Guitarist.com – Blog

It’s an old guitar question: Cedar or spruce?

These are the two main choices for classical guitar tops. Many guitarists prefer one or the other. “I’m a cedar guy” or “I’m a spruce gal.”

Cedar is more forgiving than spruce. It’s easier to make a “good tone” on cedar. (”Good tone” usually means round and slick, with maybe some dark thrown in.) You have to have a more exacting technique to make spruce sound as round and dark as cedar. On spruce, every little right hand inattention will show up.

On the other hand, if you have a well-developed technique that features a variety of right hand touches (especially colors), the spruce will pay off in expressiveness.

Spruce is like a sports car that needs constant inputs, good in the corners. Cedar is like a big fat Cadillac, good for cruising.

Your mileage may vary.

This is neat. Takes me back….

Big thanks to Stefan Grossman for making possible this visit with John Renbourn. Grossman is putting a ton of great stuff on YouTube here.

According to luthier Michael Thames, this is the beautiful sound that Tarrega would have heard. The player is Gary Stewart, the composer is Isaac Albeniz, the piece is Cuba, the arranger is Stanley Yates, the guitar maker is Micheal Thames. The guitar is Thames’s “Torres style.”