• Pre-owned Magician for Sale
• Ben Walker's Custom Falstaff
• Jon Doran and Janice Burns
• Jon Wilks. Greek Street
• Heather Cartwright. Sweet Afton
• Pre-owned Falstaff for sale
• Hiscox cases
• Will McNicol. Lamplight
• Will McNicol. Creative Arpeggios for Fingerstyle Guitar
• Biréli Lagrène. Honeysuckle Rose
• Tristan Seume. Ghost Train
• Lisa Hannigan. Snow

• Martin Simpson. Ridgeway
• Martin Simpson's New Old Guitar
• Holly Clarke. Man, she can sing!
• Holly Clarke and George Sansome. Through the Groves
• Martin Carthy. Soldier Soldier
• Bridget St John. "Fly"
• Jack Rutter
• Zero frets
• Rachel Fuller. Lost Forests. Behind the Scenes
• Ed Tudor Pole
• Gary Neville and the Charlatans
• Ten years since my MBE

 Will says "This guitar has a sound that defies its size …"

That is true, although at least part of the sound actually comes from its small size. It's fairly simple "mechanics"- a small guitar can be built considerably more lightly than a bigger instrument, and by using timbers that are not overly stiff, there isn’t much in the structure that encourages higher overtones. Hence the mellow warm tone that Will manages to produce seemingly effortlessly.

Thanks, Will

And Will has something new to offer ...

"Master expressive Arpeggios to Create Flowing lines and Dynamic Phrases on Guitar"

"Explore how expanding your knowledge and appreciation of arpeggios can add real depth to your fingerstyle playing"

Will has now made three teaching books available, so there isn't any excuse now is there -  just a little practice maybe?

Will also has a one-day teaching workshop on 14th March. Click here for more information.

Will's website

Probably the most well-known of all Gypsy Jazz tunes, played on a Fylde Guitar.

I know that some artists appear in this newsletter quite a lot. The reason is obvious, some of them post a lot of videos, and they pop up on my screen without me looking for them.  It's the algorithms you know.

But there are lots and lots of videos of people playing Fylde instruments that I never get to see.  I'm constantly searching, but I rely on my customers to send me links .

So, if you have any videos of reasonable quality, with anything related to Fylde, I'd really love to see them.

Biréli's Website

It's happened again. I didn't know anything about this video until it popped up just eight minutes after Tris uploaded it.

I think it's a game - everybody conspiring behind my back "let’s see if we can sneak one past Rog"

No chance, I rarely sleep.

Tristan's Website

We never tire of Lisa's singing, and this is a lovely setting at the Guinness Storehouse, with strings and backing singers.  The sort of live show I wish we could get to see. 

Lisa's Website

This is another video from the concert where Martin's Taran guitar had been kidnapped by the airline, and he used Louis's custom Falstaff for the whole show.

No, I do not have any connections to that airline. It's a thought though. 

I'll say it again; I think the Cello is a wonderful instrument in general and in this setting in particular

Martin's Website

What did I say about new young players?  We’ve known George for a while  but Holly is a new friend. Don’t they work well together? I think this is a lovely video.

There seems to be something new happening  in traditional music,  songs I haven’t heard before getting a treatment entirely in keeping  with musical history but with a fresh feel.

The future is safe!

Holly and George start a short tour in about three weeks.  Let’s hope they manage bigger tours before long. Dates and venues are here.

George's Website.

I’ve just heard that Martin isn’t well and his farewell tour has been cancelled.

That’s very sad news.  Martin and his family have brought enormous pleasure to so many people. This video lifted me a little bit, I think it’s particularly joyful. 

I’m sure I will be posting more in future newsletters

Massive hugs Martin.   

I don't often use videos unless they feature actual playing, but this one has a back story.

The guitar Bridget shows here is a very early Oberon, I don't think it's the one she bought from me, because that one fell off her studio wall in New York and she sent me the pieces. I still have them. I like jigsaws, but …

I think this guitar will be one that I made for our dear departed friend Michael Chapman, he and Bridget were good friends.

I remember the long drive to Derbyshire to deliver Bridget's guitar, and her stories of Nick Drake and John Martyn. Then she moved to America and we didn't see so much of her.

Bridget had a Fylde 12 string as well, which inspired John Martyn to order his.

