Ergonomic Beginnings

My interest in ergonomic guitars began in 2006, when I bought a headless Steinberger GM-7SA electric guitar on a whim. I unexpectedly found that, when seated, it was comfortable to cradle the guitar in the middle of my lap rather than resting it on my right leg. And when doing so, the neck pointed up at an angle, making access to the fretboard easier. The headless design also reduced the weight on the neck side, contributing to the ease of playing. I had never really considered these factors before, but now that I had the Steinberger as a case study, I felt like I had experienced a minor epiphany.

However, nothing is perfect. The Steinberger neck is quite narrow, with a 1 5/8” nut. The tremolo hardware was not optimized for strings heavier than 10′s, and the tone is quite particular: modern, clean, bright, and bell-like. The solid maple body, while small, is also rather heavy. I thought it would be great to merge the headless design with a lighter instrument, perhaps a semi-hollow. And I wanted a fatter neck like my jazz guitars. So I began looking on the InterWeb for other headless instruments.

I had known about Klein Electric guitars for a few years, having seen one played by Amanda Monaco at the National Guitar Summer Workshop’s Jazz Summit program. Also, I knew that David Torn played one. But I had never considered owning one. Now, it seemed to be the next natural step in the progression beyond Steinberger. As anyone interested in ergo guitars knows, Kleins are no longer made. Used ones are hard to find, and very expensive. Eventually my Googling on things Klein led me to the website of Joe Giglio, a New York City based jazz guitarist. Joe played a walnut headless with an f-hole and a Kleinesque lower profile (see Joe play this instrument on Embraceable You). It sat on his right leg in what looked like a very comfortable position. Copy on the website told me that the guitar was made by Chris Forshage, a luthier from the Austin, Texas area. An email inquiry to Joe produced additional photos of other Forshage headless guitars and a ringing recommendation for Chris’s work. Joe also played a more traditionally built Forshage archtop.

The Forshage Electric “Ergo”

In September 2006 I made initial contact with Chris and, after a suitable discussion on specs, work was begun on my “Ergo.” That is not an official name, but to my knowledge Chris has not formally named his creation, and everyone who orders one calls it that! Nine months later, in June 2007, my “Headless Tomato” was delivered. It fit me perfectly; great chunky bound neck, very light weight in the 6 lb range, effortlessly ergonomic for seated play. It was a revelation. I have owned about 80 guitars over the past two decades (and currently “stock” 30+), but to this day – three years later – the Forshage remains my top electric. I have experimented with pickups, and modified the electronics a bit, but the essential physical design of the instrument is unsurpassed for my style of playing. In July 2007, I produced a YouTube video demonstrating the Forshage, which as of February 2010 has been viewed over 22,000 times. Not bad for a video of an esoteric product serving a niche market! A handful of people have even written to me, letting me know that they had contacted Chris and commissioned an Ergo after discovering the video.

Ironically, I shortly thereafter acquired a Klein Electric and found that it, while a truly wonderful guitar, has some of the same issues that my Steinberger had. The neck, in particular, feels silky smooth but is narrow. The sans truss rod design, combined with the TransTrem, requires light strings just like the Steinberger. The guitar is very expressive and excels for atmospheric and textural music, but does not have the tonal “girth” that I desire for my style of playing. Ergonomically, the Forshage body is actually a wee bit more comfortable even than the mythical Klein. The more gradually tapered bass bout of the Forshage – which is also a hair taller than the Klein – fits more snugly under the picking arm, and contributes to this. The guitar’s shape fits best when the player sits with a straightened spine, which of course promotes excellent posture and greater overall comfort.

