Voicing is an ambitious endeavour, and combines a variety of techniques to optimize the acoustic system and behaviour of the main guitar components. While I would consider voicing to be one of the most difficult techniques to learn in lutherie, I encourage my students to learn the basics and do some experiments. Our focus is on using measurements of static deflection, tap tones, and Chladni mode patterns. FFT-analysis may be used on the finished instrument to obtain its acoustic fingerprint.

Below is a gallery of Tom’s guitar top, fully braced. The goal was to close the circle at the one-and-a-half Chladni mode, and to our joy we managed to realize this. It can be quite difficult to manipulate the top in order to close this acoustically relevant mode pattern.