String instruments of the cavity-enclosing, ported shell type are a veritable vibro-acoustic goldmine that encompasses a remarkable range of acoustics just to gain a basic understanding of their overall character. These instruments can be viewed as relatively simple objects excited in a straightforward manner by a player and judged by perceptions, as a craft device requiring many years of experience to properly construct and extract the best sound, or as a system requiring the best contemporary technology just to comprehend some physical aspects of the perceived quality. And just to make matters all the more difficult the modifications and tweaks performed in the mechanical world to enhance perceived quality rely on final judgments mainly in the acoustical world. Compound all this with the reality that there is no direct trail back from sound to mechanics, and it seems astonishing that we are able to create fine sounding string instruments at all.
Although my area of expertise is the violin, many of the concerns in making, playing, and judging bowed string instruments are relevant to the guitar, probably the most popular stringed instrument of all, with commercial USA production nominally according to the author. While there is considerable material online about engineering applied to the guitar (URLs for a few introductory sites: http:∕∕www.guitarengineer.com and http:∕∕www.home.agilent.com∕agilent∕editorial.jspx?cc=AW&lc=eng&ckey=866697&id=866697) and much in the way of published articles (see the Guild of American Luthiers Journal as one example) there does not appear to be another book that deals with the engineering aspects. Thus this book serves a real purpose for scientifically-oriented guitar makers and aficionados as well as those interested in a broad overview of the world of guitars, including materials, introductory acoustics, the neck as cantilever beam, finite and boundary element analyses, guitar electronics, individual and industrial construction techniques, a primer on human hearing, etc., a veritable manifold of matters concerning this very popular instrument. (However, anyone interested in just the craft of building guitars—solid body, acoustic, arch top, etc.—would be better served by one of the many craft-oriented books presently available.)
Of course broad coverage in an page book must consequently be somewhat shallow on any individual topic, but such a presentation has significant virtues in providing a broad introduction as well as a guide to individuals interested in following up on any topic via over 130 references. Engineering the Guitar offers many interesting practical insights although some of these might be difficult for a typical maker to utilize. As an example of the latter, consider the problem of shape; chapter 5 offers a useful analytic parametrization of guitar shape in polar coordinates after conversion from rectangular coordinates (Fig. 5.12 would benefit from and labels as coordinate system origin choice is discussed). What is missing though is a software roadmap for the curve fitting of the geometry data using the rational polynomial series employed. Can this be done in a readily available spreadsheet program, or does it need specialized math software?
The author’s personal building experience and his knowledge of a wide variety of guitar construction techniques are put to good use in this book. Its overall broad view is very good reading for those interested in the myriad of details involved in constructing a string instrument and then evaluating it scientifically. The range of references is wide-ranging, although I miss the very first application of nearfield acoustical holography to a musical instrument [W. Strong et al., “Studying a guitar’s radiation properties with nearfield holography,” J. Guitar Acoust. 6, 50–59 (1982)] showing how important the sound hole radiation is to the overall radiation from the guitar. The weakest part of the book lies in its discussion of the vibration-radiation metamorphosis, where some comprehensive vibration-radiation experiments to get a handle on such matters as radiation efficiency and effective critical frequency would be highly beneficial. Overall, however, the author is to be commended for providing a significant addition to the guitar literature in his broad-ranging book on a very important string instrument.
The review author, with over of experience in violin research, maintains a comprehensive violin acoustics research facility at East Carolina University, where he is emeritus professor of physics.
