Make Your Own Spanish Guitar - online book

Complete plans & Instruction on how make your own Spanish Guitar.

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Foreword
THE author wishes to acknowledge the debt of gratitude he owes to Marco Roccia in not only providing, over the many years of their associa�tion, all the information contained in this book but in carefully checking all he has written therein.
MARCO ROCCIA, maker of the Clifford Essex concert size Spanish guitar which is used as a model in the following pages, is an Englishman born of Italian parents. He started his instrument-making apprenticeship as a boy; first in his
arranger of works for the guitar, and author of many articles on playing the guitar, recently compiled a paper for The Galpin Society in which he paid tribute to the genius of Marco Roccia. He wrote: " Most of the modern luthiers have been content to copy the designs (fan strutting) of Torres, Enrique Garcia, Ramirez and other earlier makers whose designs are accepted as standard . . . One British luthier, however�Marco Roccia �recommenced making guitars after the second world war by casting aside all pre�conceived ideas ex�
father's workshops in Cassino, Italy, and later in Paris. He re�turned to the land of his birth in 1927, when he joined the Clifford Essex Co. and became one of the craftsmen who produced the many thousands cf guitars (of all kinds) that bear this world-
cept those of body size and shape and, calling upon his ex�perience in repairing thousands of old guitars by all the world's makers, began again on new lines. The experi�ments included double cruciform and other unortho�dox barrings; bar�
famous name.
ring based on that
A. P. Sharpe (left) discusses a point of guitar
making with Marco Roccia in the Clifford Essex
workshop.
After demobilisa�tion in 1945, Marco
found beneath the soundboards of early
Roccia returned to his position with the
and is now solely
square pianos; bar�rings without unifor�mity of structure placed empirically where the soundbox was proved to be under stress . . . and variations of wood thickness of treble and bass sides of the belly and sides."
Thus although some of the instructions in this book may be found (to those acquainted with the facts) to be at variance with "usual'* standards they are based on Marco Roccia's vast experience in not only repairing old instruments but on his own accumulated knowledge gained from discovering where some of these instruments "fell down" in construction over the years.
Clifford Essex Co.
responsible for all repair work to fretted instruments entrusted to this Company. In addition, he produces the "concert size" Spanish guitars which, entirely hand made by him, have been used as a basis for the compilation of this book. The methods of this craftsman luthier, too, have been used as a guide�although, in some cases, they have had to be modified to meet the limita�tions of the amateur guitar maker.
Terence Usher, Tutor of the guitar at the Royal Manchester College of Music, reci-talist and broadcaster, composer and
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