This is the paper version of an ArcGIS Online story mapping activity developed in partnership with Esri Canada.

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Deirdre Hill
5 years ago
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reflects the multiple stories and diverse perspectives of Canada.

1 This is the paper version of an ArcGIS Online story mapping activity developed in partnership with Esri Canada. The object of the activity is to plan the building of an acoustic guitar that reflects your personal story or the story of your community in the same way that Voyageur, the Six String Nation guitar, reflects the multiple stories and diverse perspectives of Canada. While Voyageur is constructed using 64 different materials - with many of those materials employed in multiple parts of the guitar - we have simplified this exercise so that you need to come up with just pieces that tell different aspects of your story. Of course, different parts of a guitar s construction perform different roles - structural, operational, ergonomic, acoustic and decorative - and sometimes several of those roles simultaneously. Consideration should be given to the choice of materials not just for their story value but for their suitability to the task: metal might be fine for a fret marker or machine head but not right for the resonant demands of the soundboard; abalone shell (mother-of-pearl) might be great for inlay on the rosette design but incapable of handling the stresses of kerfing or cross-bracing. For the most part you ll want to think about using woods and be aware that hard woods (eg. mahogany) give strength and reflection while soft woods (eg. spruce) provide tone and flexibility where needed. The next page shows each of the pieces or groups of pieces you ll need to include and where they belong in the construction of the guitar and the following pages feature simple diagrams, one per page, suitable for cutting out and in correct ratios to assemble into a guitar model - along with a simple description of the function of that piece or set of pieces. Happy building! 1 of 17

2 1. Top or Soundboard 2. Top interior bracing 3. Interior kerfing (top and back) 4. Top and end blocks, side struts 8. Rosette 9. Bridge (w/ saddle, pins) 5. Back (book-matched) 6. Back interior bracing, reinforcing strips 7. Sides 13. Headstock 10. Fretboard or Fingerboard 11. Neck 12. Fret markers/inlay 14. Machine heads or tuning pegs 2 of 17

3 1. Top/Soundboard The soundboard is the face of any guitar and also in many ways its voice. The soundboard of Voyageur is made from the only piece taken from the legendary Golden Spruce of Haida Gwaii. Spruce is a common wood to use for guitar tops as it is a very resonant material and is said to provide excellent warmth and tone to the instrument. It is often a single piece or - as in the case of Voyageur - a book-matched* piece. * Imagine standing a flat piece on its edge then cutting down the middle of the plane as if opening a book and fusing the two together at the joint. They appear seamless. 3 of 17

2. Top interior bracing While the pieces depicted here that criss cross the top all appear flat, some are raised or can be scalloped or otherwise textured.

4 2. Top interior bracing While the pieces depicted here that criss cross the top all appear flat, some are raised or can be scalloped or otherwise textured. Functions here include fingerbracing, tone-bars, the bridge plate, the X-brace and more. Some are more prominently structural in nature and others are designed to move and reflect and shape sound waves as they are generated within the body of the guitar. The bridge plate serves as an anchor for the tensions maintained by the bridge on the top side of the instrument. 4 of 17

3. Interior kerfing (you ll need two sets of these - one for the top side, one for the back) Kerfing (or lining) are the curved pieces that serve as the connective tissue between the sides and the

5 3. Interior kerfing (you ll need two sets of these - one for the top side, one for the back) Kerfing (or lining) are the curved pieces that serve as the connective tissue between the sides and the top and back of the guitar. Each piece of kerfing in Voyageur was individually shaped from different materials. More commonly, kerfing are strips of wood with multiple notches that make it quite flexible and can then be more easily shaped for use in any particular curve of the guitar. Once the seam is glued between the top and sides and back and sides, a thin ribbon of wood is used to cover the seam on the outside of the guitar - this is known as binding or purfling and is not depicted here. 5 of 17

6 4. Top block, end block and side struts The top block, end block and side struts are what define the specific depth of the body of the guitar and are critical elements of the overall structure. The top and end blocks are the anchors to which the sides of the guitar attach as they are placed in the forms that give the guitar its particular waisted shape. In the case of Voyageur (as with many guitars), the top block is also the access point for the neck-supporting truss rod and the end block is the access point for the plug into the electronic pick-up system. 6 of 17

5. Back (book-matched) The back of the guitar is traditionally two pieces of book-matched wood with a laminate of one or more strips between the two that appear as a kind of spine.