When I hear the first few notes of this,  I hear bagpipes! Really - listen again and see what you think.

But no, it's Jack on his fan fretted Cittern . There aren’t many of those around. He really gets a great sound.

I notice that it's produced by Joe Rusby, Kate's Brother, John Smith's sound man and general good egg, so that’s part of the reason but we have to give most credit to Jacks playing .

Jack and I used to swap stupid jokes. I shall now sit back and wait to hear from him.

Jack's Website

I've been battling myself whether to include this video.  It's very positive and does explain some of the good points about zero frets although I don’t agree with all of it.

There are several other videos on the same subject as well, but this one includes Tom Sands from the UK so I thought anything that mentions UK guitar making at the moment must be a good thing.

They all get one thing right - that with a zero fret, the open string should sound the same as all the fretted notes.

But there are several things I want to point out. The nut is not just a spacer, it's important that the nut shares the break angle of the string onto the headstock, so that the fret does not carry all the string tension, and friction is minimised. If we were making greater quantities, I'm pretty sure we'd find the conventional nut much easier, so it's certainly not a short cut.

We aim to have the break angle over the zero fret equal or very slightly greater than it would be when fretting any other note. The nut carries the remainder, greater, part of the break angle and pressure from the string, and we cut it very carefully indeed.

It isn't an automatic answer to string height. If anything, it is more difficult to get that right, not less, and it's difficult to keep everything tidy.

In our experience, zero frets do not wear out if they are fitted properly. There, I've said it. It’s almost unheard of for us to have to replace a zero fret unless we are doing a full refret, and we've probably fitted 20,000 zero frets. How many have we had to replace simply due to wear? We can't remember any.

The usual reason for serious marks in the zero fret is careless cutting of the nut.

The other point I like to make should be obvious to anybody that studies the physics of string vibration, and I think it's the most important. With a conventional nut, the string is constrained in a closely fitted slot, which means the string is not free to vibrate as it leaves the nut in the same way as it can when simply resting upon a fret with no sideways constraint.

This is the basis of "inharmonicity", where the higher harmonics in a string are not in simple ratios to the fundamental, because the stiffness of the string becomes an issue at the end of the string where it is held in that tight nut slot. This is called "end effects" and doesn't happen nearly as much on a fretted note. It's the reason the thicker plain strings on a guitar don't sound as pure as thinner strings, and it's part of the reason for tuning and intonation difficulties.

There is so much more I can say about all this, good and bad on both sides of the "discussion". It's not easy to explain but at least the subject is getting more consideration now.

I mentioned this project in November's newsletter last year. The whole idea was based around "Bog Oak" , the very rare but perhaps the most wonderful of the UK's natural treasures.

If you have sharp eyes, at 1.08 in the video, , you might catch a glimpse of the Bog Oak guitar that we made for Rachel. It's being played with a bow!

Thers's a brief glimpse of Pete Townsend as well.

The whole story of the wood, the carving, music and dance is here ...

It’s been a long time since I included Ed.  I don’t know how he maintains the energy.

I'm tempted to get a hair do like the guy wobbling about in front of the camera. There are technical reasons why that won't be possible though.

Ed's Facebook Page

Yes. THAT Gary Neville. The famous Footballer and sometime BBC Dragons Den Judge. He is playing the Alchemist that he bought quite some time ago.

The video is probably the worst quality that I will ever use, there are some quite good photographs of Gary with that guitar on the web, but they are all copyright, and I recently got into a spot of bother when I used an "image" from a newspaper, thinking that nobody would mind little old me borrowing it for a few days.

I was wrong, they did mind and I'm now a bit poorer. Lesson learnt.

Me, talking about football, who'd have thought?

My word. I don't say much about this, but ten years has taken me by surprise. The news about Martin prompted me to include the group picture. 

The picture is  very special for  me. Martin Carthy and Gordon Giltrap, the two people that probably inspired and helped me more than any others, came along  to help me celebrate fifty years of professional guitar making. What an honour on top of the shiny badge.

Martin is also holding Norma’s award, and of course his Daughter Eliza has her own. What a family!

We all agreed that the medals make a horrible mess of our pyjamas.

Perhaps it's time we had another party!

See you next month.

Roger.