American Lutherie #82
Summer Issue 2005
Web Extras

The fretboard sketch can be printed on a 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper. See Fred's website at www.beyondthetrees.com.

Fred performing "Rattlesnake" from his lecture at the 2004 GAL Convention. mp3 (684 KB)

Here is an mp3 of a tune featuring the Colombian tiple. The tune is entitled Melodía Triste (Sad Song) and it is by the Colombian group Cuatro Palos, translated literally as Four Sticks. The word stick is musician's slang for stringed musical instrument in Bogotá, Colombia. The band is a typical Colombian, Andean region quartet, and features two bandolas, a tiple, and a guitar. This is a rough approximation to the classical string quartet: 2 violins/bandolas, 1 viola/tiple, 1 cello/guitar. Musicians in the band include María-Cristina Rivera Cadena on tiple, Jairo Rincón Gómez on 1st bandola, Manuel Bernal Martinez on 2nd bandola, and César Julio Martinez Gil on guitar.

mp3 (2034 KB)

Web Links:
Eric Jansson provides and entire article entitled Acoustics for Violin and Guitar Makers. (this is a pdf file)
Joe Wolfe puts up a nice website on the Helmholtz resonance at the University of New South Wales.

Erratum - p. 42 The sentence:

In theory, increasing the radius of the hole should almost proportionally increase the frequency, so doubling the radius of the hole should result in a frequency increase of about one octave.

Should read:

In theory, increasing the radius of the hole should increase the frequency, but doubling the radius of the hole would result in a frequency increase of less than half an octave.

RM 5/2011