What makes a good acoustic guitar?

A question like this, if asked in a room full of guitarists could easily lead to hours and hours of discussions. Maybe it could start an argument if the people involved didn't have an open mind to the fact that there is unity in diversity and that the needs and ambitions of musicians are different. These differences will generate a need for guitar makers and manufacturers to create multiple choices to satisfy the cravings and requirements of guitar players worldwide.

Each guitar will have its own personailty, regardless of price. Like anything, the care taken to preserve it will make a difference over the period of time that it's in your care.

Acoustic guitar choices

Guitarists these days need to be aware that what they can purchase for a reasonable price now, would have cost them 3 or 4 times the price, not so many years ago. In the last 15 years we've seen the emergence of some brilliant guitar makers (luthiers) from small to medium size workshops, such as Linda Manzer, Jeff Traugott, Grit Laskin, Larrivee, Lowden, Froggy Bottom and a long list of others. At the other end we've had reasonable quality of guitars come from South East Asia designed for a specific market (with the help of some great luthiers from around the globe, (wink wink) start to produce instruments that are more than just playable but musical at ridiculous prices. This has pushed the more famous makers such as Gibson, Fender and Martin to continue to develop guitars that are not only surviving on their famous forefathers names but are still desirable to both professional and amateur musicians alike.

Personal choices

Personally I use only a handful of guitars these days. My main acoustic guitar came out of Michael Gurian's workshop in Greenwich Village in the late seventies. The bracing inside it is quite unusual and the way the neck was attached was also extremely different because it has two pins that hold the neck on to the body. Anyone that has explored the brilliant Cumpiano book on guitar construction will be familiar with the design.

An other acoustic I play is one that I built at a guitar making workshop in 1994. It has an extremely wide fretboard because at that time I was playing a lot of nylon string guitar and preferred the width so I could play a lot of chords, the tone of it is gorgeous and very different to the Gurian.

Recently I purchased a Breedlove guitar, to read about how I came to purchase it, check out my indepth blog post at HowTo Buy An Acoustic Guitar

As I play numerous styles, last year purchased an Ibanez AF 105N to use for jazz guitar after reading about in acoustic guitar magazine. as some people would know this guitar is from Asia. It looked so good in the magazine I had to check it out. It's superb and although I've only ever played Gibson jazz guitars for 30+ years, this guitar stands up and makes music. My only sadness with it that I never got to play it for my friend Ike Isaacs before he died.

The reason I've discussed my personal choices here is because the instruments come from three totally different environments but they all make music . I think it's important to have an open mind always.

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