Django's Licks Bible

Michael Bauer

Even after they settled on the 14-fret oval design, other oddities kept popping up. I think Selmer 704 was a round hole, and that would have been made after the war. The only rule I can settle on is: there are no rules. Even inside the guitars they were frequently experimenting with shapes of braces, etc. One thing is for sure, these were not exactly "factory guitars" in the modern sense. Bob Holo can throw some interesting light on that, since he's examined several in detail. And at the very end, when you would think things would have been settled on, Pierre Roulot makes even more radical changes, with a much bigger pliage, rosewood necks, etc. Selmer #520 had four braces, solid mahogany back and sides, and a Spanish heel. Go figure...

I wish someone had written a book on Selmers when all the old guys were still alive. They stories they could have told...

johnnostrat

Hi - could someone re upload the file? - pretty please!

deadedith

Pretty pretty please?

Jim Kaznosky

Les Plans de Django?
it is on Scribd here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/43741366/Les-Plans-de-Django

If you can't dl from there pm me.

johnnostrat

PM'ed ....

Bob Holo

Michael Bauer wrote:

they were frequently experimenting with shapes of braces, etc. One thing is for sure, these were not exactly "factory guitars" in the modern sense.

My eyes crossed while trying to count the frets on that photo, but just from proportion it looks like a 640 with the tongue cut off, so it very well might be a Mac fingerboard and it wouldn't be the first Selmer I've seen like that. I assume it was done because the player wanted to use a Stimer but that's just an Ockham's razor-ish kind of guess.

I used to wonder about these things till I really started building a lot and then it was clear as glass. You have to experiment to learn - and why not sell a good experiment even if you don't plan to make a lot of them? These things you're talking about, Michael, are exactly the types of experiments Selmer did. The really good ideas are seldom obvious and almost never "cool looking". There are some positively comical modern luthier websites... guys who drill little holes in their braces or shape things in some particularly artsy way and prattle on about how it is fractal or mimics the crest of a wave or whatever. That's not experimentation - that's just wanking. But experimentation (real experimentation) is subtle and incremental and thematic and many times so visually subtle that you can't see it unless you're looking for it. Selmer did that type of experimentation... so did Busato... so did Favino. Recently I've been talking to some good classical builders and they say it's the same in their style... Hauser, Torres, Friederich, Fleta - they all experimented too. I mean sure, there are some classic designs that a person makes repeatedly, but there are also some very good experiments that a person doesn't make a lot simply because it's a conservative buying public or other reasons.

There were certain proportions and techniques that Selmer used - if you don't use them, the guitar won't sound like a Selmer. If you do, it will - even if you experiment a bit. This is a theme I've been thinking about a lot in the last few years - that there is very little correlation between what is obvious and what is important. Anyway, I digress. Yes, it could be a Selmer that Vees is playing - I've seen a few Selmers with flat-cut fretboard-ends.

scot

There is a photograph of Django playing a similar guitar with the blocked fretboard end at "Bricktop" dated summer 1937 on page 238 in the large Delauney biography. It's an interesting photo for two reasons - the unique guitar, and the presence of Gusti Malha in the quintet. I don't think there is another photo of Django and Gusti playing together. The photo above this one is also interesting because in it, Baro is playing what appears to be a maple-bodied D-hole with no fingerboard extension, a type of Selmer that seems to be unknown today. Yet in Charle p.161 there is a photograph at the factory with at least two of them...

Jim Kaznosky

For those who have been recently asking, here is Les Plans de Django, which I understand is public domain. If this is in violation of some copyright, please let me know and I will remove this post.

Thanks,
Jim

MirePral

Yeah! Thanks!

Matt Henry

Thanks, jkaz!