In 1992, Larry Breedlove made a bold statement, introducing the Breedlove Concert shape to the world. The instrument’s hourglass waist, rounded shoulders and distinctive headstock looked familiar, but new at the same time. The body was sleeker than an antique, while still paying homage to the classic six-string form. And its inner workings, including a graduated top and an innovative, for the time, bridge truss, proclaimed it a pioneer—an adaptable, modern music-making machine.
“The Breedlove sound that Larry designed back in the early 90s,” says Two Old Hippies founder Tom Bedell, “was an absolutely incredible sounding guitar if you were in a smaller space, so that the room contributed to the sound, and you weren't competing with other ambient or other instrumental sounds. He wanted to create a very versatile guitar, but one that specialized in fingerstyle play. His goal was not volume, but overtones and complexity of sound.”
The bridge truss, which actually suppressed the top’s vibration, is gone, and Sound Optimization has fully refined the instrument, returning both the volume and the actual versatility. Improved, the Concert is still winning hearts and ears alike.
It also serves, now, as the basis for the U.S. Breedlove line of contemporary acoustic guitars. In the simplest terms, the Concert begat the larger Concerto as well as the smaller Concertina.
Each model will be explored in depth in future essays, but Bedell and Breedlove designer Angela Christensen also have thoughts on how the three shapes work together to serve the needs of today’s acoustic player.
“The Concert design represented 70 percent of our sales before we introduced the Concerto and the Concertina,” Bedell says. “It’s the trademark Breedlove shape and what we really did with the Concerto and Concertina was to take that shape, which we think is very, very appealing, and extend the dimensions in size and depth for the Concerto and minimize them for the Concertina. When you look at the three of them, the body profile is very similar and we did that for aesthetic reasons.”
“Then, we went in to study air chamber and frequency separation to maximize the performance of those body shapes. That's the journey that we went on. We had a particular look in mind, knowing our customers would agree, ‘That's what a guitar should look like.’”
“The shapes are unique,” Christensen says. They’re slightly different than any other maker and visibly so. The instruments are sleek. They're not as clunky as many others. They're more comfortable to hold. They look Breedlove!”
Christensen says the process of developing the line was simple, if you consider countless calculations, trials, tribulations and prototypes simple. Everything from depth of body to size of sound hole was considered in engineering the line, even before the careful measurements of Sound Optimization were taken in to account.
“The reason every one of those three sound hole sizes are different is to accentuate the performance of that particular body shape,” says Bedell.
Playability was a major factor, too.
The very deep lower bout of the Concerto, for example, tapers radically, making a large guitar extremely comfortable to play, on the knee or on a strap. For a guitar to get played, Christensen stresses, it has to be ergonomic as well as elegant.
And each instrument was put fully through its paces before the next in line.
The big-bodied Concerto—clearly the child of the Concert—for example, came before the Concertina, which, while diminutive, is a powerhouse on its own terms, and the logical sibling for those with smaller frames or pickers who prefer a couch guitar over just about anything else in the world.
“Once we achieved the larger body shape we decided to go for the more typical parlor size, if you will,” says Christensen. “That's what started us on the path to what eventually became the Concertina. Again, starting from the Concert body shape, we modified it to be a little bit smaller. Then, again, we just played with the dynamics from the taper to the sound hole to achieve what we wanted, and to fit what people are used to size-wise with a parlor instrument.”
“To me,” Bedell adds,” there's a kind of intimacy with that guitar that is very, very special. If you play it next to another brand of parlor, you'd be delighted at the difference in sound.”
“The first reaction that players have is, ‘Wow! that's a lot of sound for a little body.’ The second thing that we hear when people play it is how snug it is. It belongs in your arms. It's just a little sweetheart to hold. It invites itself into your lap.”
