52 guitars in a year to make your heart beat #5

1976 Gurian J-M (Emma)

Zoltán

This guitar is lent to the series by Zoltán Tóth. Zoltán is one of the best luthiers in Hungary. He has been taking care of my guitars for more than a decade now. You find his page HERE. Zoltán worked on over 15.000 instruments until he found this Gurian.

He knew that this might be his guitar when he opened the case for the first time. And he was right. On the first night, he played Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower over and over, and later he found out that the original owner of this guitar played Dylan songs exclusively on it. Zoltán made me very happy by lending his guitar. It was an honor to play this beauty for a week.

Susan

Susan, the original owner bought it in New York City in the late seventies and called her Emma. She loved the instrument so much and now she is really happy that the beloved Gurian J-M found the best home an acoustic can at Zoltán’s place. She mailed me this fiber art piece she crafted earlier:

Song

The Truth Bell is one of my originals that fits this guitar very well. The recording is a first take. I think it was a success in capturing the soul of the music and the instrument. You can subscribe to my youtube channel HERE to follow the 52 Guitars in One Year series and other stuff related to acoustic guitar and music.

Sound

First, it was a goosebump feeling to play the guitar. Its voice is aged well and brings out those excellent dry mids. Second I fell in love with the balanced tone. Even with this Jumbo body, the guitar is not boomy but has quite balanced frequencies. My favorite was to play with fingers on it, but it responded very nicely to a pick. It has an infinite amount of horsepower under the hood. The Gurian sound is unique. You should try one if you have the opportunity. My conclusion is that I would like to play more Gurians. 🙂

I also made an overview video with the instrument. I played Come Together, a Hungarian folk melody ‘Köszöntő’, and some harmonics here:

Learn

If you’d like to learn my version of Come Together, you can! 🙂
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Come Together | fingerstyle arrangement | on-screen tab – GPX – PDF