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Leave out the goat pee part maybe.
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02-23-2018 09:42 PM
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Not being a politician, I'll skip that part.
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We have an ammendment protecting the right to keep and pee goats here.
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Peeing goats sounds like a very painful proposition. I'll just keep on peeing pee. That's all I think I can handle, and sometimes I'm not completely certain of that.
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Please stay focussed, gentlemen
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Focus can be very difficult to attain, and even more difficult to maintain.
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Jab beat me to it with the N Forster / Howe Orme stuff. NF was selling his two (I think) Howe-Orme guitars a few months ago, and he may know more about Merrill Bach as from his blog, and Jabs photos, it sounds as if he has made a study of this type of build, and, of course he is UK based.
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Some weeks ago I was so "audacious" to point to Merrill's patent n. 555,651 from 1896. Glad a few members show interest.
In Europe, some folks know that the archtop guitar was "invented" much earlier.
Just one of those earlier descriptions (I'm sure there can be found some more!) - among many other suggestions to improve the guitar - were compiled in the book Materialien zu einer Geschichte der Gitarre und ihre Meister mit Abbildungen by Eduard Fack, Berlin 1884 (http://www.lautenbau-leipzig.de/Fack.pdf )
Some roughly translated excerpts:
Improvement on the guitar by Heinrich Walker of Goetershausen. Even the famous instrument maker, Heinrich Walker von Goetershausen, has come up with the improvement of the Guit. [guitar] and wrote down his experiences in his publication: Magazien musikalischer Tonwerkzeuge Frankfurt a/M, 1855 (See construction and making of the Guit., pages 246 and 250 with illustration). In the introduction, he speaks as follows. The poor sound of the guit. made me think of reinforcing it with a more violin-like shape. Some attempts, where I had set myself firm rules, led me to a quite favorable result.
Guit. built according to these rules get a very pleasant, full and round tone, also a very pleasing appearance to the eye.
With this construction, the top of the Guit. gets an arch, and two f-holes (like the violin) instead of the sound hole. Like the bridge, the fingerboard has a small radius and sits freely above the top. The back is also slightly arched. The strings are attached to the bottom of the sides with rounds and are covered with a flap.The remaining parts are as with the ordinary guitar.
Goat pee ... guys, is really out of focus in stringed instrument making! The whole violin world knows that the Cremonese makers used mainly rabbit pee and horse dung. The first is still in use in some places.
I'm an old geezer now, but the generation of my grandfathers still knew about the positive effects on the wood after they put boards in liquid manure for some years.
Virgins in archtop instrument making ... well, I could state something on this, but, gentlemen, sorry, if I keep that for myself!
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Ol' Fret, many thanks for that, which I somehow missed when you first posted it. It sounds like he invented the archtop guitar with f holes! But he seems to have kept using gut strings. Very interesting, though, and thanks for the translation. Can I have your permission to quote it in a blog post I'm working on?
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I correct myself: Walker mentions the strings are attached to the bottom of the guitar (if I read him correctly) with a flap cover, somewhat like a mandolin, which implies wire strings at least.
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Great stuff as usual Ol’f.
Many thanks.
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bananafist, NK Forster made an early Brexit and moved to Leipzig, Germany. No longer in the UK.
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I believe he has left Germany and returned to the UK. I believe that he said this in an AGF post recently.
Originally Posted by Jabberwocky
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Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
You're welcome - feel free to do so!
It would be wise to do some more own research on this matter - I'd never rely on one single source! Unfortunately, institutional archtop guitar (history) research is still out of focus in Europe, at least it is in Germany!
The book by Eduard Fack was written in 1884. Some spelling rules have changed since then in the German idiom, and it seems Mr. Fack was not overly familiar with orthography: The correct name of the above mentioned "Verfertiger musikalischer Instrumente" (musical instrument maker), a luminary of his time, was Heinrich Welcker von Gontershausen.
Gontershausen published some fundamental works: Unsere digitalisierten Werke alphabetisch nach den Namen ihrer Verfasser - Welcker von Gontershausen, Heinrich . Since that library is in walking distance of one of my whereabouts, I should really spend some of my spare time ...
Conveniently, they digitalized that book, and we can go through it - on occasion, it's only 446 pages: just click on the listed publication from 1855!
I'm sure there are more surprises, names and instruments, to be found in German-French-British-Italian libraries, or in the basements of some museums. The instrument makers' scene was extremely vibrant in Europe in the 19th century. There's a reason why I quasi mantra-like have to repeat: there's almost nothing reasonably new to be found when it comes to (the practice of) archtop guitar making!
@ steel strings: I could be wrong, but I believe that steel strings didn't emerge widely before the end of the 19th century - in Germany, probably not before the 1910s or so.
If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library. - Frank Zappa
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Thanks, Ol' Fret. I do know for sure (published advertisements) that steel banjo strings were being sold in the US in the 1890s, possibly earlier.
Nothing new under the sun...This, from 1493:
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Well, here it is, the illustration of the archtop guitar made by Heinrich Welcker von Gontershausen, as published in 1855, including the quite complex description of the construction (pages 252 - 256 in the above mentioned scan - doesn't exactly correspond to the pages in the original book):
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Looks good, though. Quite a curve on the bridge - makes me wonder if the fingerboard matched it.
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Almost every invention is that way. Many people were experimenting with various elements of powered flight, but it was the Wright brothers who put it together in a form that made sense and could become a platform for modifications, expansions, and improvements. Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
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Exactly. It's just pleasant to spend some time wading through smaller tributaries. They are not without interest.
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Wait a minute... look closely... What's the guy in the orange shirt looking at... No... It's... HOLY COW!!!
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The guy in the red outfit looks like he's thinking 'One day guys from all over the world are going to look at me and think - who built that guitar?'
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In terms of inventions, to put it simply, there are three categories:2. Inventions that are based on the collecting of previous achievements in the same or related fields.
1. Individual or small team work achievements.
3. The unrestrained dog-eat-dog mentality, involving patent wars, shrewd patent attorneys and greedy businessmen. In some special cases, it's nothing but intentional falsification of history: You only see those in the light, you do not see them in the shadows.
Honor to whom honor is due.
Just have a look what happened to the inventor of the saxophone, Adolphe Sax. Rival instrument makers both attacked the legitimacy of his patents and were sued by Sax for patent infringement. The legal back-and-forth continued for over 20 years. He was driven into bankruptcy three times: in 1852, 1873, and 1877. In 1894 Sax died in complete poverty.
Some will argue that just served the inventor of an instrument with such a "carnal" and "voluptuous" sound right.
"The saxophone's seedy reputation probably began in 1903 when the Vatican declared that the saxophone gave reasonable concern for disgust and scandal. Now you have to wonder how the pope would have figured this out, you know, sitting in his apartment listening to some wax cylinders of saxophone music and saying, 'Wow, that's profane. That's what profane music is.'
And then in the teens, when there was the dance craze in America and everyone's boogalooing and doing a lot of dirty dancing in the seedier nightclubs, which is where the saxophone gravitated to, the Ladies' Home Journal wrote that the saxophone rendered listeners incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong and evil and good."(Michael Segell 'The Devil's Horn')
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Well, I think we can all agree about the sax being carnal
That's it's main attraction. Vegans don't play sax. Fact!
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Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
Well, I think we can all agree about the sax being carnal That's it's main attraction. Vegans don't play sax. Fact!
I agree: It's all about the sausage!
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Thats the wurst sax joke I've ever heard...
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