Claudia Francesca D’Ammassa
“Claudia Francesca D’Ammassa was born in Rome in 1990.
She moved toward the first steps in guitar making at an early age, while studying classical guitar at Santa Cecilia conservatory under the direction of Domenico Ascione. After graduation, she fully devoted herself to lutherie.
She discovered her vocation attending a two-year course at the association Artigianato e Arte in Rome. Then she has apprenticed with Gianluca Ceccarini for over a year, learning craft fundamentals.
Later on, she has improved her knowledge and expertise in classical guitar making by refining the study of theory and construction technique under the guidance of Mario Garrone and Dr. Giuseppe Cuzzucoli.
A passion-strengthened aptitude together with the quality of her guitars allowed her to stand out within the musical branch of Italian handcraft. Her instruments are the result of a pleasant balance between tradition and innovation; their sound aesthetic abides by the feeling of historical guitars, while a scientific approach is adopted to optimize the acoustic performance through modern technologies.
Her guitars are played in many countries around the world, such as Austria, Germany, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Brazil, Australia, Mexico, United States and Arab Emirates.
Currently Claudia lives and works in Rome, a few steps from the ancient Ostia ruins.”
- Taken from Claudia’s website
“The methodology adopted for instrument building is the result of an intense collaboration between a luthier and an engineer, i.e., Mario Garrone and Dr. Giuseppe Cuzzucoli, respectively.
It was conceived to address the construction with a scientific approach as much as possible, by monitoring board resonances with the aid of appropriate equipment and dedicated computer programs.
These resonances indeed embody the chromosomes that describe the behavior of an instrument as an acoustic resonator. The verification of their features such as amplitude and position in the frequency spectrum represents a powerful tool to engineer the guitar construction and optimize its final performance.
In order to acquire information on resonances, an acoustic gavel is used to hit the top and back in correspondence of the saddle. Gavel-induced oscillations generate a sound that is recorded and processed by a software. The latter performs the FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) of the signal, determining its spectral content both in linear scale and integrated over one-third octave bands.
Additional figures of merit, which are calculated and assessed, are the sustain of each resonance and the spectrogram so as to analyze how the harmonics vary in time.
The aforementioned analyses are done during each phase of the construction.”
All I can tell you is “beautiful”. A radial soundboard, unique in its appearance, is doing the job along with the guitar itself and its overall construction. She is ingenious in her construct of the guitar and its sound. Impressive is a great word for it all. I am quite happy to represent this young luthier from Rome here in the USA. Have I ever told anyone, “I love my job”! No? Well, it’s great people like her and all of you that make it an easy job, one most gratifying in all regards. Richard
Claudia’s work can be seen here, if available through our gallery. Thank you!
