Web Pages from times gone by - April 2003

Derek Hasted's Guitar Ensemble School

www.derek-hasted.co.uk

This page is from April 2003

The PMPU Guitar - the 2003 April Fool

The Setup...

"   The Hampshire Guitar Orchestra - hago - is one of the South Coast of England's more forward-thinking Guitar Orchestras.

Combining the standard Classical Guitar with the Alto, Bass and Contrabass guitars gives hago a unique and compelling sound. Read more about hago here and listen to our soundclips. We have 3 alto guitars, 2 b-bass guitars, a contrabass guitar and of course, as many classical guitars as players.

The sheer logistics of carrying all these different instruments to our Concerts has finally been solved.

You may remember those V-shaped electric guitars of the sixties that were part-electric, part -bass, and shared a common body with two necks, set a few degrees apart.

If only such a thing were possible with classical guitars, though of course the extra strain on the bridge would make the sound "close up" and the guitar would be overly heavy and unresponsive.

Well...
UK inventor Belton Brasus has brought typical UK inventiveness to the fore with a unique solution. The PMPU (patent pending) is a design of bridge in which the stresses are less, not more. A truly innovative solution to an age-old problem means that hago is trialling a new alto-soprano guitar, with world-beating responsiveness. The torque on the spruce table is minimal and the tonal response nothing less than remarkable. The guitar can function as alto (5 notes up) or soprano (8 notes up) and yet plays like an ordinary guitar.  "

The Punchline...

hago's alto player, Elaine, tries out the alto/soprano guitar - click for photo

More April Fools here

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