Planning the Ergo Acoustic

Near the end of 2007 I experienced, for personal reasons, an unexpected renaissance in my enthusiasm for acoustic guitar music. As I played my traditional steel and nylon stringed acoustic instruments, gradually improving my long-dormant acoustic chops, I began thinking about how the Forshage design might be married to an acoustic instrument. Here I was, temporarily eschewing my beloved ergonomic electric guitars, bending over large acoustic bodies to support and reach necks that protruded mostly parallel to the floor. But precedents for a headless, ergonomic, acoustic guitar were sparse to say the least (Bardophone, Koll). And none of them had all of the features I wanted. I envisioned flattop-inspired sustain and harmonic overtone characteristics, but with the “jazz personality” and adjustment friendliness of an archtop. I wanted a body with full 3-4” thickness and “real” acoustic tone. I also wanted a fat sounding magnetic jazz pickup, not the optimistic compromise of a piezo transducer, and simple controls that didn’t in any way dampen the acoustic response of the instrument. Most importantly, I wanted that lower body profile that is so perfect for playing seated. Initially, I wanted it to be headless.

There was no single instrument out there that had all of these features. So In March 2008 I once again approached Chris Forshage with the idea, and he was enthusiastic to put his talents to the challenge. Initially, the plan was to use a figured redwood top, which is known for a hybrid nature that incorporates qualities of spruce and cedar. Chris had a set of Guatemalan rosewood that he felt would be fun to experiment with for the body. The body shape was drafted based on a Martin OM sized flattop with a traditional bass side, and a lower profile adapted from the electric Ergo. Chris produced a sketch showing the proposed acoustic body overlaying the existing Ergo shape. The result seemed to be a natural adaptation of a successful design for a new purpose. We planned to use a pinless bridge/saddle, and to anchor the string ends on an ABM tailpiece mounted on the tailblock. Chris suggested that he could remove the metal ABM housing and create a wood cover for it, to promote the more organic look appropriate for an acoustic. We planned to make the guitar a flattop with a round soundhole.

A Setback, then Progress

Work commenced. Well, in reality, due to Chris’s work queue, not much progress was made for about 8 months. The back and sides were cut. The redwood top was bookmatched and set aside in his shop. At the 10 month mark (January 2009), Chris examined it and found that it had structural issues. He was not comfortable using it for the instrument. It was disappointing, but we started over with a spruce top. We also took the time to reconsider the entire premise of the instrument. We decided to scrap the headless idea and use a traditional headstock and tuners. This was partly due to availability of the ABM hardware, and also for aesthetic and setup reasons. Admittedly, after waiting so long only to basically start over, I was anxious to remove some of the more complex variables and make some progress with the build.

With the move to a traditional tuning arrangement, I decided also to re-think the flattop concept. While I enjoy the tonal response of a flattop very much, I am an archtop guy at heart! Chris suggested an oval hole archtop, and I agreed. I had come to appreciate them, having owned two Eastman models of that type. An oval hole archtop already begins to expand the tonal response of the traditional f-hole type, so it seemed like a good base for experimentation. And Chris was, after all, an experienced archtop builder who had come to the Ergo model somewhat by happy accident. To ensure that the initial tonal goal of the project remained true, I requested that the top be carved and braced, and an appropriate bridge created, to accentuate flattop characteristics. I did not want another purely traditional archtop with a strong, midrange attack but limited dynamic range. And the idea was not completely unique: There were several luthier-built instruments on the market by that point, including the Ribbecke Halfling, that sought to merge archtop and flattop elements. Of course, none had the ergonomic profile that was the cornerstone of my desire.

Design Details

As is the case with any privately commissioned instrument, there are many small details to be worked out between luthier and client. Many of those are not too interesting or unique from an ergonomic perspective, so I’ll skip an exhaustive discussion. One thing about the Forshage “Ergocoustic” that I find appealing is that it is not a very radical design in most ways. The bass side is traditional. It has a normal multi-piece mahogany neck, tastefully inlaid cocobolo fingerboard, natural wood binding in all the expected places, and a modern but conventional headstock. The top is spruce and the back/sides are a variety of rosewood. There is a floating Kent Armstrong humbucking jazz pickup, as found on other makes of premium archtop, with a simple volume control leading to an endpin jack.

