Extension on a petite bouche

Trovador98 · 2:43PM

I saw a video of Bireli Lagrene playing an oval hole petite bouche guitar that had a fretboard extension out beyond the typical 21 frets. I think it looks cool!

Thoughts? Any reason why they don’t have extensions when some D-holes can go out to 25-26 frets for the high E & B strings.

paulmcevoy75 · 3:21PM

No reason but people round here like things fairly traditional. It gets difficult to make a guitar that rings out nicely on the higher frets. Also in a traditional guitar you have to figure out a way to support the fingerboard (if you're talking about a D hole guitar and the fingerboard overhanging the soundhole. Doable. Easier on a bolt on neck guitar or an adjustable neck guitar as the board is usually supported.

I made a classical 7 string guitar with 24 frets and brought it to a really high end classical player to check out. He was totally kind but had no idea what to make of it. The 7 strings really screwed him up despite him being an extremely high level pro. Anyway the funny part was he didn't give a shit about having 24 frets...there was no repertoire for that. Also he was able to play false harmonics for all those notes and I had to admit they sounded killer.