GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar - "Brazil"

Brazil:
This is made by Giannini. The name comes from the fact that this guitar is made in Brazil, and because the sides and back are made of Brazilian rosewood – which is now illegal to use. It is a nylon-stringed classical and I use it for my Latin-styled pieces. This is my oldest guitar. I’ve had it since I was 15 yrs old in 1972. I traded another guitar player my Fender classical for this one. He wanted a traditional-shaped guitar, but I wanted this wild-shaped one.

I had no idea it was so rare, but in all these years of playing guitar, and looking at guitar magazines, and watching other guitar players from around the world, I have never seen another one.

To me this guitar is all about Brazil. The sound, the look, the feel. There is a decoration around the D-shaped soundhole where some craftsman has made an incredibly detailed, ornate mosaic pattern using the tiniest little pieces of colored woods, inlaid. Each piece is about the size of the tip of a toothpick. I imagine that Brazilian craftsman sitting there with a magnifying glass gluing and placing each tiny sliver of colored wood into place with a needle-point tool. There are literally hundreds of them in the mosaic.

I wonder if the craftsman who made this guitar ever wondered who would play it. And if someone would still own it and love it and play it 40 years later. Guitar tones of acoustics typically mellow with age as the wood cures. The tone of this guitar is soft and romantic, and I have used it on many tunes.

Every time I pull this out to play, I feel a touch of Brazil. One day I would like to go there and see and feel and experience the place where this was born.