There is no pickguard, however. I do think that pickguards look good, but they often add a “contraption” element to an otherwise sleek instrument. They can be a jumble of brackets, screws, protective padding, dangling wires, partially concealed controls, and dubiously attached pickups. They are fragile; they sag and sometimes fall off. I asked Chris to avoid all of that, and to attach the pickup to the neck in as unassuming a manner as possible. Additionally, to incorporate the pickup seamlessly, the soundhole is positioned farther down on the top than is typical. Normally, an oval hole acoustic guitar is built, and a pickup is later suspended from the neck (or pickguard) such that it overhangs right in the middle of the soundhole. Not only does that configuration appear as an unattractive afterthought, it probably affects sound – however subtly – and restricts access to the hole for maintenance or repairs. So the Ergocoustic was designed to do things differently.

The bridge is a bit unique, being based on the D’Aquisto Accutone design with no adjustment posts, but having a shape reminiscent of a glued-on flattop bridge. There are two saddles, one made from bone and one from wood, for me to experiment with. The hope is that the bone saddle will elicit a more flattop tone from the guitar, while the wood will sound more traditionally archtop-like. Perhaps I will experiment with nickel flatwound strings as well as with 80/20 bronze. Chris can most likely elaborate on his motivation behind the bridge design, and on the unique “K” bracing pattern that he used for the top.

The tailpiece started life as a typical wooden floater attached to the endpin with a loop. But it was quickly scrapped after what Chris humorously calls an “epic fail” during the first strings-on testing session! After some consideration, we went with a three piece laminate (wood/brass/wood) unit anchored at the tail of the guitar. This was inspired by luthier Erich Solomon’s Phidelity model, which coincidentally is also an oval hole archtop with minimalist design attributes. This tailpiece is functional and attractive, and provides a more rigid anchor point than the typical floating variety. I also hope that the lengthened string span between the saddle and tailpiece may lend some suppleness to the guitar’s playability.

As of this writing, the Ergocoustic is nearly finished. It is buffed and awaits only final assembly and setup. In a second installment, I will continue the story with my impressions (and a video demo) of this promising instrument.

For more on Roger, see previous coverage right here on BTEG and visit his homepage Rogerplacer.com.

And stay tuned for the upcoming coverage of the Forshage Ergocoustic!

Several folks have chimed in with their concerns which include factors like weight, picking arm support, string tension, etc.

What do you think? What are the most important factors in an ergonomic guitar – electric, acoustic or hollowbody? How do these change for you when you’re playing seated vs. standing?

Go over to the topic and have a say. You’ll need to be a registered forum member to contribute but registration is quick and easy.

Researching Bass Design

Having convinced his instructors that his idea was a valid thesis project, Santiago struck out not to “revolutionize any concepts about musical instruments” but “rather try to implement enhancements on an already existing product.”

The first step was an analysis of the electric bass guitar over the last half century. Much of his research was done over the internet which helped to offset the difficulties of obtaining instruments to examine.

The second step was even more involved and Santiago describes it here…

After that followed anthropometric measurement, in order to justify many of the dimensions of many parts of the instrument, such as string spacing, body size, or nut width; for which a measurement of about 50 people of different ages and both sexes was made of sizes such as finger width, finger length, palm size, arm length, etc…

With measurements behind him, Santiago proceeded to interview bass guitarists…

A series of interviews were made with many bass players from the area, asking them about their playing-related illnesses, their choice of basses, and their opinion about these basses in a series of categories that were selected for them, as well as photographic and video recordings of every one.

Now it was time to pull the research together…

After this was done I had a list of conclusions and possible interventions that could be applied on the project, as well as a set of features that i liked as contributions by makers such as Steinberger, Klein (of course!), and more that i wanted to incorporate. In general the idea was to make the instrument adapt to the player rather than having the player adapt to the instrument (that was something that struck me as i stumbled upon your web site, to find such resonance in the community that you are creating!)

