Interesting Martin HD-28 Larch at Elderly

[Wade Hampton]

I had been vaguely aware that Martin made some guitars with larch tops, but have never seen any in person, much less played any. They've got to be fairly rare birds.

I'd post a picture of the HD-28 Larch that Elderly just got in, but they've changed their picture format and I can't figure out how to do that anymore. But it's a gorgeous guitar:

https://www.elderly.com/catalog/prod...=zaius#details

While I've never played any Martins that had larch tops, I've played plenty of larch-topped musical instruments, mainly when I was in Russia and Scandinavia. It's a commonly used top wood in those northern countries. The Russians, in particular, have a long tradition of using larch for the tops of their balalaikas and seven string guitars.

This Russian 7 string probably has a larch top:

Typical Russian 7 string guitar

At first glance, most of us would assume that the tops on these instruments are cedar, because larch tops do look a lot like cedar. But it's a different species.

If you're not familiar with larch trees, they're conifers like spruce, pine and cedar, and when you see them during the warm months you wouldn't necessarily notice anything different about them:

Larch tree in summer

Unlike those other conifers, though, larches shed their needles during winter:

Larch tree in winter

We didn't have larch trees where I grew up near Kansas City, not that I ever saw, but they grow wild up here in Alaska. The first time I ever saw one with its needles off I thought: "Man, that spruce tree is dead..."

But it wasn't a spruce tree, and it wasn't even slightly dead. It was a larch tree. After I'd been here longer I started watching out for larch trees in their full, glorious transition to winter:

Larch trees in their full autumn glory

Those don't look dead or dying, now, do they?

The larches I've seen growing in Alaska don't have trunks thick enough to make guitar-sized musical instruments out of them. I suspect that the Scandinavian and Russian larches might be a larger, more robust species.

Anyway, if you've never played a larch-topped guitar, they're pretty cool. They're certainly not something you see everyday, not in English-speaking countries, anyway.

So my question to you all is: have any of you played larch-topped guitars or other stringed instruments? When and where? Were you in the company of alarmingly friendly vodka-drinking Russians at the time? (I was....) What have your experiences with larch-topped guitars and larch trees in general been?

Just curious.


Wade Hampton Miller

[Brucebubs]

1992 HD-28 Larch.
Here it is Wade.

[Wade Hampton]

After I whined that I couldn't figure out how to post photos from Elderly anymore, the ever-capable Bruce Campbell in Darkest Australia casually posted:

Originally Posted by Brucebubs

1992 HD-28 Larch.
Here it is Wade.

First: thank you!

Second: how did you do that?


whm

[Brucebubs]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

Second: how did you do that?

Clicked on one of the smaller 'still' images... not their large 'rotating' pic.
Then right click and 'save image as'.

[TerryC]

Thanks to Wade's photos, we should all be able to recognize The Larch from quite a long way away...

[frankmcr]

Taylor custom Grand Auditorium, larch/Indian rosewood, pix & playing demo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq3YIPVjbZU

[JP Richardson]

Originally Posted by TerryC

Thanks to Wade's photos, we should all be able to recognize The Larch from quite a long way away...

This was the first thing that crossed my mind. I’m still laughing. Some may not think it funny and it may just be the kind of thing that you had to be there at the time.

[HHP]

I thought it was a "Lurch" signature model. Hey, why not, Martin has done them for less famous people.

[The Bard Rocks]

I've worked with Larch (Tamarack) for furniture and what I have seen is pretty neat when wet - lots of red stripes. As they dry, the red turns more brown and it ends up resembling southern Yellow Pine, which is nice enough - but not red.

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by Brucebubs

Clicked on one of the smaller 'still' images... not their large 'rotating' pic.
Then right click and 'save image as'.

Thanks!


whm

[rogthefrog]

Originally Posted by TerryC

Thanks to Wade's photos, we should all be able to recognize The Larch from quite a long way away...

I was hoping someone would post that

[zmf]

Originally Posted by TerryC

Thanks to Wade's photos, we should all be able to recognize The Larch from quite a long way away...

The LARCH!

Ha! First thing that came to mind. I think that dates us.

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by JP Richardson

This was the first thing that crossed my mind. I’m still laughing. Some may not think it funny and it may just be the kind of thing that you had to be there at the time.

Well, I missed that back when I was occasionally watching Monty Python, when they first appeared on American TV. Not one of their more riveting routines, I must say...

Then HHP wrote:

Originally Posted by HHP

I thought it was a "Lurch" signature model. Hey, why not, Martin has done them for less famous people.

Lurch singing folk music



Lurch, like, really getting into it



The Martin Lurch Signature model guitar



Lurch's main musical rivals

whm

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

I had been vaguely aware that Martin made some guitars with larch tops, but have never seen any in person, much less played any. They've got to be fairly rare birds.

I've played two or three. I was never impressed with the sound. At the time I thought the regular HD-28's sounded much stronger.

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by Todd Yates

I've played two or three. I was never impressed with the sound. At the time I thought the regular HD-28's sounded much stronger.

That makes sense. If larch is cedar-like in tone as well as looks, it's not going to have as much power or headroom as a spruce top.

As I wrote earlier, my experience with larch tops is limited to those Russian instruments I had a chance to play while in Magadan Oblast, Russia, sitting on daybeds in cramped Soviet-era apartments with carpets on the wall:

˙˙˙

Every home I visited in Magadan was like those, a few small rooms with carpets on the walls and guitars being passed from one person to another. The vodka-drinking was copious and basically mandatory, but I got out of it by claiming that my doctor told me I couldn't drink hard liquor. (It was Doctor Wade Hampton telling me that, but I didn't explain to them exactly which doctor it was.)

There's a popular sport in every country I've visited called "Let's get the gringo drunk!" But I don't care to participate...

ANY-way, the acoustic quality of all those carpets hanging on the walls definitely affected the acoustics of those living rooms, and that probably influenced how I heard those larch-topped guitars.

But with a roomful of people harmonizing on "Moscow Nights," "Katushka" and "Kalinka," those guitars DID sound pretty good.


Wade Hampton Miller

PS: Just so you know, I did not take any of the photos in this post. I'm always too busy playing music to take pictures. But the apartments shown in those photos are typical of the home I visited in Russia.