Redesigning the Acoustic Guitar

As a musician, I am foremost a singer. I love to play my vocal chords. Unfortunately, it's not always easy and fun to make music without an instrument behind the singing. Enter the guitar, one of the few instruments that allows the freedom to sing and play at the same time. My first came into my hands about 9 years ago, and I haven't looked back since.

The acoustic guitar is one of the most versatile instruments ever made, as evidenced by the use and evolution of guitar-like instruments through the centuries. It is also (in my opinion) one of the most beautiful sounding and beautifully made. The earliest "guitarish" stringed instruments called tanburs date back to Ancient Egypt, 3500-4000 years ago. Designs changed as time passed and ideas were passed through different cultures; most, like the European lute, were small bodied with less than five strings. It wasn't until the mid 19th century that the modern six string acoustic guitar began to take shape, with Antonion Torres' invention of the classical guitar. The larger body size and modified proportions improved the guitar's volume and tone; over 160 years later, this design remains largely the same.

Dan Bouillez's new guitar design is an attempt to change that. His guitar is shaped and sized like a regular guitar, with one major difference - the soundboard.

The soundboard on a guitar is the top face of wood where most of the sound generation occurs. When a note on a guitar is played, the vibration from the string is channeled through the bridge to the soundboard, which then also vibrates and causes the tone to resonate into the body and project (typically) out the soundhole in the center. Most acoustic guitars have a fixed soundboard attached around its perimeter to the side pieces.

The Bouillez guitar is different. It boasts a "floating" soundboard that is not connected to the guitar sides at all, but instead is connected to the rest of the guitar only at the bridge. The soundboard is pressed against the neck block and tail block inside the body, and is supported by the "downward and tensile force of the strings". In addition, the soundboard uses a goatskin material, and its thickness is 1/10 of that of a normal guitar board. The Bouillez design allows the soundboard more freedom to vibrate, supposedly creating clearer tones, improved response, and better tone.

I applaud Dan Bouillez for engineering a unique alternative to today's all-too-familiar guitar construction. But how does it sound? After listening to this video of Jesse Solomon playing the Bouillez, I think the sound has the slight flavor of a banjo, fast response and clear tones but a bit metallic and mechanical. Music is in the ears of the listener, of course, and to be sure the music would be better with a higher quality recording. But take a listen and tell me what you think.

Sources:

Bouillez Acoustic Guitar - gizmag.com

Bouillez Acoustics

Guitar images from dannycenter.org, introductiontoguitar.com, and gizmag.com