting because they tend to use math and theory for their songs, but I will try and explain the basics here instead to the best of my knowledge.

     Now, for the purpose of this section, I will define what a chord progression is and what are the general rules to follow when finding the right chords to play in a progression as simply as possible.

     The first things to know when writing a song is you need to find out what keys you want to play in. After that there is a rule that states that for every root chord, there are two chords that go along with that chord in a pattern and the root chord is the actual key that the song is performed in.

     These chords are referred to by musicians as 'First', 'Second' and 'Third' to describe when the changes in the song are coming and where they are going, as the song is being played. Musicians tend to write songs that best suit their vocal range. These chords can be added or even subtracted, but there are always three chords in the basic structure.

     Now, as an example, a song in the key of ‘A’ means that 'A' becomes the root chord. Knowing that 'A' is the root chord, the musician is then able to determine that the base of the song will be written in the chords of A, D and E or I, IV, V chord progression.

     In the Scale of A the notes are as follows:

A B C# D E F# G# A

     The # means that the note is a SHARP, a half step above the natural note.

     So here it is! I hope this information helped any aspiring musicians and guitar players try this out and ss always, Sound Theory here, thanks for reading!

My D15m *improved* Sound and Specs

So I posted a video a few days ago showing the specs of my guitar, the history, and specs and realized that the quality of the sound was terrible.

So without further due, here is the improved sound of my Martin D15m being strummed and finger picked.

Enjoy!

Specs:

Model: D-15M

Body Size: D-14 Fret

Top: Solid Genuine Mahogany 

Top Bracing Pattern: A- Frame ''X'' Bracing

Top Braces: Solid Sitka Spruce 

Back Material: Solid Genuine Mahogany 

Side Material: Solid Genuine Mahogany

Neck Material: Solid Genuine Mahogany 

Strings: Martin SP lifespan phosphor Bronze medium gauge

Total Frets: 20

Total playable fret: 14 

The Acoustic Body Shape

     The iconic design of the acoustic guitar has been shaped and transformed throughout hundreds of years. Some of the earliest instruments that resemble an acoustic guitar were made from natural materials like shells and bamboo. This designed later changed and formed the lute. The lute is a string instrument and the back resembles a round bowl. Today for cost purposes and comfort, the lute changed and the common shape for the acoustic guitar was born and now there are many shapes that are being created to make it ideal for certain genres of music. In relation to Martin guitars, for some guitars, they name their models by adding the 0 (zero) for their guitar models. The models I will be talking about are: 0 (Parlour Model), 000 (Orchestra Model), and the Dreadnought.

     The Martin model 0 was built in 1854 that has a 12 fret to body design that produces a tone with plenty of mid-range punch. The shape of this guitar and model is ideal for Traditional blues, folk, and Americana. The body length is 19 1/8 inches, a max depth of 4 1/16 inches and max width of 13 ½ inches. Although this guitar was very specific in genre and style of music there is one that is well rounded and can be used for almost any style of playing, the 000 model or Orchestra Model.

     The Martin 000 models are acoustic instruments that are well rounded and used by many famous guitar players, one of my favorites Eric Clapton. This guitar is perfect for rock, folk, blues, and many more. This guitar has a scale length of 24.9 inches, body length of 19 3/18 or 14 playable frets, max depth 4 1/8 inches, and max width of 15 inches. This guitar was traditionally made for auditorium use but has adapted for other applications. Although this guitar can versatile, there is one model that is the most iconic and just beats everything out of the water.

     The Dreadnought guitar model guitar model is the most iconic instrument known. Pretty much every guitar player or musician has picked this guitar to be their main choice from Elvis, Johnny Cash, Paul McCartney and many more. This guitar can literally be played in any style of music. The sound can really shine when strummed or picked. This guitar model has rounded shoulders and 12 playable frets and has become synonymous with the very term ‘acoustic guitar’. The body length is 20 inches, depth of 4 7/8inches, and width of 15 5/8 inches. One sad story I have is that I used to have a playable Martin dreadnought, but the rosewood neck has split apart from the back of the neck.

0 Model

000 Model

Dreadnought

     

     These models are the most recognizable guitar shapes known to man but are not the only models that exist. There are hundreds of different guitar shapes that have different acoustical properties and I encourage everyone to go check out a music/guitar store and start jamming out on numerous guitars. Find the one that is just for you and your style of music!

Sound Theory - Martin D15m