Actually, there isn't a great deal of difference between classical and flamenco guitars. Over the years I've had—ye gods!—a total of seven classic guitars and three flamenco guitars. And three travel guitars.

[It isn't that I'm hard on guitars;   part of it is that I kept "trading up." Another part is that I usually kept two guitars at any given time:   one "party guitar" to use when I didn't know how safe it might be (possibility of theft, someone tripping and spilling a beer through the soundhole, etc.) and a very good guitar to use for concerts and such.]

A flamenco guitar is basically a classic guitar with a few small differences. Both use a fan-bracing system under the soundboard, but on a flamenco guitar, the bracing may be a bit lighter. And the back and sides are made of cypress rather that rosewood or other dark, hard woods. The nut and bridge are set up so the strings are a bit closer to the fingerboard. A slight "fret-buzz" is characteristic of the flamenco sound, and this also facilitates fast scale work. Other that that, the details of construction are identical.

Initially, the flamenco guitar was a classic guitar that was inexpensive enough for a gypsy guitarist to afford, and Spanish cypress is a lot cheaper than rosewood. Also, boring six holes in the headstock and sticking straight pegs into them was a lot cheaper than geared tuning machines. It turned out that cypress, compared to rosewood, produced a punchier sound, capable of cutting through the sounds of the singers and dancers somewhat better than the fuller, richer sound reflected by hard woods like rosewood, and this became a characteristic of the flamenco sound.

As I said, I've had three flamenco guiters. The first one was a Domingo Esteso (Sobrino de Domingo Esteso) sold to me in 1957 by a classmate at the University of Washington School of Music who had just returned from Madrid, had another flamenco guitar, and felt he didn't need two guitars. Sold it to me for $100 – Hosanna!! It had an incredible sound, but it was awfully bass-heavy. It also had push-pegs.

I've heard people say that a flamenco guitar has to have push-pegs to be a "real" flamenco guitar. Some maintain that the metal in geared tuning machines changes the sound. Well, two things about that:   I've played flamenco guitars with both tuning systems and I can detect no difference in the quality and characteristics of the sound. And—anyone who has had to wrestle with those bloody push-pegs in an effort to get the guitar in tune, and prefers them to tuning machines, has got to have a screw loose in addition to being a raving masochist!

In 1961, with the aid of a friend who made regular yearly trips to Spain, I acquired an Arcangel Fernandez flamenco guitar—with geared tuning machines—and this guitar is the flagship of my fleet of guitars. In addition to being an outrageous instrument, it has appreciated over the years to where it has been appraised as being worth some 150 times what I paid for it. Mine looks like this:   CLICKY #1.   Except that mine has a clear plastic tape-plate (golpeador) rather than the white plastic. Also, the one in the picture is #153 (note the label inside the sound hole). Mine is #135.

Shortly thereafter, as a second guitar, I got a "Casa Fernandez" flamenco guitar, made by one of Arcangel Fernandez' apprentices and approved by him for sale under his "Casa" label. It, too, was a fine sounding and playing instrument, although not the equal of the Arcangel. Here is a photo of my actual Casa Fernandez:    CLICKY #2.

[Regarding this photo:    While googling for information on the Seattle World's Fair in 1962, particularly the Sunday afternoon folk concerts at the U. N. Pavilion during the fair, I stumbled into that photo in the U. of W. Library's photo archives. There were photographers all over the place, and we just got to ignoring them, so I was unaware that this was being taken while we were tuning up and getting ready to go on. That's me, seated, showing my recently acquired Casa Fernandez to Judy Flenniken, a young lady with a very big singing voice, who was looking for a better guitar and wanted to know where she could get one like mine (she and I did several concerts together the following year). I don't recognize the banjo player, but the young woman in the background warming up her fingers is Nancy Quensé, still very active around here these days.]

Flamenco guitars, as noted, come equipped with golpeador, or tap-plates to protect the soundboard from the percussive tapping (golpé) that flamenco guitarists do. Also, flamenco guitarists almost always use a çejilla (say-HEE-ya), same function as a capo, generally somewhere between the second and seventh frets. This is not necessarily to change keys, it is to change the tone of the guitar and to move the action up to where the frets are closer together to facilitate rapid scalework in the falsettas (scale runs, general improvisation). Within recent years, some flamenco guitarists prefer the somewhat deeper, richer sound produced by darker woods like rosewood. These guitars are referred to as "flamenco negro" as opposed to "flamenco blanca" (like the ones I have owned). Other than the lower action and the tap-plates, I don't see that there is any difference between a "flamenco negro" guitar and a classic guitar.

I had a chance to take about five months' lessons from a genuine flamenco guitarist in 1962 (Antonio Zori, who accompanied the dance troupe at the Spanish Village at the Seattle World's Fair), and got to the point where I could add a few flamenco solos along with the classic guitar solos I would sometimes insert into a coffeehouse set. I got pretty good at it, but of course something like this was far, far beyond me!   CLICKY #3.

Don Firth