Building the Bass

Fast forward to several months ago when Santiago returned to Colombia for a 1 month trip and began work on prototype bass #2 – the result of working with Bogota luthier Andres Barrera who made the neck according to Santiago’s plans while Santiago focused on the bass body. A metal working shop built the bridge and tuners from Santiago’s plans.

Upon returning to Barcelona, the bass was assembled and completed within a month. This was back in November so the instrument has been played for three months now.

So what about prototype #1? Unfortunately, it was stolen after having been played for about 2 years. Santiago then focused on playing his G & L bass which also ended up stolen! Fortunately, this inspired him to return to his research and build #2.

Now let’s take a closer look…

The Bass Guitar

Starting at the top, the electric bass is not quite a headless guitar with its stub headstock. The design was chosen for “acoustical purposes, as the head mass provides resonance and sustain.”

Although hard to make out in the very first image, the full access neck is mounted with a 10 degree downward rotation – a feature that reduces wrist flexion in the fretting hand. We’ve seen the concern over excessive wrist flexion addressed by luthier Jerome Little. A great example is Xavier Padilla’s Torzal Neck Bass Guitar. But unlike the complexity of twisting a neck throughout its length, Santiago’s solution is exciting for the ease with which an amateur builder can experiment with it in a design of his or her own.

According to Santiago, “the first prototype had a long horn, in order to provide balance and to bring the nut closer to the body, but in the next, the idea was to ‘close the gap’ and use the length of the body to embrace the neck and provide additional sustain and stiffness to the neck joint.”

Santiago also designed his own tuning solution – a solid brass five string bridge and tuners system.

Here’s a closer look:

Woods include canarywood for the body and purpleheart for the neck.

Ergonomic Features

Some of its design elements include:

• A 10 degree downward rotation of the neck to reduce wrist flexion of the fretting hand
• “An exaggerated right arm rest to prevent it from bending the wrist”
• A body design that hugs the leg while seated providing greater stability
• Clear access to the entire neck (equivalent to 24 frets)

Observations

After playing it for the last several months, Santiago had these observations to share:

So far, in general, I like it a lot. I find that with this bass I can play things that I couldn’t play on the G & L especially in the upper register. I also find that I get less tired from carrying the bass around and doing long rehearsals and gigs. Standing up, it balances great but sitting down it’s a bit body heavy due to the massive bass bridge. Though I like the sustain that the brass bridge provides, a lighter aluminum prototype will be in the works or perhaps another model with reduced mass.

With such an interesting second bass guitar behind him, I suspect we’ll be seeing more of Santiago Arteaga’s ideas take shape in future instruments builds. Bien hecho, Santiago!

Many thanks to musician Santiago Arteaga for sharing his vision with Building the Ergonomic Guitar.

• Improved balance – By reducing the lever effect of a headstock and tuning keys, it becomes easier to achieve good balance and a good neck angle.
• Reduced weight – A headless design can be lighter overall reducing its impact on the guitarist.
• Increased design flexibility – By practically eliminating the possibility of a neck heavy instrument, you have greater freedom with the shape of the guitar body.
• Centralized mass – By shifting weight closer to the body, the remaining weight is more evenly distributed and carried more easily with less impact on the body. (My addition.)

While, it’s not impossible to accomplish good balance and position with a headstock – consider Rick Toone’s Orchid bass for example – eliminating the weight and lever effect can simplify the design equation.

Mitigating Cost

However, cost is a concern. Headless guitar bridge systems are expensive and that has always been a concern of mine.

Fortunately, there are alternatives approaches that use conventional guitar bridges in a headless format. These expand your choices and reduce dependency on the limited supply of headless guitar parts.

Alternative Approaches

Let’s look at a few examples. The first three use Steinberger gearless tuners in combination with a traditional guitar bridge:

• Henry Olsen ‘s MaSh Acoustic Guitar
• Alternative Headless Guitar Design – TK Instruments
• Headless Guitar Design Alternative – Scott French

These two use conventional guitar tuners:

• The Koll Electric Guitar RE 7/6
• Alternative Headless Guitar Design – Soloette

However, it’s important to note that none of these use a Steinberger type neck and therein lies a major tradeoff. Finding a conventional bridge that matches the string spacing on a Steinberger neck is a challenge. In fact, I suspect such a beast doesn’t exist.

