Tag Archives: Paredes Rodriguez¸ Luis Alberto

Luis Alberto Paredes Rodriguez

Twenty-seven-year GAL member Alberto Paredes Rodríguez was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Along with studies in engineering, he took up instrument construction as a hobby in 1959, and in 1977 he became a GAL member. He has built more than a thousand instruments including guitars, bandolas, tiples, mandolinas, cuatros, violins, and gambas. He is the author of La Guitarra Clásica Moderna: Historia, diseño y construcción, a Spanish-language lutherie book.

▪ bio current as of 2018

Questions: Guitar Bindings can be Thicker Than Sides

2018
AL#134 p.69               
Luis-Alberto Paredes-Rodriguez                                                                                           

▪ Is it bad to cut into the lining when routing a binding channel? Paredes says no it’s actually a good thing. He shows how he does it, and says that in this he is a follower of the late Arthur Overholtzer.

The Colombian Andean Bandola

2008
AL#96 p.34               read this article
Luis-Alberto Paredes-Rodriguez   Manuel-Bernal Martinez                                                                                       

▪ The Andean bandola (isn’t that cool to say? Makes you want to have one) looks like a big 6-course flattop mandolin, though it stems just as much from the guitar. Bandola development went into over drive during the 1960s and continues today. In fact, the authors have developed a bandola family. One version owes a lot to the ever-influential Greg Smallman. With 25 photos, a string gauge chart, and a tuning chart. Includes reduced image of GAL Instrument Plan #59.

The Colombian Tiple

2005
AL#82 p.34   BRB7 p.341            
Luis-Alberto Paredes-Rodriguez                                                                                           

▪ Tracking the evolution of Spanish-based South American instruments can be complicated. Fortunately luthiers don’t have to care about it since we live in the present, or at least many of us try to. The Colombian tiple is a four course, 12-string instrument a bit smaller than a classical guitar, and not like the Martin tiple at all. The heart of this article is the 2 page version of GAL plan #51. The text dabbles with instrument history and offers a string gauge chart as well as a family tree of the tiple, bandola, and guitar. The most intriguing text involves the author’s method in compensating the nut when different gauges of strings are used in the same course. With 1 photo.

This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.