Portuguese Guitar - Models

Models

Presently, two distinct Portuguese guitar models are built: the Lisboa model and the Coimbra model.

The differences between the two models are the scale length (445 mm of free string length is used in Lisboa guitars and 470 mm in Coimbra guitars), body measurements, and other finer construction details. Overall, the Coimbra model is of simpler construction than the Lisboa model. Visually and most distinctively, the Lisboa model can easily be differentiated from the Coimbra model for its larger soundboard and the scroll ornament that usually adorns the tuning machine, in place of Coimbra's teardrop shaped motif. Lisboa guitars usually employ a narrower neck profile as well. Both models have a very distinct timbre, the Lisboa model having a more bright and resonant sound, and the choice between the both of them falls upon each players preferences.

As early as 1905 luthiers were building larger Portuguese guitars (called guitarrão, the plural being guitarrões), seemingly in very small numbers and with limited success. Recently, the famed luthier Gilberto Grácio has built a guitarrão, which he named a guitolão instead; this instrument which allows for a wider timbric range, on the low and the high end, than a regular Portuguese guitar.

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