However, it you’re building a neck with your guitar, then anything goes.

Increased Guitar String Choices

The other area where these alternative approaches help is in your choice of guitar strings. A number of headless bridge systems require the use of Steinberger type double ball end strings. And as you might imagine, the number of choices in types and gauges is limited.

By leveraging conventional guitar bridges and tuners, you now have access to the tremendous variety of guitar strings that exist for conventional headstock guitars.

Of great interest to anyone interested in practicing prevention, the article is of particular value to sufferers of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) or other forms of Musculoskeletal Disorder (MSD). In any case, it’s an excellent read for any guitarist looking into a new guitar purchase or simply taking stock of their current guitar gear.

Any guitar player suffering from musculoskeletal ailments such as back pain or Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) or a guitarist trying to practice prevention should consider the weight of his or her guitar. Whether it’s a production guitar or a custom guitar, a guitar maker or luthier can effectively build a light weight guitar using a number of approaches.

A hollowbody or chambered electric guitar is one approach. The basic process involves making a guitar body in two parts – a back section that is chambered with a second section that goes over it and forms the top.

Chambering comes in two flavors. The first involves large chambers hidden underneath the top. This approach to reducing guitar weight is very effective and results in a guitar with greater resonance and warmth. Guitar builder Scott French makes use of chambering in guitars that are in the 6 lb range.

The second involves many smaller chambers. This approach, while still very effective in reducing weight, has a smaller impact on the final tone of the instrument which may actually be preferable depending on the guitarist’s requirements for tone. Warmoth, a well established maker of guitar bodies and necks, has this as an option.

Building electric guitars from less dense woods such as alder, swamp ash, basswood, spruce and even pine is yet another approach.

Another effective approach is removing material from non-critical areas of the guitar body. Elements such as monkey grips, large control cavities and bathtub routes can help achieve this goal.

The guitar builder can also start with a thinner body. Common thicknesses for guitar body blanks are 1.75″ but that doesn’t mean a guitar can’t be thinner – keeping in mind that tremolos are a limiting factor. For example, my guitar build began with a 1.5″ thick alder blank. Black Machine Guitars builds guitars that are a mere 1.1″ thick!

All in all, we see that a guitarist need not suffer with an instrument that’s so heavy as to cause health issues. Options abound and the one’s listed here are relatively straightforward to incorporate if you build your own electric guitar.

However, the problem does not lie in insurmountable engineering or design challenges – there are many examples of ergonomic guitar designs as well as improvements for existing guitars. (See below for Related Posts). The real issue is acceptance. The Ergoweb article Ergonomics Helps Music But the Players Prove Reluctant touches on musicians’ resistance to change, concerns with image and ongoing efforts to change attitudes.

It’s a simple approach easily implemented with a few hole saws. (CORRECTION 09.01.2006 – Please see the 09.01.2006 update below for Kev Chilcott’s clarification on just how difficult this actually was to accomplish.) Aesthetic considerations aside, this approach to weight reduction fits well with other stated design goals of an ergonomic guitar such as picking arm support and balance. A chambered body, of course, accomplishes the same goal in a subtle way. Nonetheless, it’s a straightforward option.

UPDATE 09.01.2006 – Kev Chilcott kindly contacted me to provide additional background on his Royal Electra Custom guitar design. As he indicates, the design was done for aesthetics rather than ergonomics. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise – I thought it was an interesting design element that could be used in pursuit of reducing a guitar’s weight. However, I failed to realize the amount of effort that went into execution. Kev Chilcott explains further:

“Special jigs had to be made for a heavy duty router and the hole sizes were critical to the design.
I should also point out that the finishing inside the holes was far from simple right through the sanding stages, spraying and to the final polishing of the lacquer, which is as good as on the faces of the guitar. The whole concept was, and is, very time consuming indeed.”

