Aged is all the rage

The bad news is that your guitar isn’t a spring chicken. The great news is that it sounds better than ever and that’s in part due to its age. Guitarists and Luthiers call it “opening up.” Let’s explore what that means.

From new houses to new baseball gloves everything new begins to settle or relax. With guitars it’s the same idea. Most guitar bodies are made of solid wood and unfinished on the inside. The major sound hole in the top (or two smaller f-holes on an artch top) acts as a sound chamber like a room with a large open bay window. When the acoustic guitar takes in air and moisture and lets them out again through the holes – breathing – the guitar begins to react to changes in temperature and saturation because it does not have a coat of polyester finish on it.

It’s probably one of the best things ever left unfinished because it allows the guitar to sound better as it ages.

Think about how a guitar is made. From the tree to your music room, a ton of effort went into bending, shaping and molding thin slices of wood into the perfect instrument. The sides were dramatically manipulated through bending and steaming and the top and back of the guitar was tweaked. Most guitars have arched bracing, visible through the sound hole. And almost all the pieces are held together with a bonding agent. It took just a few weeks to make the guitar, through careful methods, but it takes years to create the near-perfect sounding instrument.

When comparing the sound of a newly built or fresh model guitar with one about a year older, the sound will have notably changed. However, a guitar 20 years old will not have changed 20 times, meaning changes in sound and quality won’t be much different.

Of course, no two guitars are exactly the same, nor are the strings used upon the instrument or the guitarists who pluck them. Yet, strings can play a major part in making your guitar feel older than it is, or rather, wiser beyond its years. Most guitarists warm up themselves and the instrument, which can have a great impact on the resonation of the instrument giving it an older sound. Of course, a lot of the perfect sound of a guitar is subjective and warming up an instrument might really mean that the player is making minor adjustments subconsciously.

Essentially, what it comes down to is how much the guitarist cares about putting out a vintage sound. Some guitarists are willing to shell out a ton of money to have a guitar sound “just like the old ones.” But perhaps that just comes with society’s never-ending obsession with “the old days.”

Contemporary guitar makers are using the same techniques, glues and woods to create throwback instruments. But perhaps the point is more or less this: you can’t buy age. You have to earn it.

Posted by: Alaska Specialty Woods

Source: http://www.acguitar.com/article/default.aspx?articleid=24089