GUITARS INTERNATIONAL

CSA/spr.

Pre-Owned 2010

Overview: This is Gary Southwell's very impressive sounding innovative modern concert guitar. Its warm, round, very powerful, unusually pure, clear sound has its roots in 19th century antecedents such as Lacote and Panormo; however, its warmth, breadth of color, dynamic range and richness of sound are all twenty-first century.

Acoustically this concert guitar benefits significantly from the maker's years of work with Julian Bream on the reproduction of the Rose Augustine Hauser I guitar. This uniquely beautiful guitar owes much in its appearance to 19th century art guitars as well as to Picasso's cubist guitar renderings - beautifully executed in every way.

Concert artists David Starobin, David Tanenbaum and Scott Tennant have performed and recorded with these concert guitars to great effect. most recently, Paul Simon has purchased a Southwell 'A' Series guitar. Discover an original by the master maker chosen by Julian Bream to produce a copy of his beloved 1940 Hauser I.

Gary Southwell writes:

The distinctive Southwell A Series guitar brings classical or nylon string guitar design into the 21st century in a unique way. Unlike the vast majority of guitars, which are based on the Spanish method, the A Series is inspired by the Viennese style. The "A" stands for "adjustable" as this guitar features an adjustable neck system based on the invention of Stauffer and refined by myself for this guitar. It offers many advantages for the player; the string height or action can be adjusted in seconds if need be. Also, you don't have to spend time and money having your saddle piece altered! As standard, the guitar has a 20 fret range with a 64.5 cm string length. The neck is maple, v-jointed to a stylish ebony head. It has tuning machines specially designed and made for this guitar by David Rodgers.

The A Series guitar also features a cutaway. This was originally designed at the request of David Starobin, who wanted the guitar's higher positions to be more accessible due to the demands many contemporary composers were making. The challenge was to produce a guitar with improved playability, without compromising the sound quality in any way, and which looked new and stylish. The result was a guitar that sounded better, was very comfortable to play and, I think, the appearance can speak for itself. As in the past, the reason to change design is mostly to do with the music and players of the time. Today, that means music that demands a greater use of the guitar's range, strong dynamics, extended techniques, and complex harmonic structures. This means that the guitar has to be able to be pushed further in terms of power, balance and flexibility, all of which is possible with the A Series. (Learn More about this classical guitar maker).

Materials: CSA sides and back, European spr. soundboard, maple neck, solid ebony headstock, V graft head to neck joint, elevated/adjustable fingerboard, varnish finish on the sides and back for durability, hand rubbed ultra violet aged thinly applied oil finish on the soundboard for optimum acoustic response, Rodgers precision Lacote inspired tuning machine heads with black horn oval buttons, 50mm not width, 645mm string length, hardshell case.