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From: Ross
Remote Name: 67.8.51.18
Date: 10 Feb 2007
Time: 12:11:17 -0500
Blog 2/10/07 Sometimes I feel like the monkey in the monkey trap. You know, the one where the monkey sticks it’s paw into the bottle to get the date, and is unable to withdraw his fist with the date in it, and unwilling to release the date. I’m walking around stuff in my workshop that impedes work, but I’m unwilling to part with this junk either from sentimental attachment ( 2 old British motorcycles in parts) or from fear ( wood or old parts that I keep around because I know I’ll need them the day after I throw them out). Intellectually this is indefensible, but I am plagued by emotion-driven action. I want to influence my family to organize their lives, but lack the moral authority to do so (“Look in your attic, Dad”). Golly. I expect I need to address this problem. Getting back to instrument design. I’m going to free myself of the strictures of personal preference and prejudice that goes with advancing age and conjure up for myself a helpmate and alter ego that will do this design work. He will no doubt be free to resist trends, tradition, and conventional wisdom in arriving at his plans. Of course, he’d have to be something of a robot to do this, so I guess I’ll refer to him as the “robot luthier”. When last we left our luthier/hero, he had isolated the necessary parameters for his target instrument design. He had wisely made the effort not to include such nonessential elements as shape, materials, appearance features or cosmetics. Using our finger style guitar as the example, he then examined closely the typical player posture during performance. Astute observation lead him to conclude that the player usually sat, but occasionally stood. Therefore our guitar must be equally comfortable when supported in two ways. While seated, the body is solidly supported by the player’s leg(s),with further support coming from the chest/belly. The right forearm* generally rests on or contacts the lower bass side of the instrument’s body. In this posture, the left hand’s only job is to articulate the fingerings on the fingerboard. When the player stands, however, the left hand may be called upon to do some of the support work in addition to fingering the notes. This work should be addressed by our luthier, with an eye toward minimizing or eliminating it. The body of the guitar in the standing position is most commonly supported by the use of a strap, attached at the guitar’s endpin on one end, and at either the headstock or by means of a strap button attached at or near the neck/body junction. The former location nicely eliminates the need of the left hand to support the instrument, but may interfere with the comfortable movement of the left hand while playing or tuning. The latter position works well as long as the instrument is not “neck heavy”, where the weight of the headstock while unsupported tends to drop it to a lower than comfortable playing position. I guess I need to think about this playing position duality more. Later *We will assume conventional or “right-handed” instrument construction, not conceding the necessity of “left-handed” instruments.