Jon Loomes

Some guitars have names. 

I call this one The Mistress.

Built from Brazilian rosewood and Adirondack spruce, it was conceived from the first pencil stroke around CGCDGA tuning. Based on the classic pre-war Martin 000 pattern, every aspect of the structure was optimised to support the demands of that tuning.

The soundboard was tap tuned to emphasise the principal partials of C, G, D and A, borrowing an approach more familiar to cello making than steel-string guitar construction. A slightly more compliant bass tone bar allowed the top to respond more readily to the low C, avoiding the natural tendency of a conventional guitar to favour the low E around which most modern instruments are designed.

The result is an instrument that does not merely tolerate CGCDGA, but speaks with it naturally. It delivers exceptional note definition with surprising power, while retaining the warmth and complexity I was aiming for.

The relic finish is entirely deliberate. Traditional songs carry centuries of memory with them, and audiences instinctively expect those stories to emerge from an instrument that already appears to have lived a life of its own.