"Flamenco is a musical expression which draws inspiration from all corners of the world."
Eitan Bartal received his first flamenco guitar at the age of eight, and he has been captivated ever since. A flamenco player himself, as well as a fingerstyle and electric guitarist, he builds with a first-hand understanding of what a player needs.
In 2003 Eitan joined the renowned Tel Aviv workshop Guitarkol as an apprentice, learning guitar making and repair in the tradition of LA Strings, London. That first taste of lutherie led him to Andalusia in search of the roots of the guitar, where he spent five years working alongside Maestro Rafael Romero in San Fernando, Cádiz, learning the craft of the traditional flamenco guitar.
Since 2009 Eitan has worked independently. Today his workshop is at Shderot HaOmanim, Kibbutz Ein Shemer, Israel, and he divides his life between Israel and Spain. Alongside traditional flamenco guitars, blanca and negra, he has developed his own crossover models for jazz, fusion and world musicians, among them the Jazzmenca, the 7-string Jazzmenca cutaway and a 5-string archtop flamenco bass, as well as classical and classical cutaway guitars. He is also a longtime collaborator of Carlos Juan and one of the leading installers of his VIP dual-microphone pickup system.
Twenty years as a guitar technician have given Eitan a deep understanding of how instruments age, sound and play, and restoring vintage guitars, especially pre-war American steel-strings, is another of his passions. Today he combines traditional Spanish methods with modern acoustic science, using modal tuning and measurement to shape the voice of every top.
His guitars are played by artists including Jesús de Rosario, Yotam Silberstein, Rycardo Moreno, Itamar Erez, Dan Ben Lior and Yechiel Hasson.
Much like Andalusia, the motherland of flamenco, Israel is a melting pot of traditions, cultures and music, and Eitan draws on all of it in his guitars.
My approach
I love the traditional Spanish sound of the flamenco guitar, and that is where my guitars start. But my years with American steel-string and electric guitars, and my life as a working guitarist, gave me a player's sense of what a musician needs from an instrument.
Precision and comfort come first. I put great care into intonation, so the guitar is balanced and in tune along the whole neck, and so its overtones ring in harmony with each other. I'm always listening for that good feeling in the body when you play a note.
I choose woods for stability. Even with exotic back-and-side woods, I'll always prefer a piece with structural integrity over wild figure. My necks need to survive changes in climate, so when I build a slimmer neck I reinforce it with carbon fibre. For tops I work mainly with Swiss alpine spruce, choosing different pieces for flamenco and for classical guitars.
My guitars live between two traditions. On one side are Torres and Santos Hernández, and the warm, rich and beautiful sound of the true Spanish guitar. On the other, especially in my classical guitars, are Ignacio Fleta and Daniel Friederich, who for me mark the beginning of the modern classical guitar: they enhanced some of its properties while still capturing its authentic Spanish voice. For my flamenco Blancas, my great example is Manuel Reyes. And I will always be grateful to Rafael Romero, the guitar maker and flamenco guitarist who taught me to build and set me on this road – without him I would never have known the true essence of the flamenco sound.
For my classical and cutaway models I often use a Fleta-style bracing – nine fan braces with two lower harmonic bars, one of them angled toward the treble side – and I'm strongly influenced by the engineering approach of the Australian builders, especially Trevor Gore and Simon Marty. For many years I've also been studying modal tuning, measuring and following each top as it develops.
It's an endless search for sound. But I think there's a common thread running through all my guitars, something that comes less from theory than from intuition: the sound I hear as a guitarist.
Built for the stage
As much as I love the pure acoustic sound, I know the reality of working musicians: most professionals need a pickup. Installing pickups in nylon-string guitars is one of my specialities. I pay great attention to the installation itself, and to matching each instrument with the right system, so the guitar keeps its true voice when it's amplified. I've worked with Carlos Juan for many years and am one of the leading installers of his VIP dual-microphone system. That is a big part of why so many high-level players who perform with a pickup choose my guitars.