Tacchi Guitars

Andrea Tacchi Biography

Andrea Tacchi was born in Florence in 1956 to an ancient Florentine family. At the age of 15 he made his first guitar and continued building guitars for fun until 1976 when he met his Argentinean Maestro Ricardo Brané who lived and worked in the Chianti region building guitars and lutes. In 1977 he left the University where he was studying Mechanical Engineering to be a full time professional guitar maker.

He went to Spain in 1981 and met all the famous Spanish guitar makers in their workshops. This was an important turning point for his future. In the successive years he made several trips abroad to study guitar making; twice to Jose Romanillos in England, to Bob Mattingly in the U.S.A., and most importantly to Robert Bouchet in Paris whom he visited in his workshop several times in the following years to show his work and to get advice from the master. In Paris he also made the acquaintance of Daniel Friedrich, with whom he continues to communicate to this day.Throughout his travels he took the occasion to visit the principle musical instrument museums abroad to further his studies. In 1985 he attended the International Competition for guitar makers in Castres, France, winning first prize for Aesthetic Qualities and second prize in the Acoustic division among 23 different contestants from 11 different countries. Robert Vidal, the creator of the famous International Guitarist prize "Radio France," organized this competition. In 1987, he went to the International Festival in Toronto (Canada) where he attended John Gilbert 's guitar making master class. On that occasion he met the major American Luthiers, and became a member of the "Guild of American Luthiers." He also writes for the official magazine of the Guild. He has made copies of chitarre battenti, romantic guitars, and above all, classical guitars, also with 8,10, and 11strings in "G". In 1989 he started producing his own guitar, "COCLEA," after four years of study and development. This model is based on important physical concepts of the vibrant structures used in other strongly resonant instruments such as the piano . The model's name is "COCLEA," a Latin word for the part of the ear that has the task of transforming sound into a psychological sensation of volume, timbre, and tone. Some of the characteristics of these guitars are an easy emission of sound, a great variety of timbre, polyphonic clearness, great volume, great playability and pleasing string tension.

Artists who play Tacchi: Ricardo Iznaola, Filomena Moretti, Flavio Cucchi, Colin Davin, Marcelo Kayath