Guitar &c.

Always intrigued by the links between mathematics and music, I was captivated by this little book full of wonderful illustrations.

At first you might question the relevance of a book about a scientific instrument which became a popular parlor entertainment among genteel victorians. The book’s full title, Harmon­ograph: a visual guide to the mathematics of music gives a better clue to it’s deeper attractions. Beyond detailing the history, use, and construction of the Harmonograph (an appendix even includes DIY instructions for building your own), the book is a beautiful introduction to the mathematics harmonic theory. It’s certainly a more effective and engaging introduction to the topic than some college-level texts I’ve read on the subject. Because of the book’s heavy bias toward concise visual explanations, I came away with a stronger intuitive grasp of a number of musical topics: this little volume explains the construction of the Western musical scale and the differences between just and equal temperament as well as, or even better than, other longer and more technically oriented texts.

The book would be a fantastic companion to meatier textbooks on musical acoustics. But the book’s primary appeal is not its pedagogical value, but simply its visual beauty and engaging writing. It will appeal to diverse interests including the armchair mathematician, the musical amateur, the steam-punk aficionado, the artist and the tinkerer, among others. It’s part of a series which the publisher describes as “a collectable series of concise books offering simple introductions to timeless sciences and vanishing arts.” Based on the charm of this edition, I suspect other volumes from the series may find their way to my bookshelf as well.

I hadn’t expected to like this book as much as I did.  I received the book as a gift, and had judged the book from its cover as being too “popular”.  I’m a classical guitarist and I figured the book was mostly about dreadnoughts and electrics.  In fact the book is about all of the instruments called guitar: flamenco, acoustic steel, resonator, classical, electric, hawaiian, etc., and how they are linked to one another.

Brookes tells the story of the guitar in America from the earliest instruments accompanying colonists and immigrants from Europe to the diversity of instruments called guitars today.  The book follows the development of the guitar through both its social and technological developments.  You learn how the pre-Segovia “Spanish” guitar evolved through a series of interesting and incremental changes to the modern amplified electric and everything in between.  I found many of Brookes’s anecdotes about the social history of the guitar every bit as interesting as its technological evolution.

Between the historical chapters, Brookes also weaves the tale of the birth of his own guitar: a concert jumbo custom built for him by luthier Rick Davis.  I’ve never commissioned a guitar, but owning two handmade guitars, this part of the book was particularly interesting.   Brookes inserts a short chapter about the construction of his own instrument between each of the longer chapters about broader evolution of the guitar.  These are not how-to chapters, but they give a good picture of the choices and compromises that go into making one individual guitar.  

As an overview of the last 150+ years of guitar evolution, the book really is informative.  Brookes’s writing style is entertaining and engaging; I like that he leans more toward story-teller than historian.  The story of his own guitar being built helps make the historical information more tangible and personal: this is a story about how people used the instrument to make music (and sometimes money) in ways that kept the guitar vital and evolving while many of its peers have become exhibits in vintage instrument museums.