Origin of the Oval Sound Hole

MichaelHorowitz · April 2009

Here's something interesting. I always heard that the oval sound hole used on Selmers was probably inspired by similar ones used on Neapolitan mandolins. But here are some early 19th C guitars built by Etienne Laprevotte in Paris.

and incidentally, the Italian school of lutherie was particularly fond constructing tops with a very pronounced dome. Contemporary lutherie Olivier Fanton builds classicals in the Italian tradition. He notes that guitars by the 19th C Italian trained luthier Pierre Pacherel have a "radically domed soundboard". Interesting...I guess that helps to understand where Maccaferri got his inspiration for his own guitars. There seems to be a lot of precedence for many of the techniques he used.

frater · April 2009

A lot of Maccaferri's ideas for his guitar came actually from Mozzani, his "maestro" both as a guitarist and a luthier... what a pair!

MichaelHorowitz · April 2009

frater wrote:

A lot of Maccaferri's ideas for his guitar came actually from Mozzani, his "maestro" both as a guitarist and a luthier... what a pair!

Yes, very true! But the more I learn about the history of Italian luthiery the more the Sel-Mac design, as well as the work of Busato, Favino, DiMauro, etc, makes sense. It's more then just Mozzani. The Spanish get all the glory with guitars, but before Torres set the standard for the modern guitar there were very distinct and highly developed guitar designs in France, Italy, and Germany/Austria. These mostly died out after Spain took over in the mid to late 19th C, but it's interesting that if you look at some of the things the Italians were doing over the last several centuries it seems to culminate in the Selmer design. Radically domed tops (often canted with a pliage), movable bridge, steel strings. One of the popular guitar designs in Italy of the last few centuries is the Chittara Battente.

chitarra%20battente%20con%20meccaniche.jpg

chitarra%20battente%20con%20meccaniche.jpg

It is often strung in paired courses with a reenterant tuning. Check out the bent top, moustache pieces, bridge, etc. Very similar to the Neapolitan mandolin and also a similar to the Selmer guitar. It's easy to see how Italian/Sicilian immigrant lutheirs like DiMauro, Busato, Buccolo, Favino, etc. would have drawn from this non-Iberian tradition of guitar making. Although the Italian school of lutheiry was out done by the Spanish in the classical guitar world, their techniques seemed to have gotten a second life in making jazz guitars in France.

Anyway, it's just a theory and I'm sure there is a lot more research to do. But I think these old Italian guitars do tell you a lot about the mindset of the previously mentioned lutheirs.

Check out this guy playing the hell out of a Chittara Battente:

It's also worth mentioning that the German/Austrian school of luthiery ended up getting transplanted to America by C.F Martin and evolved into the flatop guitar.

frater · April 2009

Well observed... even today some luthiers in Italy do build both Selmer models and "chitarre battenti":

http://www.liuteria.biz/CHITARRA%20BATTENTE.html

http://www.liuteria.biz/SELMER%20ACUSTICA.html