7 5. Back (book-matched) The back of the guitar is traditionally two pieces of book-matched wood with a laminate of one or more strips between the two that appear as a kind of spine. Typically, the wood on the back of a guitar is harder than the tone wood on the top so as to provide greater reflection of sound waves and thus greater volume and projection of sound from the instrument. 7 of 17

8 6. Back interior bracing and reinforcing strips The horizontally oriented strips here are known as bracing and the vertically oriented ones are known as reinforcing strips. The bracing has both structural and acoustic function and may have particular scallops or arched forms while the reinforcing strips are flatter and serve primarily to support the lamination of the spine and the two halves of the book-matched back. 8 of 17

9 7. Sides Traditionally, the sides and back of a guitar are made from the same material and it is usually a harder wood. In the case of Voyageur it is the spalted oak from the St. Boniface Museum. Shaping the sides of a guitar involves time, patience and a delicate balance of heat and moisture to gradually encourage the fibres to bend to the luthier s form. This is made even more difficult by the fact that it must be thin enough to bend but not so thin that it breaks.. 9 of 17

8. Rosette The size of a sound hole in a guitar may vary - with a larger hole resulting in a greater array of treble tones able to emerge from the instrument.

10 8. Rosette The size of a sound hole in a guitar may vary - with a larger hole resulting in a greater array of treble tones able to emerge from the instrument. The circular edge created when making that whole can be a vulnerable spot for the wood of the soundboard. Partly due to the stresses of the instrument and partly due to use and weather and other changes in the conditions a guitar might be subjected to over time, this edge could be the epicentre of structural decay so it is important that the edge is sealed and protected. This is part of the function of the rosette, though obviously it is also a natural focal point and is thus an appropriate place for decorative elements. Sometimes the rosette might be a single contrasting piece of wood or other material and other times it might be an elaborate detail of inlay of abalone shell (mother-of-pearl) or other materials. The rosette in Voyageur is especially rich with multiple elements - including various woods, whale baleen and muskox horn - all outlined by two concentric strips of copper. 10 of 17

9. Bridge (including saddle and bridge pins) The bridge needs to hold the strings in place and keep them the correct distance from the body of the guitar and fingerboard and its placement can effect

11 9. Bridge (including saddle and bridge pins) The bridge needs to hold the strings in place and keep them the correct distance from the body of the guitar and fingerboard and its placement can effect tuning so it s important to get it situated just right. It is anchored through the sound board to the bridge-plate on the interior top of the guitar for extra strength and stability. The saddle sits in a slot in the bridge and the strings stretch across it so that they do not lay flat against the bridge at any point and therefore maintain tension and avoid buzzing. This can be made of plastic or bone. In Voyageur s case it is made from mammoth ivory. The bridge pins secure the strings in the bridge holes and are also usually plastic. The original bridge pins on Voyageur were made from wood (2 of the 6) and walrus tusk (4 of the 6) but they proved to be occasionally unstable and have since been replaced with regular plastic pins. While one bridge pin was lost during a performance at the legendary Townehouse Tavern in Sudbury ON, the remaining five original bridge pins are kept in a small box in Voyageur s guitar case compartment. 11 of 17

12 10. Fretboard / fingerboard The fingerboard is a single piece of wood over which the strings are stretched between the nut (indicated by the double-line near the top of the diagram) and the saddle that sits in its slot in the bridge. It is typically a hard wood that is not prone to splitting or bowing so as to preserve and enhance playability. The fretboard is very slightly curved from side to side and very slightly tapered in width from nut to sound hole. Shallow notches at precise intervals across are cut to hold the fret wire that makes the frets. These are what makes it possible to hit the right note with accuracy as long as your strings are tuned! 12 of 17

13 11. Neck Voyageur s neck is a laminate of seven strips of wood but typically a guitar neck is made from just one piece of hard wood. It tilts back slightly from the body of the guitar (as you might be able to see in the side view on page 9) and in turn the head tilts back slightly from the neck in order to create the correct height of the strings from the fretboard. The hump where the neck joins the body of the guitar is called the heel. Most guitars (including Voyageur) have a rout cut along the length of the inside of the neck into which is laid a long metal device called the truss rod. This can be adjusted to maintain the correct straightness and tension and compensate for possible bowing of the neck over time or in certain conditions. It is covered by the fretboard and is typically accessible through the sound hole. 13 of 17

