Families of Instruments

   Musical instruments reflect and galvanise the cultures in which they evolve, and most have diverged into families. The core of the Symphony Orchestra is the violin family: violin, viola, violoncello and bass. The other family of bowed instruments contemporary with the first violins was the viol family, a courtly ensemble now featuring in early music performance. Lutes came in a range of sizes and pitches, and they inspired a colourful array of Renaissance composition.

   Brass instruments range from the cornet, through the flugelhorns, trumpets and trombones to the French Horns, Euphoniums and Tubas. Woodwind instruments appear in the orchestra as a polyglot assembly of clarinets, oboes, cor anglais, and bassoons. Once there was a family of oons, as there were families of trombones (sackbuts), shawns, rackets, crumbhorns, recorders and other wonderful wind instruments. Even flutes range from piccolo to bass, and more recently saxophones and clarinets have grown into families, featuring in jazz performance and modern composition.

   Beyond the orchestra and jazz ensembles, folk instruments appear in families : balalaikas and mandolins with mandolas, tenor mandolins, mandocellos and bass mandolins, even concertinas and dulcimers are available in different ranges.

   The piano does not exist in a family, probably because its keyboard covers the register of a family – likewise for the harpsichords and organs.

   The most popular musical instrument in the world is the guitar. It features in every nation’s folk, jazz, flamenco, blues, rock, pop and classical musical expressions, but it has not existed in a family. Even though the electric bass guitar has become almost universal in all musical forms except classical and traditional jazz, we do not regard the electric bass with other guitars as a family. Some South American ensembles use the ‘requinto’ guitar tuned above the standard, but not as a guitar family member.

The Guitar Family Project

   In 1979, I became a full-time luthier (stringed instrument maker) after an intensive year in Europe studying and researching guitar and violin history, physics, design and tonality, and the response of the ear-brain system to musical sound. I had made experimental violins, violas and cellos in 1977 and was beginning to understand why the traditional violin was probably optimal in its vibrating and sound-generating behaviour as a bowed instrument.

   I envisaged how larger and smaller guitars would respond to the strings and appeal to the human mind. In 1980, I made a low-pitched folk guitar which was not successful, but a subsequent baritone classical guitar, tuned a fifth below the standard, had a genuine classical voice, even with an unconvincing upper range.

   In 1982, I travelled to the United States on a Churchill Fellowship to deliver a paper to the Catgut Acoustical Society entitled "The Guitar Family – Prospectus". In that year, I also showed the baritone to Tim Kain, head of the guitar faculty at Canberra School of Music, and himself a renowned performer. When he established the Canberra Guitar Ensemble in 1984, they incorporated the baritone along with the standard guitar, and when John Williams visited the Canberra School of Music that year, he encouraged them to work towards realising the potential of the guitar family.

   In 1986, the Canberra Guitar ensemble submitted an application to the Australia Council under the "Innovative Projects" category, seeking a grant for me to make a classical bass guitar and a treble (requinto) tuned a fourth above the standard, so to extend the classical guitar into a full tonally integrated family : bass, baritone, standard and treble.

   These Classical Guitar Family prototypes were finished in 1986, and after intensive rehearsals by the Canberra Guitar Ensemble at the Canberra School of Music, the first Guitar Family concert was presented in 1987. It was so popular that a repeat performance was given later in the day, and from the Canberra Guitar Ensemble grew Guitar Trek, now internationally acclaimed as the Guitar Family Ensemble.

   The prototype treble was soon replaced with two ‘new generation’ lattice trebles made by Eugene Philp, and I made a lattice baritone in 1996 and a lattice bass in 2001, both now played by Guitar Trek. A baritone guitar was also purchased by Slava Grigoryan in 2003, with the purpose of enriching the tonality of the popular guitar ensemble, Saffire.

   Guitar orchestras and ensembles have been gaining momentum since the year 2000. Christopher Keane, a dedicated Sydney guitarist, has initiated the guitar orchestra project at Cranbrook School, generating orders for trebles and a bass. Tommy Anderson at Sydney Grammar School has begun guitar ensemble performance and is incorporating the treble guitar sound, as is Joanne McCluskey, co-ordinator of Townsville Guitar Orchestra.

   I continue to upgrade and integrate the sound of guitar family instruments as well as to develop standard ‘new generation guitars’, always reaching for a stronger and richer, sustained classical guitar sound.

The Guitars

Graham and Bass.

Baritone and Octave.

Twin treble (requinto) guitars made for Ascham School, Sydney.

Graham Playing Octave.