Acoustic Guitar Notes

~ An assortment of guitar-related items from making to playing them ~

Howard Coleman

Contains: Tablature for acoustic guitar (Beatles, O'Carolan and Bach), tips and opinions on lutherie (guitar making), sound reinforcement and book recommendations.

Guitar Tablature

A small selection of my arrangements. I'll add more in time.

Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds (Lennon and McCartney): This is an arrangement for solo acoustic guitar (not a transcription of a Beatles performance).
Sheebeg and Sheemore (Sí Beag is Sí Mór) (O'Carolan): Why complicate one of the prettiest tunes around? Carolan's signature piece and possibly his first composition.
Toccata and Fugue in Dm (JS Bach): I find my own arrangement of this more playable than others I have seen. In places, rather than striving for total accuracy, I chose to make a general impression of the music using guitar techniques rather than keyboard techniques.
Auld Lang Syne (Trad.): Topical or what?...well it will be topical again soon. You should find this very easy to play.

Concerts and Gigs

Ideas and Opinions on Lutherie

Equipment Reviews

The Varichord capo ...a clever device that lets you capo the strings individually.
Tusq - Man-made ivory
Wooden Picks ... the ultimate in stiff picks

Ideas and Opinions on Sound Reinforcement

Highly Relevant Links

Acoustic Guitar Resources Technology. Articles and worthwhile links.
America's Shrine to Music Museum. One of the places to go to see a guitar by Antonio Stradivari.
Ashmolean Museum Oxford. The only other place to see one...hopefully... when their web site is finished.
Anton's Audio. Unplugged sound reinforcement. Anton knows what he is doing.
Arto's String Calculator. If you want to calculate the gauge of string to use.
Catgut Acoustical Society. Stringed instrument acoustics. A bit on the academic side.
Charles Tauber A useful article on guitar set-up.
Experimental Musical Instruments. Some very weird stuff.
Frets.com The collection of Frank Ford's articles on guitar making and repair are worthy of a book.
Guild of American Luthiers. Theoretical and practical aspects and meetings.
Harmony Central®. Includes OLGA which is supposedly closed but still seems to work.
IBM Patent Server. View US patents including illustrations.
Luthiers Mercantile International. Their handbook-catalogue is one of the best things on my bookshelf.
Musical Instrument Makers Forum. Mutual technical support for makers.
Pearl Inlay by Sean J Barry. A very complete and helpful article.
Ukuleles by Kawika. Don't be put off by ukes. This is a fascinating and useful lutherie site.
US Patent and Trademark Office. View US patents. Also here: www.FreePatentsOnline.com
Violin Acoustics-Musical Acoustics Group- School of Physics- Univ NSW. Violin acoustics as a science.
Violinmakers School STRADIVARI Cremona. PhotoStory: how to make a violin.

Unusual Recommended Books

I only recommend books that are relevant to the subject matter of this website. I have also provided links to Amazon.com® for your convenience should you wish to read reviews or buy any. As the website develops I will update the list.

Acoustic Guitar Links

Hand-picked, good quality sites to do with acoustic guitar on a separate page only because they they are not specifically about lutherie tips, etc. These are recommended links, not links to get more traffic to my site!

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Mike Hurt (friend, audio whizz and HTML expert) for help with the sound reinforcement ideas, to Andy Sheffield (friend, and PA boffin) for sharing his knowledge.

Any Comments?

Please e-mail me: howard<AT>acousticnotes.org.uk