14 12. Fret markers / inlay Markers along the fingerboard of the guitar indicate important harmonic intervals: the 3rd, the 5th, the 7th and the 9th. The double marker on the 12th fret indicates the octave point on each open string. Two further markings indicate the 3rd and 5th from that octave point. Occasionally these markings can be painted on or affixed with adhesive but these can wear away easily so more typically they are inlaid into the fretboard itself. These could be simple dots of wood, metal or plastic but it does give luthiers an opportunity to do some more elaborate decorative work, traditionally with materials such as abalone shell (mother-of-pearl). Voyageur s fret markers include a wide variety of materials including stone, bone, antler and a variety of metals. - each piece with its own significant story. 14 of 17

15 13. Headstock The function of the headstock is to house the mechanism to which the strings are attached and by which they are tuned. On acoustic and hollow-body electric guitars they are predominantly in the configuration known as that is the three lower strings on one side and the three higher strings on the other. Solid-body electric guitars tend to use the so called six-in-line configuration with all the tuning pegs aligned in an angle on one side of the headstock. There are many variations beyond these two options including no headstock at all with tuning pegs at the bridge. The shape of the headstock is really the signature of the maker or manufacturer of the instrument and many guitar aficionados can pick out the makers with no identifying markers other than the shape of the headstock. The main shape you see in the middle above is the signature shape of George Rizsanyi s guitars so you might want to change it to something of your own - from a flat to a scalloped or sloped or curlicue design depending how simply or ornately you want to express your signature shape. Just remember that if you make your headstock too ornate it won t fit in a standard guitar case! Many makers also print or inlay their name or branding on the headstock. Voyageur s headstock includes an inlay of the Six String Nation logo as well as a diamond of jade. 15 of 17

14. Machine heads / tuning pegs Turning the tuning pegs of a guitar effectively changes the length and tension of the corresponding string, thus altering the pitch.

16 14. Machine heads / tuning pegs Turning the tuning pegs of a guitar effectively changes the length and tension of the corresponding string, thus altering the pitch. This is how one goes about tuning a guitar (from standard to a vast variety of alternative tunings) and making fine adjustments as natural phenomenon such as stretching, response to temperature and humidity conditions and the stresses of playing affect the precise tuning of the strings. As a result, the tuning mechanism needs to be highly precise and responsive and have the ability to hold the strings at the proper tuning as stably and effectively as possible. This is accomplished by means of a geared apparatus of varying designs and degrees of complexity and most typically made of metal. The ergonomically designed knobs at the ends of these machine heads are sometimes just a continuation of the peg apparatus itself or they can be made of different materials and affixed to the end of the pegs by various methods. Voyageur s machine heads were custom made and engraved by the renowned craftsman Nicolo Alessi near Varese, Italy after a Canadian foundry bowed out of the job at the last minute. This meant that a trip to the Un Paese a Sei Corde international guitar festival in nearby Orta San Giulio was a kind of homecoming for Voyageur in that country too. 16 of 17

17 The idea of this activity is for you to think about what materials you would choose to help tell a story about your life, your family, your community. At the same time you re thinking about what materials you could use that would be representative of particular people, places or events, you ll need also to think about what materials would be best used for particular functions in the guitar (does it need to be hard wood for the back or neck, softer wood for the soundboard or other tone-imbuing elements, or more decorative metals, stones, shells, etc. For this paper version of the activity, you might choose to cut out the illustrations and perhaps copy or even enlarge them in order to plan out your guitar-making project. You could also transfer them or paste them to a harder material such as cardboard if you wanted to make a 3-D model that would hold up a bit better. In terms of determining what materials that told what particular stories you wanted to include in the different parts of the guitar, you might want to use photos of those materials cut into the appropriate shapes or simply write the names or descriptions of those materials on your paper map or cardboard model. The online version of this activity developed by Esri Canada using the ArcGIS platform allows you to include photos and/or descriptions of your chosen materials and to locate the origins of those materials and their accompanying stories onto a map. For more information, please visit the Educational Resources section of our website at 17 of 17

GUITAR ANATOMY GLOSSARY

GUITAR ANATOMY GLOSSARY abalone: an iridescent lining found in the inner shell of the abalone mollusk that is often used alongside mother of pearl; commonly used as an inlay material. action: the distance