Скачать или смотреть New Gear: Dake Traphagen's EIRCDT Maria is Deeply Inspiring to Play

(Note: In the video above, guitarist and San Francisco Conservatory of Music professor Marc Teicholz demonstrates the Traphagen guitar, playing ‘Caterete’ from Sérgio Assad’s Suite Brasileira #4, and Marc’s arrangement of an excerpt from Bach’s Sonata in E minor for flute and basso continuo, BWV 1034.)

If you’ve ever been in the market for a fine concert instrument, there’s a good chance you’ve come across the unusual name of Dake Traphagen—one of the preeminent American luthiers, and the mentor of none other than Pepe Romero Jr.

After putting together dulcimers and other folk instruments for fun as a teenager, Traphagen began his lutherie training in earnest as an apprentice to the violin maker Ed Hunnington in 1972. Then he opened his own repair shop, where he worked on acoustic instruments in general. At the same time, he built not just violins and guitars but lutes, vihuelas, harpsichords, and other period instruments.

Traphagen, based in Bellingham, Washington, now focuses mainly on classical and steel-string guitars—impressive given the dissimilarities between the instruments. He builds in a fairly traditional manner, though he often uses double soundboards, and sometimes soundports, and is known to make seven- or even eight-string guitars on occasion.

The new classical guitar that Traphagen recently submitted for review—EIRCDT Maria—is a good representation of the luthier’s offerings. As the model acronym suggests, it features old-growth East Indian rosewood back and sides and a cedar double-top. (As for Maria, the luthier is in the habit of giving each of his instruments a name.) An audition of Maria reveals that the instrument clearly lives up to its maker’s reputation.