soon as you try to fret it above the 3rd fret
it goes out of tune.” Many players believe
they need very heavy strings to get low
notes, but Greenfield has discovered that,
with the correct scale length, a thinner
string will speak more clearly and sound a
lot better.
“So [using fanned frets is] a better way
to build a guitar because of everything
we’ve just said. Each string has its own
scale length, and as the notes get lower, the
scale is a little bit longer and the funda-
mental of those lower notes will be better
supported.”
Despite popular belief, Greenfield says
fanning frets is not intended to address
intonation issues. “People think they play
in tune better—and they do,” he says,
“but what’s really going on is that, for
those radically altered tunings that folks
are using—even if they are using a fat
string—the guitar has been set up properly
for it. The scale length is there to support
the notes.” That said, Greenfield happily
admits it’s not a design element every
player needs. “If you play in standard tun-
ing all the time, or just drop-D, is it worth
spending the extra money? I don’t think
so. But for DADGAD, double dropped-
D, C tunings, G tunings, and folks who
are playing contemporary repertoire, it’s a
really good thing.”
For guitarists who’ve never played a
fanned-fret guitar before, one of the first
questions is whether that style of fretboard
is more difficult to play. “If you look at
your hand, it naturally wants to splay that
way. With the average fan, most folks just
sit down and play. There’s nothing to get
used to. The very severe fans do take a little
bit of time, and you may have to adapt
your repertoire—because some folks have
these insane stretches. But that really is
very, very rare. And if somebody needs such
a radical fan, they’re playing crazy music
anyway,” Greenfield says with a laugh.
The Black Cherry was commis- sioned by Jacques-André Dupont for the Red Guitar Collection, and it features an alpine spruce top, bigleaf maple sides and back, and ebony fretboard and bindings. The intricate inlay work was done by Larry Robinson.
tight as a Drum
Greenfield also laminates the sides of his
guitars, which is another time-consuming
endeavor. “When I was doing repair work
back in the day, dealing with all the jazzers
in town, there were guys who were collec-
tors. There’s a guy here in [Montreal] who
plays L5s, but only those from after 1963,
when they were using laminated backs.
It’s the sound. And we all know cats out
there who play ES-175s, which also have
the sound. Those are laminated guitars,
too. Linda Manzer makes amazing archtop
guitars, and she offers a laminated guitar,
because there are guys out there who want
an onboard pickup, not floating, and they
want a laminated top and back because
that’s the sound.”
But Greenfield doesn’t mean “plywood”
when he says “laminated.” He uses two sets
of sides, sands them down, bends them,
and then glues them together. “As soon as
you glue two pieces of wood together,” he
explains, “they can’t move. Under tension
and compression, they won’t slide against
each other. That means my rim sets are
much, much more stiff. Essentially, the
guitar is a drum.”
And he’s not just being clever when he
makes that comparison. Greenfield has
studied drum construction closely, and he
really does view a guitar’s top and back
like the top and bottom heads of a drum.
“In a drum, you want to take the sides out
