Hello all. I haven't posted in a while.
I'm mainly interested in making archtops, but lately my interest has expanded a bit to the Classical guitar (as it was also the guitar and style in which I was trained). I have a few books that cover the construction of "Classicals" and although I've never had a go at it, I've read through said books enough to have a very basic understanding of how it's done.
Lately I've regained my interest in playing pieces mainly from the Baroque period. As you all know, this stuff has to be transcribed to be played on our "normal" guitars because either the composer did not compose the work for the guitar, or most likely because the guitars simply were not in existence yet.
The "5 Course" being the norm back then.So! After playing a lot of these pieces, I've noticed how the addition of an additional lower string (lower than the Low E that is) would eliminate a lot of the awkwardness inherent to a lot of the "guitar transcriptions" of these beautiful works, IMHO.
Most of the luthier books I have (or have seen) do not address the considerations one must make if building the guitar with the additional string (even though 7-string Classical guitars seem to be fairly common).
I wanted to ask if anyone here on the board has built a 7-string before? Also, there must be instructional books or videos covering this, right? Are there any particularly good ones I should look out for? I would love to hear what you guys think of this, as I've seen some beautiful Classical builds on this forum! Also, regarding the 7th string..... I have extremely limited experience with it. What is the typical pitch used on a Classical, Low B?
Thanks,
John