Otto Vowinkel

Guitar maker Amsterdam

questions

Jerry Albrecht bought a 2A flamenco guitar and asked me if I could elaborate a little on the differences between a classical and a flamenco guitar. I guess this might be interesting for other guitarists as well.

Traditionally a flamenco guitar has cypress back and sides, a lower action than its classical counterpart and a slightly different neck angle. Also the top is a little thinner than the one of a classical guitar. To protect the top from damage of the golpes, flamenco guitars have tap plates – the so called golpeadores. Traditionally wooden pegs were used for tuning but nowadays more and more people use tuning machines because this is easier tuning. Flamenco guitars with rosewood back and sides are called ‘flamenca negra’.

The 2A guitars are made in the Picado workshop. The guitars are made by hand after my design. They are made in small series, and varnished in stead of french polished. The guitar which can be heard and seen on the youtube video is a 2A flamenco guitar.

winners

Two winners of competitions in the last two weeks.

Sanel Redzic won the first prize of the competition of the Guitarmania Festival in  Lisabon, Portugal. He is doing great! Winning competitions al the time and giving concerts al over the place. Congratulations Sanel!  For the guitar facts likers among us, Sanel plays a cedar/coco bolo guitar, built in 2010. See more of him on youtube.

The other winner is Tariq Harb. He won the first prize a the Montreal Guitar Competition in Canada. I have only heard him play on youtube which I liked very much and wrote about earlier. Of course congratulations to him as well! And for the guitar facts likers : Tariq plays a spruce / rosewood built in 1996.