Hello. Brand new to the forum.
I probably got your attention with that subject line, but it's not what you think. It was actually somewhat of a joke, but, the truth is, I don't know how else to describe my question in 1 sentence.
Here is the long and short of it.
If you hold an acoustic guitar up to your face and you hum into sound hole, at some certain pitch, the guitar will inevitably start vibrating so hard that it feels like it is going to explode in your hands!
This is something I learned from my father when I was a kid, and was later brought back to my attention on "the red violin" when they put the violin above a speaker and played tones until it hit the perfect resonance and the violin went crazy.
Why do I bring this up?
I feel that the majority of factory line guitars are just assembled with some general tried and true formula that the manufacturer specifies, and maybe with some of the more expensive models, they MAY take this into consideration, but, I feel that any Yamaha, or Fender, Low end Gibson guitar etc dies not take this into consideration and just "puppy mills" these guitars in the millions. As long as they play, they are sold.
Now.... I know that what I'm saying is a "thing", and I know there is some sort of relevance and importance when building a guitar.
But how much thought (if any) do you guys as builders put into this?
To elaborate further:
If this IS to be considered, then think about the following. Noise canceling generally works when a sound, is played back over the sound within the troughs of the original sound wave (basically), and the pitch (frequency) may or may not be slightly different, I dont remember). So when you tune the low E string to pitch, but your guitar's natural resonance is E flat, there is a good possibility that the guitar will sound muddy or dead.
I have had several acoustic guitars over the years and have played more than I have owned personally. For whatever reason I almost always find it necessary to hum into the sound hole of a guitar I play. Couldn't tell you why.
Over the last 30 years of my playing, I have discovered one thing. If you find the key that the guitar is naturally tuned to from its build, and tune your strings to that pitch (which may be very flat, very sharp or even whole notes off from standard tuning) the guitar will EXPLODE with sound when you play it and will naturally drone the other strings. And if you tune it to a complimentary OPEN tuning... omg....
So... I've already convinced myself that this is something builders either do, or should look for when assembling and building their guitars, and there may or may not be ways to TUNE the tops (and now we come full circle to my subject line).
So... if this is the case, I assume that on a carved top, it has to do with where l, and how much material is removed from the top. On a flat top, it may be the bracing location, shape, top thickness, thickness of the bracing or who knows what?
My question though... if this IS actually a consideration in a build, would it be better to tune the top to, say "A" (most of them seek to be around there) so when the strings are tuned, it has more resonance, or is it better to tune it slightly out of pitch to keep some of the drone down?
Honestly I feel like almost no one has thought of this, there is practically (no... literally) no information online about this that I have found. Most things just show you how to make the guitar, how to add the braces or carve the tops etc. No mention is ever given to the tune of the top. At most, people Tap it to "see how it will sound" which I'm sure does something, but I dont know what for sure, besides make you feel like you're getting somewhere?
I know this is an odd rant, forgive me I've been up for a very long time and am rushing to write this before bed, after having just noticed that my acct has been activated.
But I hope someone can add some clarity to this for me.
Thanks
Mb
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