2024 Andy Culpepper SP/CSAR

This guitar is rooted in traditional Spanish aesthetics, with a sound crafted to satisfy the modern concert guitarist. It has plenty of power, clarity, openness, and separation to fill a concert hall, but also has a beautiful voice that makes it hard to put down. It is loud and penetrating without being boomy and has great sustain and a rich, but controlled overtone content. Andy's guitars are very versatile to virtually any playing style, so although this guitar was built as a classical, it sounds both at home also as a flamenco, if pushed. It has a lightweight feel, with a big explosive attack followed by a rich sound of big overtones in every note. Materials are gorgeous including a beautiful set of CSA rosewood (with beautiful "3D quilting" throughout) for the sides and back. Overall an excellent and well-made concert instrument by any standard.

Photos of this guitar being built.

Prior to building, Andy Culpepper started to play classical guitar as a teenager, and later transitioned into flamenco - he even studied flamenco in Spain and has since done a good amount of performing - solo, accompanying and dance. As with many luthiers, Andy's first guitar was to build himself an instrument to play on but after showing the guitar around, he began getting orders, and so eventually decided to become a full-time luthier. His formal studies were done with Richard Cogger, a classical and flamenco guitar maker in Ithaca. Andy shared work space with him for a couple of years before establishing his own shop where he continues to work today. So his guitars are truly a "players" instrument, very easy to play and responsive to both the left and right hands. Andy believes that the best guitars are still modeled on the designs and ideas of Antonio de Torres (1817-1892) and admires him for his constant experimenting with different ideas. The "open bar" system of top bracing, where the outer fan struts pass through openings in the harmonic bars, is a key design element in Andy's classical guitars and it creates an extremely responsive, clear, even and beautiful tone that can envelop the listener in a kind of "surround sound"- quite an experience to hear and perfect for any concert hall. Andy prefers also to work in a traditional manner - very few power tools, and as much by hand as possible to achieve the maximum amount of control over the quality of his work. His guitars are assembled by first joining the neck to the top to precisely establish the center line of the guitar. This assembly is placed face down on a solera, or workboard, and the sides are slotted into the heel block, and glued to the top with individual glue blocks called tentalones. Finally the back is fitted and the box is closed. The bridge is glued on before finishing, because Andy likes to play all of his guitars "in the white" and refine the voice by sanding the top if necessary. Finally, the entire guitar is finished in French polish of shellac, applied completely by hand with the traditional muñeca, or cloth pad.