By Michael Eck
Rosewood. Mahogany. Maple. Cedar. Koa. Myrtlewood.
As they used to sing on Sesame Street, “One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong … “
Myrtlewood, right? The rest are on the list of common and well-loved musical tonewoods. You probably have some guitars made out them sitting in a case or on a stand nearby. Maybe one’s in your lap right now.
But myrtlewood does indeed belong. As Breedlove has discovered, the species— specifically Oregon Myrtlewood, virtually from Bend’s backyard—makes an excellent choice for guitars, even an inspiring one, with a sound as unique and identifiable as a fingerprint.
“Myrtlewood has the most uniform cellular structure of any wood on the planet,” says Cyril Jacob, “which, talking apples to apples, makes it an exceptional tonewood on that basis alone.”
“It’s so beautiful,” crows Angela Christensen. “There are streaks of color and contrast, golden hues to dark browns, lovely reds and even very black lines. It grabs your eye. I’ve seen variations that look like feathers running through. Sometimes it’s almost marbled in its patterns. Then you add figure to that, and you have this whole other layer of depth. You get a real three-dimensionality when you put finish on it. It’s just stunning. It looks different than anything else you’ve ever seen.”
“Sonically, it’s amazing,” according to Colin Besancon. “It hits such a sweet spot. You get a magnificent low-end presence, a rich bass timbre, but you also get the benefit of it being more crisp and clear in the high end, without being too bright. I like to tell people that if rosewood and maple had a baby, it would be myrtlewood. “
At his Tillamook sawmill, Jacob sources and prepares myrtle, walnut and other woods for Breedlove. Four hours southeast, in Bend, Christensen buys it. And Besancon takes completed guitars, more and more of them myrtle-based, to eager dealers so the Breedlove Difference can land in your hands!
Jacob, in fact, has been gathering individually harvested wood for Breedlove for over 15 years, and he has a keen forester’s sense of which logs will truly sing. He marvels at the fact that his digs, Breedlove’s shop and stands of the best tonewood he’s ever heard all lie within a few hundred miles of each other.
“If anyone has a conscience about their carbon footprint,” Jacob says, “they’d realize that if we have some of the best tonewoods in the world right outside the door, it would be really silly not to use them.”
Jacob doesn’t gather his myrtlewood trunks, smaller than other tonewoods in height and girth, from those stands, though. He prefers, as all Breedlove suppliers do, to find “salvaged, dead and down” trees, some centuries old.
Myrtle, it turns out, makes mighty fine paper chips, too, and often enough, Jacob rescues a few logs from pallets bound for pulp. Others turn myrtle, with its unique look, for bowls and tableware.
All three would rather see it split into billets for Breedlove guitars.
“It’s incredibly beautiful,” Jacob says, echoing Christensen. “In most woods like walnut or maple, for instance, what’s considered figure is fiddleback, quilt, burl or spalting, and that’s graded on intensity. In myrtlewood, the variations in color are graded the same as figure. You get really radical variations, like stripey, flamey patterns in the color bands—all kinds of amazing things which you’ll see in the variety of myrtlewood instruments Breedlove makes.”
Christensen agrees with Jacob, not just about myrtle’s visual dazzle, but its inherent sound qualities as well. Despite the myriad markings, myrtle is remarkably consistent tonally.
“Once you pick it up and you hear the tone you get out of a myrtle instrument, you’ll immediately notice the balance,” she says. “You can get those nice bass tones, but you can get shimmery highs, too. It’s articulate. It’s immensely versatile. You can really drive it and it doesn’t collapse. It doesn’t muddy. Yet you can play lightly and it still speaks.”
A Breedlove Oregon Myrtlewood Concerto vibrates throughout its length. Each note speaks individually, building to a symphonic chorus as all six strings join together. It boasts a clarity almost unheard of in traditional tonewoods, somewhere between the crowded bloom of rosewood and the dry fundamental of mahogany, or, as Bescanon would have it, the sparkle of maple. When paired with other woods, it strikes Christensen’s balance, its presence and quick response making the combination shine.
Christensen is not only responsible for raw wood management in Bend, she is also the designer in charge of Product Development for Breedlove. When you strum a Breedlove concertina, concert or concerto, you have Christensen and the team of craftsmen to thank. Those new body shapes bring out the best in the materials that make them, but she has a special love for myrtlewood, noting, of course, in addition to its pretty pizzazz and remarkable sound, its sheer workability.
That last bit might seem facile. What does workability have to do with playability, much less sound?
In Christensen’s world, it means everything.
“It’s friendly,” she beams. “Myrtle’s a really nice wood to work with. It machines well, it hand cuts well, it sands nicely.”
A wood that is charming in the maker’s hands will, by its very nature, find its home in a player’s hands. You will play better with a Breedlove.
Besancon built at a Breedlove bench himself before becoming the brand’s western sales manager. Like Christensen, he has been employed in Bend for nearly 20 years. Now, he follows myrtlewood on its path from Jacob’s mill and Christensen’s workstations right through the to the dealer’s doors, where you can experience the Breedlove Difference on your own.
“The trees grow right on our coast,” he says proudly. “It’s about as local as you can get. We were the pioneers of using myrtlewood in guitars. There’s nothing like it.”