Kev Chilcott then goes on to share some additional and very interesting details regarding his work:

“The main ergonomic feature of the guitar is the ‘stepped’ heel joint, which I designed in 1986 and also the 5 way switch through the body without using a scratch plate which I also designed, by the way, in 1986 – this feature was seen in magazine reviews and guitar shows in that and the following year and is now used by just about every other guitar manufacturer on the planet.

It’s funny how things creep into the mass production process without many people realizing where it’s come from!

I have also used the “thin guitar concept” which in my case is more about the particular wood used, usually a heavier variety with a nice grain structure, and thinning it to a weight that is more acceptable.”

I thank Kev Chilcott for taking the time to clarify these points and provide me with additional information. Its always great to have the input of a professional luthier! Thank you again!

Here is the Andreas Shark – a good example of a relatively conventional looking guitar that incorporates ergonomic elements. The most obvious is the extended bout that provides the right arm with excellent support. In addition, the offset bottom of the guitar likely has a similar effect to the shaping of the Klein in terms of aiding the positioning of the guitar while sitting. Unfortunately, this guitar is no longer in production.

Here is the Bardophone acoustic guitar, a far more radical design I came across last night. This is yet another design that makes use of the shaping of the lower bout to provide a better ergonomic experience. Note how it effortlessly places the neck at an angle. In addition, the design eliminates the need for a foot stool in order to raise the guitar to an appropriate height. This is significant because raising the foot results in twisting to the spine – not an ideal position.

This is an example of a design by Black Machine. The design’s primary nod to ergonomics is the use of a super thin body design. This has two effects. First, it lowers weight. Conventional bodies are around 1.75″ thick while the Black Machine guitars are a mere 1.1″ thick! Second, it brings the hands closer to the body reducing the outward extension of the arm from the shoulder joint. This places the shoulder in a more neutral position.

UPDATE 03.18.2006 The Kramer Delta Wing electric guitar is a fairly recent design. Its ergonomic features revolve around two particular elements – good support for the picking arm and its detachable leg rest. The leg rest is of particular interest because it has the potential for additional freedom in the aesthetics of the body while giving the designer a means of still providing good placement and positioning.

Here is Koll Guitar Company’s Custom RE 7/6 – a headless archtop. As noted on the Koll page, the guitar was influenced by the experiences of its customer who had played a Klein and loved the way the Klein’s neck angle and the way it sat on his leg. Notice the lower bout – it is essentially the shape of the Klein transplanted onto this design.

1. A proper neck angle in the sitting position – One of the first things that you come across in classical guitar position is that the neck is angled up which helps to free the left hand and reduces the degree of wrist flexion necessary for fretting. The Klein, due to its design, comfortably sits with its neck at an appropriate upward angle with little effort by the guitarist. Two key factors are the design of its lower bout and the offset bottom of the guitar which tucks itself against the right thigh.

2. Adequate right arm support – In order to reduce stress in the shoulder area, which in turn propagates throughout the arm, the right arm needs support. The Klein, with its extended bout, does an excellent job of this.

3. Lightweight design – Weight is always a factor. It contributes to stress throughout the body and is of even greater issue when standing. The Klein guitar while not especially heavy is not especially light either although this can be improved in a few ways. One way is to make a thinner body. In my case, I’ll be working with a body blank that is .5″ thinner than the standard body blank. The other way is to use light weight woods. I decided on alder for a few reasons. Besides being appropriate for the single coil sound I like, it is reasonably light, easy to work with, and consistent in weight. Swamp ash, my other choice, is inconsistent in weight – body blanks may vary significantly. I wanted a result that would be easy to recreate.

4. Balanced design – A balanced design requires less effort on the part of the guitarist and less effort means less stress. The Klein guitar achieves this through its design not least of which is the use of a headless design. Rather than use a conventional headstock with its associated weight, the Klein opts for the headless design which moves the weight of the tuners to a more central position down by the body.