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According to the National Pain Foundation’s Mayo Clinic Glossary, ergonomics is “the science of designing the job to fit the worker, rather than physically forcing the worker’s body to fit the job.” From the perspective of ergonomics, there are clear opportunities to improve guitar design in order to accommodate the way our bodies work.
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.
Published Oct 2nd, 2006 | Topic: Ergonomic Guitar Design | 20 Comments →
The Klein Electric Guitar is somewhat rare as guitars go and it is often difficult to find information about them or its players. Since I have based my ergonomic guitar build project on a Klein Electric guitar plan obtained from the Guild of American Luthiers, I keep an eye out for information about them. Particularly difficult is finding examples of guitarists playing them. Fortunately, here is jazz guitarist Jody Fisher performing on a Klein in this YouTube video.
Jody is also a respected instructor with quite a few guitar instructional books to his name. Here are just a few of them:
Enjoy!
Published Sep 30th, 2006 | Topic: Guitar Players | 2 Comments →
As we’ve seen in previous posts on different approaches to headless guitar designs, conventional tuners can be repurposed for use in a headless guitar design. Here we see Koll Guitars’ solution as seen on their Custom RE.
Here is a closer view of the tuners lined up in a row on the body side:
Published Sep 28th, 2006 | Topic: Headless Guitar Design | 5 Comments →
Soloette Guitars illustrate another alternative in the pursuit of a headless guitar design. Like the TK Instruments Hollow Body electric guitar seen in Alternative Headless Guitar Design - TK Instruments, the Soloette models make use of conventional tuners in an unconventional manner.
Essentially, a conventional classical guitar headstock and tuners are located at the body side of the guitar. This, in turn, permits the use of conventional bridges. Together, these provide opportunities for increased design and implementation flexibility as well as reduced costs.
Published Sep 22nd, 2006 | Topic: Headless Guitar Design | 2 Comments →
