“Guitar N° 437 was a “meantone” guitar. Its movable frets meant that I could achieve the exact frequencies for all notes.” With each of these changes, the guitar felt and sounded different.
1974 - With the creation of N° 378, commis-
sioned by Turibio Santos, I started using “Western red cedar” regularly for the soundboards. Canadian red cedar gives a warmer sound, a very “guitarish” sound. Orders rolled in, and it became a very successful constant in my work.
1975 - Development
of asymmetrical bracing, with the elimination of the strut nearest the top string. This became my habitual bracing system for a long time to come. Ed. - “For a long time I used symmetrical bracing; it was a triangle that supported the archtop, but after the work that I did at the acoustics laboratory, in 1975, I moved away from a symmetrical approach and I think that it’s an improvement. Looking at the holograms, it’s clear that when two neighbouring segments of the soundboard resonate, the vibrations may synchronise initially, joining forces to produce a strong sound, but then cancel each other out and
come to a very sudden stop! The problem can be solved by using bracing that is not quite symmetrical.”
1977 - Construction
of guitar N° 437, a
“meantone” guitar.
Ed. - The meantone temperament came about to satisfy the desire of sixteenth century and Baroque composers to use a scale offering a maximum of perfect major thirds (even though four of the 12 possible keys are unusable). This was the inspiration behind a guitar with movable frets. I started nudging the seven struts of the fan bracing into a “crossbow” shape (N° 449); this was inspired by Ignacio Fleta’s work. On the bass side, I extended the fan pattern right up to the edge of the body. I liked the overall result better; I adopted it without actually being truly able to justify it: this asymmetrical bracing sounded great! Ed. - Daniel Friederich and Émile Leipp co-authored the study entitled “La guitare: