* I’m not representing any guitars by Andrea Tacchi. As a proud owner of his masterpiece, I just admire his work and I think it would be nice for people to see his work of art. He makes some of most beautiful Rosette in the history of classical guitar. On this page you will see mostly his signature flagship model – Coclea Thucea.
Background:
Andrea Tacchi (Florence – Italy) is arguably Italy’s foremost contemporary luthier and is ranked among the top handful in the world by players and collectors alike. His interest in guitar making started very early in his life – he built his first guitar at age 15. In 1977 he began the serious study of guitar making with Argentinian luthier Ricardo Brané.
After Brané’s death, Tacchi traveled extensively (starting in the early 1980s) in pursuit of mastering his craft. In Spain he spent time in the workshops of Jose Ramirez III, Paulino Bernabe Sr, and Francisco & Gabriel Fleta; and in England with Jose Romanillos. But perhaps his most influential trips were those to France where he befriended and consulted with Robert Bouchet and Daniel Friederich, whose approaches and aesthetics would greatly impact Tacchi’s developing style.
In 1985 he competed in the Concours International des Facteurs de Guitare organized by Robert Vidal of Radio France – Tacchi won first prize for Aesthetic Qualities and second general prize for Acoustic Qualities.
His instruments have been played by several worldclass guitarists including Tal Hurwitz (he even own more than 1 Tacchi guitar), Filomena Moretti, Flavio Cucchi, Carlo Marchione, Claudio Tumeo, Antigoni Goni, Robert Gruca, Colin Davin, Minoru Inagaki, and Marcelo Kayath, while others belong to important private collections. Two of his guitars are in the collection of the Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini in Florence, Italy.
He is now working side by side with his very talented son, Giovanni Tacchi.
Description (From Andrea Tacchi himself) :
Coclea is my own designed model.
Coclea, the most hidden part of the inner ear, is the organ where noise can be appreciated as sound, decoding it for the brain as frequency, intensity and timbre. So this is what I called the guitar I designed. It is difficult for me to describe the design process of this guitar, but every curve of this guitar has a radius the length of which is in relation to all others, scale length and body length.This guitar, I mean this project we are discussing, can later be realised with a large variety of woods. So for the top you can have the choice between just spruce, just cedar, or the combination of cedar/spruce/cedar. Spruce , stiffer and heavier with a more beautiful sound , under the bridge where energy is at its maximum, cedar, lighter and more efficient as a sound conductor toward the edges, where energy is decreasing. By combining two different Latin Botanical names, Thuja Plicata for Cedar and Picea Excelsa for spruce, that is where I came up with the idea of the name THUCEA.
Thucea is my signature work, the guitar I am in love with , more than the others, is a piece of myself, prompt, generous, powerful, beautiful tone, equilibrated between bass and trebles. It is the most pianistic guitar I make, the sound is firm, concrete and sure. Done by the extremely high quality wood I have in stock for that peculiar mixed top, I always get extremely goodresults. I am very happy of “her”.