INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION
I am Paula Lazzarini, guitar maker
I make classical guitars since
2007, 2008 when
I started with my workshop in Buenos Aires
I am from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
and after a few years. More or less
between 2011 2012
I traveled to Italy for the first time.
I met several guitar makers
in France, in Holland, in Spain
and in 2016 I moved to a city
Italian city called Cremona.
And well, there is where I have my guitar workshop.
and in 2021 I entered the Granada
Classical Guitar Making Competition
and got the first
prize of the competition.
I always worked on an aesthetic line
and sound linked to the French school
by Daniel Friederich
and that’s why I always have a close call.
I really like to work with cedar tops
red cedar
which I really like the combination with
the Rosewood, because I can work
a bass depth. I can work
a good comfort also for the top,
where they are not too rigid tops,
where they need a lot of energy
to get those tops to move.
And then there’s basically I like
really, really like to work the red cedar because
it adds to the sound that I
I’ve always been looking for a sound,
so it represents me.
The guitar maker is always there
(It is normal and logical)
looking for a sound that represents himself.
A sound to represent the hours
of work behind
of his instrument,
of his hours of searching for.
Of research in terms of not only how
making the guitar, but that there is
a final sound that is representative.
When we listen to a guitar
from a certain guitar maker,
we often say ah,
represents the sound a little bit, I don’t know,
of the Australian school,
or the Spanish school,
or the French school of guitar, right?
Well, in this case, I think that
my personal quest has always been
look for something that to me in the
personally represents me.
When I work the spruce
a lot of times I’m watching to make sure
they’re not too stiff tops
that is not a hard sound
in the sense of a top
that needs a lot of right hand
energy for that it can move,
because my sound rather goes
towards a base… towards a warmer color.
And in the equation, a lot of times with the
spruce we need to add that warmth to it.
We know a lot of times that spruce
is a very bright sound.
Spruce has a lot of projection,
a very bright sound.
When there’s an excess of that brightness,
it’s even a little bit metallic.
So, in order not to fall into that metallic
sound, I need to work it so that
get some of the sweetness back,
some darker color.
But that’s why in the cedar,
which is a top, it’s rigid, but it’s also
it gives certain ease at the time of playing
in itself gives me one more warmth
aspect in the sound production.
In the case of cedar-like spruce,
I always look for the qualities
that they can be flexible, not only
longitudinally, but they have to have
transverse flexibility as well.
But it is important the longitudinal
that it’s not just stiffness
per see
According to the repertoire,
we can work
from the beginning of guitar making,
the height of the string,
the good playability of the guitar,
the tension the guitar is going to have
also that. We can control that
if we add or remove certain internal reinforcements.
The guitar making.
The guitar maker’s road is very long
and we are always adding new ones
pieces of information and, of course,
changing previous ideas.
A lot of times we have the idea of that book
about how making a guitar and
we read the book and we start to make
the guitar and it’s not going to come out
the guitar we want.
So it’s interesting to listen to
the masters, the guitar makers
from many years ago who have a lot of
more experience and that’s very nourishing.
For example,
when I met Daniel Friederich in Paris
by the year 2011,
the impression of a person
of a very long history that he knew
many, many important musicians.
Already the fact that he was telling me
for example
Leo Brouwer in a city has
my guitar strings are over here
and he moves to another city
and the guitar strings height is lower
I mean, he was very insistent that…
…( this is uneconomical)…
(I’m not going to tell you this… let’s get out of it)
He told me that the guitars have
to stay in the city where they’re made.
That’s why you need to edit this… delete all this…
… Friederich was quite mystic
in some things eh?…
