The Handcrafted instruments of Antonio Pinto Carvalho made in Portugal enjoy a high reputation for…
Ramirez Guitars 1962
Ramirez Guitars 1962
As mentioned in previous posts, this month of September I am recording my new album in the Spanish pyrenees and Barcelona. These mountains, their people and culture have been very inspiring for all my guitar compositions. I am also very pleased to be recording with my Flamenco Guitar, Ramirez Guitars1962. A hand made guitar from the Ramirez family.
Ramirez built these 1962 guitars to work with low tension nylon strings. Gut strings replaced nylon strings in that era.
Equal temperament tuning.
What I find so curious about this guitar is the way it tunes. Guitars do not follow natural tuning. They are modified to be able to create equal temperament tuning. Contemporary luthiers construct guitars with mathematical machine precision. Even though they do not sound so well, they sometimes tune better. The same note in different octaves is proportional in it´s wave length.
However, in older guitars, the luthier would fine tune the fret layout by ear. The luthier would lay down the frets in a manner where octaves were in tune in the same position of the neck. A chord in a high position would be in tune in relation to all its notes, but not to other chords in a lower register.
The resulting sound is spectacular and extremely natural. The Ramirez guitars built in 1962 were amongst the most desired of the era. They were sought after by flamenco and classical guitarists as: Paco de Lucia, Manolo Sanlucar, Narciso Yepes, amongst others.
Please take a peak at all my new flamenco and jazz guitar releases on: http://www.thomaslorenzo.com
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Regards
Thomas