Pablo Requena Classical Guitar Maker Interview at his workshop in South Spain 

I have already known Pablo for years ago and had the luck to own several guitars made by him. Fantastic person and top guitar maker. He is the first guitar maker to show very accurate public videos about the different processes for making a traditional Spanish guitar. His youtube channel is a treasure of traditional guitar-making knowledge and it helps so many new guitar makers to take the right path. We will make a statue for him soon :)

@@maderaguitarras That would be a very worthy Statute of him. You are 100% right about Pablo and what & How he shares knowledge. He is a gem of a human. I wish I started with him in the 70's when I first took up guitar and making/repairing/setting up mainly electric guitars. Electric guitars for me, back then, was not luthery - although I have more respect for what some makers are producing now. Some classically trained luthiers are now producing electric as their mainstay. But you do see them doing things only a real luthier would think of doing. I've had lessons with Ruben Diaz Flamenco in Malaga, and he has become an agent for Andalusian Guitars. My guitar features a Simplicio design from 1929 of two sound ports higher up in the upper bout. Odd looking, but it gives more real estate for sound to be produced by the soundboard. There are so many new design features in these flamenco guitars which address some of the issues with guitars, like the inclusion of the zero fret, which makes complete sense and a whole lot of difference to the tone of the guitar and intonation, setup too. Flamenco players use a capo for much of their music, so they are used to this sound. I think there are something like 15 design ideas on the AG guitars that are not common for other traditional makers. I believe the AG maker is not based on Spain, but on one of the islands near Tenerife. It's good that you feature different talents within the industry. Thank you.

@@fusion-music I know that Simplicio you mentioned. It is in the book "34 Classical Guitars in Life Size Book" we have in Madera. We have a video there about the book also where that Simplicio appears. I am not sure if he did more than one with that design. Nice design.

@@maderaguitarras Yes, Simplicio was very much a designer and went through several designs. Thanks for your heads up on your video. That's a book I would love in my collection.

Happy it is useful for you! I am preparing more now. Very soon I will publish another interview with guitar maker Alexis Parducci who was this year's winner of the Granada Guitar Making Competition. I think also very interesting one. Wish you all the best for your next guitars. Regards from Granada.

Glad you found it interesting. You're welcome !

haha. ok! I will see next time not to move so much. I think maybe in the new ones it moves but not so much. thanks!

Glad you liked it Pete. Thanks! The bracing, and any change on it, to see the sound result need to be always on the inside. But something related to your idea I saw in a quite well known Granada guitar maker who made a "testing guitar" just for him whith a hole on the side of the guitar that can be cover and uncover in a way he can go inside the guitar with hands and tools and change bracing, harmonic bars, thickness... Repeatedly. So he can see the effect in the sound of those changes he made.

@@maderaguitarras Ha ha, yep allowing access through the side sounds like a much better idea a little fiddly perhaps but more precise and true that way. Hey what about a removable back! Cheers

I suppose that is difficult to make. Anyway removing the back is something many guitar makers can do and also specialists in guitar repair to fix things when there is no other better alternative. But I think all the tensions created in the overall making process affect the sound significantly, so removing those tensions and changing them for other ones you are also changing the frequency of the instrument with that, curvatures...etc. Apart from it can also affect the overall structure of the instrument and its durability. So I think always for a guitar maker if something goes very wrong or there is something with not a good result and complicated to fix, better just make another one :)

@@maderaguitarras Thanks for the replies - cheers, Pete

You're welcome Pete. Regards from Granada.

Hola German. Este no es el canal de Pablo Requena. Coméntale allí lo que necesites. Un Saludo.

@@maderaguitarras Gracias Alberto. Me acabo de dar cuenta y ya le he escrito a él. Muchas gracias por el contenido... Muy bueno!

I think we solved that problem on next videos. But anyway thank you for your suggestions.

@@maderaguitarras thank you keep up the good work!

Intenta contactarle a través de su canal. Saludos

Hola Erik. Gracias por tu comentario. Tengo en cuenta esto de poner los subtítulos en español cuando se habla en inglés. Aunque parezca que no, hacer los subtítulos en otro idioma lleva su tiempo y su trabajo. Pero a ver si hubiera más tiempo en el futuro para hacerlo. Tienes razón en que sería lo interesante también tenerlo en español todo, claro que sí. En la Web Madera si vas al artículo de cada guitarrero y su entrevista (están en la sección Blog) verás que debajo del vídeo he puesto la transcripción en texto de toda la entrevista. Así la gente también puede copiar y pegar el texto en webs/softwares como google translate y traducir lo que se dice en el idioma que se quiera. Sé que lo más apropiado es tener los subtítulos pero para quien esté muy interesado pues pueden hacer esto como opción. Un Saludo desde Granada, y muy Feliz año.

Otra solución sería aprender el Inglés. Verás que el mundo de guitarras y de luthería en Inglés es inmensamente más grande, en la literatura (se han publicado un montón de libros chulísimos) como en la media como RU-vid. Ni mencionar las entrevistas con guitarristas de otras culturas. Aprender Inglés es más fácil que construir buenas guitarras, jeje.

No Felix, we are not talking about that. We talk about the tuning, the frecuency, of the guitar as it is build. The guitar body so to speak. I give you the example. When you don't have strings on your guitar and you hit the top or the bridge with the side of your finger, the guitar will produce a frecuency. That frecuency is what we are talking about. And normally is not placed in an exact note but just between two notes. Sometimes a bit more than F# , sometimes below F#, sometimes between G# and A, E and F... Etc. Hopefully you understand now.

@@maderaguitarras I think that if you hit the bridge the frequency you will get is that of the top, not of the whole body, which is the one that normally gets all the attention. In my experience, the frequency of the top tends to be one octave and half a tone higher than the air body resonance. So, if the tapping of the bridge produces something near G, normally the air body resonance should be around F#. By the way, could you tell me in which moment of the interview don Pablo speaks about this? Congratulations for the work done!

Hi Nicolás, thanks for your comment. We want to make a video about frecuency and explain more about it. Pablo talks in minute 12.43 about the F# he likes. Regards from Granada.

@@nicolasnovoaartigas4488Sopla dentro tio, hum. Canta dentro una escala, cuando la guitarra vibra, ya tienes la nota. Lo mismo que si la des en la tapa cerca del puente, te da el sonido / nota del INTERIOR ya se esta vibrando, es lo que esta diciendo el maestro luthier hombre. También le puedes dar en el trasero. Curiosamente, cogi una Raimundo (DEP) f blanca para hacer la prueba y sale Fa#, soplando dentro. Muy interesante el dato. Yo esperando una preciosa encargo a Juan Hernández (esteve valencia) que me esta haciendo una F blanca . Con lo doloroso que es tocar flamenco, bastante tengo con mis pobres dedos como para ponerme a hacer una. Con este luthier estoy seguro que saldría instrumentos con voz propia, por así decirlo, arte.