It’s taken me a long time to decide on the best use for this lovely wood but have finally made and instrument with it – a five course guitar bouzouki (“Bealtine”) for me to use when I play at the local Folk Club. In terms of tonewoods I have it reminds me of a waxy version of Black Limba or Californian Bay Laurel (Myrtle). The set from John was suitable for a smaller guitar and as “Bealtine” is based around my Grand Concert sized guitar body with the upper bout shortened to give sixteen frets clear of the body this seemed ideal – even more so as the original “Bealtine” I made for English player Gavin Davenport in 2006 had a bit of a Pacific Ocean theme with the top being Lutz spruce from British Columbia, the back and sides plantation grown Cuban Mahogany from Micronesia and the binding curly Koa from Hawaii.
So for my Pacific Ocean “Bealtine” I decided on a Lutz Spruce top, Native Olive back, sides, rosette and headstock veneers, curly Koa bindings, Tasmanian Blackwood end-graft and Maple neck (which also grows in British Columbia). Fretboard and bridge are Macassar Ebony from Malaysia.
The Native Olive set from John had large amounts of sapwood in both the back and sides and the challenge was how best to make use of this visually. The sapwood stripe on the back set was too large visually so I narrowed it and made the lower bout wider by taking pieces of heartwood from the upper bout area edges and glueing them to the lower bout edges taking into account the grain run-out direction – this makes it a four piece back I then had to decide where to use the sapwood stripes in the sides – next to the top or back. Using them next to the back meant that I didn’t loose any heartwood when making the back taper and loosing it from the sapwood meant that the width of the sapwood strip around the guitar rim stayed reasonably constant in depth.
I choose maple for the neck as this was the best match visually for the Native Olive and I like the feel of maple necks and the extra sustain they bring. The neck is three Maple pieces with two black veneers to give a central stripe that joins visually with the back’s central sapwood stripe. Those of you that know me know that I believe I have a duty to use every scrap of scarce wood – take what you need and use what you take – and as well as the back and sides I managed to squeeze out the headstock veneers, a central rosette ring and the sapwood fretboard inlay markers from the Native Olive set leaving me only a few scraps left in a ziplock back stored for later use.
“Bealtine” has a 640mm scale length and other features are Gotoh tuners with ebony buttons, gold EVO frets, ebony bridge-pins, and ebony neck heel strap pin and a K&K Pure Mini pickup. Enough waffling, here are some pictures:
As for tuning – there are as many cittern tunings as players and with different combinations of string gauges there are loads you can use. I’m using DADAD tuning with string gauges 13,17, 27, 36, 53. This gives a total string tension of 208.2lbs. The tuning is all roots and fifths - R 5 R 5 R – which is modal and gives lots of scope for doubling and taking melodies across octaves and with suitable capoeing gives a good vocal and tune range with D, E, F and G.
You can think of DADAD tuning either as DADGAD without the G string or CGCGCD tuning without the D string and capoed at the second fret so if you play in those tunings with a little adjustment you soon become very familiar with it. I’m finding I can play a lot of the songs I accompanied using a guitar in DADGAD on “Bealtine” and also quite a few of the arrangements I use on my guitar-bouzouki in GDAD tuning with extra low notes added in. This makes it quite versatile for performing at the Folk Club and means I don’t have to take as many instruments.
Here’s an example of using “Bealtine” for tune playing and accompaniment in its lower key range D. It’s an arrangement Peter and I play of “Glory of the Sun” from “Playford’s Dancing Master” (based on Leveret’s version on their excellent "In the Round" CD) – it sounds better with Peter’s mandolin playing the lead giving a wider dynamic range and interest but I’m using it to illustrate “Bealtine’s” sound:
https://app.box.com/s/ug2f2r1y65gaob4nqttp98ybpkf7noi6
A big thank you again to John for giving me the Native Olive set – it’s fabulous to work with and even more so as it requires no pore filling – and I hope I’ve done it justice visually. It certainly works as a tonewood for me.
