March 21, 2006


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                          ODYSSEY - FROM TONEWOODS TO THE DRUMKIT

    And "What a long strange trip it's been...."

    I'm a classically trained violinist, banging away on the piano since I was tall enough to get on the piano bench, studying violin since I was five.  

    Playing  the violin influenced the way I listen to music.  I concentrate, focus on, hear the melody line, the tune, to the exclusion of almost everything else, which I hear, but just barely, as I keep bobbing along with the tune.  

    Starting with looking at www.dreamguitars.com with Dave and hearing the sound clips of the different instruments (go to "preowned instruments" and click on the thumbnails to get to the page of details; mp3's are linked to from there), I began to develop a fascination with sound, and, ultimately, with teaching myself new ways to hear.  Pre-wobbly, I would have never been able to hear so many different instruments with different sounds and resonances and begin to relate sound the best I could to the woods used as well as to other factors like the kind of. bracing underneath a guitar top.  (knew about that, didn't ya....)  This website was like a box of chocolates.

    We talked a bit about Brazilian rosewood, a tonewood protected  from harvest by international law since 1992, and its effects on sound.  It's used in making guitar backs and sides and the world's remaining stock is either stashed in luthiers' storerooms or in the hands of dealers.  It's the queen of tonewoods and instruments made with it are now expensive, many of them investment pieces. 

    My ear isn't up to making really fine distinctions about the use of different tonewoods - spruce, maple, mahagony, koa, maple, etc - yet, but at least I know they're there.  (3/30 - I'll have to amend that - caught a big difference in sound this evening...)  My eyes, on the other hand, allow me to see Brazilian rosewood's beauty even if I can't hear what it does to sound very well yet.  (picture on the right is a Brazilian rosewood guitar back.)     

    "Brazilian rosewood is known for its high sound velocity and broad range of overtones, also characterized by strength and complexity in the bottom end and an overall darkness of tone in the rest of the range. Strong mids and highs also contribute a richness of tone to the upper registers. Rosewood guitars also have a pronounced reverberant-like tone quality, caused by audible delays in the onset of certain harmonics. While both species exhibit complexity, darkness and a reverberant tone, Brazilian rosewood has tremendous clarity in the bottom end and sparkle in the top." 

    Read it and weep.  The only replacement is Indian rosewood, and it's just not the same.         

    A discussion of the acoustic qualities of all the tonewoods can be found here.      

     

    pearlbamboo

    copyright e.p.hodges

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