Like a lot of people I know, I picked up a guitar back when I was in Junior High, learned a few chords and got together with some friends to form a rock band. I progressed the best I could on my own through high school and into college, expanding to finger-style steel string and even took (very briefly) some classical lessons.
Once college was over I started a job, but for a while I still played quite a bit, and occasionally found some other people to play with. Over the years, that kind of dropped off, and my guitars (I had three at one point - an Gibson SG, a Giannini steel string and a cheap classical) either sat in a corner gathering dust to be picked up once every few months or stowed away in their cases.
A few years ago, after my son left for college, I decided I really wanted to get back into playing guitar more seriously. For a while this posed a dilemma. I'd had my fill of being in bands, or even playing with just one other guitarist. There are schedule conflicts, disagreements about what to play, and generally just a whole bunch of headaches if you aren't really committed. Classical guitar, while challenging, never really inspired me a whole lot - at least no more than the classical piano lessons I'd had as a young child. Anything requiring singing was out, as I absolutely cannot sing (as my son, who's a Musical Theater major, will readily confirm. I decided there were essentially two options. The first was to concentrate on finger-style on my steel string guitar and try my hand at artists like Alex deGrassi or Hawaiian slack-key.
The other option was Flamenco. I'd heard some Flamenco, but wasn't terribly familiar with it. What I had heard, and the guitarists I'd seen, really impressed me, though. It had a lot of the serious technique of classical music for the guitar, but had a real edge to it. I found a good teacher (Steve Howland at Rosewood Guitar in Seattle) and started learning. This started a whole new experience, learning about compas, rasqueado, alzapua and golpes, and I've progressed over the last 3 years to an intermediate level of playing.
I got a decent Flamenco guitar a couple of years ago (an Alhambra 7FC) with the help of my very supportive wife, who's an EBay wiz and was able to snag this guitar on auction at an incredible price. It's a much nicer guitar than either of the two classical guitars I've owned, but it's got a few quirks to it. The biggest deficiency is that while the tone is good overall, the trebles are kind of thin sounding. I should mention that about two years ago I found a group of guitarists (mostly classical and a few flamenco), some of whom have very nice guitars from top luthiers.
I've started thinking ahead to retirement in a few years and would like the guitar to become a serious hobby. I'm not planning on performing in concerts, but playing for friends and family, and maybe the occasional recital, are things I would like to do. So about a year ago I decided that I'd like, just once in my life, to get a really fine guitar.
The store where I take my lessons has some very nice instruments. They have the beginner instruments out in front (starting at $150 or so), some moderately priced guitars in a back hallway (they also have an Alhambra 7FC for sale) in the $1000 to $2000 price range, and a locked show room where they carry the high end guitars (from about $2500 up to $10,000 or more) from well known luthier shops like Kenny Hill, Conde Hermanos and others. They generally only have two or three flamenco guitars at a time, however, and while I've tried a few of these, I realized there were some things I'd want different if this is to be my one "really great" guitar.
The main thing I'd want is a shorter scale length. Most guitars in the classical/flamenco style have a scale length (the length between the bridge on the guitar body and the nut at the end of the neck) of 650mm. Having smaller hands, there are some hand positions that are difficult for me, even when using a capo (which is fairly common in Flamenco). I'd played some guitars that had a length of 640mm, and they definitely are more comfortable. I'd even played one with a length of 630mm which was very easy to play, but you start to have other problems with a looser string tension when the guitar starts to get that short. So after much wavering back and forth, I came to the conclusion that what I really needed was to have a guitar custom made to get exactly what I wanted.
That was about a year ago, and I finally sent off a deposit check a couple of weeks ago for this dream guitar of mine. I'll write again soon about my search for the luthier I ended up selecting, and hope to use this blog as a record of the process. And working with a luthier is a process. There are a lot of decisions to make, and I'm seeing this as a partnership (though, of course, the luthier is the one doing all the real work).
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