The Beginning

• 2:08 AM
• JimmyDee

What do I know about classical guitars? What can I do with a classical guitar?

Two fundamentally different questions, but each addressing a different area of skill. Personally, I tend to lean towards the area of "knowing stuff" rather than being able to "do stuff" - something I often wish were not true.
However, this blog will be a storehouse of my musings, grumblings and ramblings on the subject, primarily as a place for me to keep notes on the subject for my own reference. 
If you are a visitor, I hope you find something interesting.

My guitars: 

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My Replicant

Smallman Replica (Chinese)
Double top, double back. Two layers of cedar with balsa/carbon fiber lattice bracing. Indian Rosewood sides and carved arch shaped back. Since this is a replica of the Smallman and Sons guitars, they are not 'all solid', but they do use rosewood for the inner and outer layers.
(link to article about the guitar - use a picture with a caption.)
http://classicalguitarnotebook.blogspot.tw/2014/04/the-gold-standard-and-chinese-copy.html

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Cheap Gold

Valencia Classical
Solid mahogany top, laminated mahogany curly koa sides and back. Bought from a shop who had brought it in as part of a batch lot of damaged and factory reject guitars, this guitar has really surprised me. It's only an $80-90 guitar, but to have brought it to a store here, it probably would have retailed for about $119-$129 $139 equivalent. I paid around $75. I haven't been able to find any defect in it though.

link to article about the guitar - take a picture after tuning it up and putting on new strings.

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Tanglewood Two-Off

Tanglewood Two-Off - TW-1000-SR-CE-H
All solid, Spruce top with Indian Rosewood sides and back. Based on the TW-1000 model, these were made by the factory owner for the local guitar shop owner when I lived in Sha Lu. Really nice guitar. I bought it without electronics and put a Fishman Ellipse dual source pickup in it (mic and Piezo).

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I also have a Koa Pili Koko tenor uke, a generic factory spruce top tenor uke, an 8 string tenor uke and a pretty nice tenor uke with spruce top and zebrawood with a handmade wooden inlay on the back (part of a pair, where the other one was sent to my sister).

I also have a cheap 5-string cello made in China. The sound isn't very good and it's really, really hard to play because the bridge is *very* wrong for it, but one day I'll get back into it and get a new bridge working for it.