Roger Williams - Luthier

The "Spanish Sound"

"El Sonado Espanol" - the Spanish sound

The Spanish sound is sometimes described rather loosely as "romantic", "warm" or "lush".  For me this doesn't describe accurately enough what I'm seeking.  For me the "Spanish sound" is quick, immediate and responsive to the players touch with a warm and vibrant full-range tone.  The sound spectrum is wide often favouring the bass and mid-range with the quality of the higher notes depending on the skill of the maker in balancing the thicknesses of the table, bracing and the all important bridge.  The best instruments have a balance, sustain and projection that can fill even the largest concert hall.  Heavier and larger instruments with hi-tech soundboards can sometimes project at greater volume to the larger audience but at considerable cost to the overall sound quality which may sound too percussive and lack the warmth of the real guitar.

Above all the Spanish Guitar is a 'players' instrument providing an immediate response to the lightest touch allowing the player to fully express his abilities and emotions. The best instruments have a power, sustain and projection that can fill even the largest concert hall.

Having repaired and restored numerous Spanish-makers guitars, I have been able to study the design, features and nuances of the "Granada style" of construction. and determine what it is that makes the Spanish guitar so distinctive.

I have also met with several Spanish makers while in Spain and learnt from them some of their "secrets" for making fine-sounding guitars.  The Spanish makers allow the whole instrument to develop and produce sound, but in a controlled manner.  The best sounding guitars are lightly built and each component is allowed and often encouraged to play its part in the overall sound production.

The modern-day Spanish guitar will usually combine a Spruce soundboard (table) with a domed, fan-braced soundboard constructed face down on a shaped solera (work-board); Cedar neck  and Indian Rosewood back and ribs, although this is a fairly recent fashion.  In the nineteenth century when the basis for the modern classical guitar was laid down by Antonio de Torres, instruments were made from a variety of different woods including Maple, Cedar, Cypress and Locust wood which was an inexpensive wood, indigenous to the Spanish regions.  Early makers would often employ whatever materials they could afford or which came to hand.  Torres made many of this finest guitars from Maple and Cypress.  For the players that could afford it, the premium wood was Brazilian Rosewood which although relatively expensive, was readily available, and extensively used in furniture construction.  Often Torres' Spruce soundboards comprised several pieces joined to provide a suitable soundboard with the closer grain at the centre and the wider grain at the outer periphery of the lower bout.  This does not appear to have been detrimental to the sound or the reputation of the maker!