Building the Ultimate Fingerstyle Guitar

[royd]

I always smile when I see these threads asking for the "perfect fingerstyle" or other type guitar. Obviously there is some common wisdom and maybe even some common expectations but I have a few observations...

guitars may be designed with one thing in mind and end up being used in a completely different way. The OM, Orchestra Model, was designed to be played with an orchestra, presumably to be strummed. Now many say it is the perfect fingerstyle guitar. But Sean Watkins uses an OM for bluegrass... which leads to

second and more important - players may use any guitar that speaks to them to make whatever music they want...

Many folk talk about small bodies being best and argue that dreads and jumbos are terrible for fingerstyle. Michael Hedges used a Martin D28 for most of his career. I assume he thought it was the ultimate guitar for his fingerstyle playing. Pierre Bensusan played a Lowden O for a large percentage of his career up to now. Many if not all of my favorite fingerstyle players play big guitars rather than small ones and as I noted Sean Watkins is known for using a smaller guitar for flatpicking in genres that everyone assumes presumes a dreadnought.

So, what is the ultimate fingerstyle guitar? It will be something different for you than it is for me. What should you build as a builder? That is a different question altogether...

[jhchang]

Originally Posted by royd

guitars may be designed with one thing in mind and end up being used in a completely different way. The OM, Orchestra Model, was designed to be played with an orchestra, presumably to be strummed. Now many say it is the perfect fingerstyle guitar.

Interesting point that you brought up. I wonder if it is that since fingerstyle requires a lot of advanced techniques to be fluent, by the time when you get there you'd have probably passed mid-life for most people. Therefore larger guitars would not be as comfortable as the smaller ones at that point.