Photo from Happy Guitar Music Store by Marcin Skawiński
Classical vs Flamenco
Flamenco guitar
Classical Vs Flamenco Guitar
Telling apart flamenco guitar from classical guitar can be hard when you do not know what to look at. Both instruments are acoustic guitars with nylon or carbon strings looking more or less similar – especially to a novice.
While you can tell an acoustic from a classical guitar just by looking at the fretboard, there are no easy warning signs for classical and flamenco models. Instead, you must work with practice and apply your knowledge of guitar construction, tonewoods, and ultimately tone.
Here we will cover the differences and similarities so you can differ one from another and give some clues regarding buying a good instrument for you.
Flamenco guitar “negra” with transparent golpeador (Perez)
Main differences between classical and flamenco guitar stem from the basic purpose of those instruments. Classical guitar is primarily a solo instrument for performing classical music. So the sound must be clear, full, loud, contain many harmonics and with great sustain.
Flamenco guitar was built with a task of accompanying flamenco dancers and singers in mind along with some percussive capabilities so was all about aggressive and loud sound. Characteristic sound of flamenco guitar contains even some amount of string buzz (how much exactly depends on players preferences). What is more, flamenco players often tap guitar top with their fingers to produce some percussive effects (golpe).
From those requirements comes one difference between flamenco and classical guitar: string height over the freatboard. Classical guitar usually have string action set higher to avoid any buzz while strings of flamenco guitar can have its strings set much lover as some buzz is not only acceptable but even welcome.
Flamenco guitar, to make it easier to produce percussive effects also needs to have its strings set lover over the guitar top. So, the bridge of flamenco guitar will be much lower than of classical guitar. Height of the strings over the top of flamenco guitar next to its bridge usually is between 5 and 8mm. Height of the strings of classical guitar at this point does not matter and are usually much higher – around 10-13mm.
To protect top of flamenco guitar from being injured by fingernails while making percussive effects it is covered with a protection plate – golpeador (a bit similar to pickguard at acoustic guitar). This protective plate can have a form of a single plate or two plates placed under and over a sound hole. Nowadays this plate is usually transparent plastic cover but earlier it was white or black what can be observed on vintage flamenco guitars.
The presence of the golpeador is the easiest and first to spot mark of flamenco guitar.
Flamenco guitar “blanca”
Tonewoods and Materials
Guitar tops
Tops of flamenco and classical guitars are maid mainly from spruce and cedar – so here is no difference between them.
Guitar body
The situation gets interesting when we will examine guitar body materials. Here the variety of tonewoods is much wider. Both classical and flamenco guitar can have its body made of various rosewoods with Indian rosewood being the most popular. Many says that Brazilian rosewood is the best tonewood out there but due to recent restrictions of harvesting and trading became very scarce and as such was almost completely replaced by Indian (and Madagascar) kind.
Here we must introduce types of flamenco guitars: “blanca” and “negra”. Blanca is a basic type of flamenco guitar, more popular of the two. Its body is made of cypress which is a bright wood – hence the name “blanca” – in contrary to “negra” which can have its body made of various, but always “dark” woods (usually Indian or Madagascar rosewoods – but also from pau ferro, grenadillo, cocobolo and others).
Blanca is a basic type of flamenco guitar originally destined to be percussive, accompanying instrument. (Usually is also cheaper than negra as cedar is much cheaper than darker kinds of woods). Withing time flamenco playing technique developed and flamenco guitar became fully solo instrument what resulted in emerging a need for more sonorous, more melodic instrument. From this need negra emerged with its harder, darker tonewoods adding sustain as well as the guitar’s ability to project sound across distance.
The body of a classical guitar “never” is cypress, hence the willingness to say that any “bright looking” guitar would be a flamenco guitar. Unfortunately, classical guitars are quite often made of maple which is also very bright – so unless we are able to differ those two tonewoods the fact of the guitar looking bright is not enough to say it is a flamenco guitar. Body of flamenco guitar is usually more shallow than body of classical guitar.
Is It Possible to Play Flamenco on a Classical Guitar?
As classical guitars do not have golpeadors so playing flamenco music can damage your guitar quite quickly. Of course, you can play some phrases, chords but you should avoid any percussive effects.
The opposite approach is more reasonable – playing classical music on a flamenco guitar. It can work especially with the flamenco guitar of the Negra type due to the better decay and fuller sound of such a guitar. If you want to reduce the buzzing of the frets, you can set the strings of your flamenco guitar a little higher – this way your Flamenco Negra guitar can become quite a versatile instrument. This solution is not perfect, but it can be used if necessary.
Conclusion
The differences between classical guitar and flamenco guitar are sometimes very subtle, but they become more and more important as the guitarist progresses. The basic pieces can be played on either of the two types of guitar, while for an increasingly advanced repertoire, these small differences determine whether that piece can be performed and sounded the best. If you specialize in classical or flamenco music, you need a suitable, specialized instrument. If you want to have a guitar with nylon strings at home to play a few chords from time to time and don’t know what you’ll be playing in the future, we recommend a Negra type of flamenco guitar with the strings set a little higher and enjoy a fairly versatile instrument.
