The Alvarez Jazz & Blues Series delivers genre specific instruments to capture the very essence of American music history. Body shapes, bracings and constructions were carefully considered before opening molds for our body shapes and finalizing specifications. Alvarez Blues guitars have a vintage vibe all the way with a small rectangle bridge, V profile neck, 2 ¼? string spacing and back shifted bracing to make these smaller bodied guitars feel and sound just right. Tonally they deliver the compressed bluesy bark expected from such a design but the refined back shifted, scalloped bracing adds more openness for a slightly more modern style projection. The Blues 51 has a 12th fret neck join to the body, arched rosewood back, grained ivoroid binding and a perfect vintage sunburst. It's a responsive guitar and although suited more towards finger style it can handle open chord strumming in its stride. Our tone woods are carefully cured; our components such as neck blocks and wood joints are carefully designed. The painting, sanding and polishing techniques we use are continually researched and developed, and our tone is impeccably crafted and married to a stable, consistent and lively sound box. The term ?solid top? of course refers to the soundboard of an acoustic guitar being made of solid wood, rather than being laminated. However, just because the top is solid, it does not necessarily mean the sound automatically benefits from this feature. The tone of the instrument only improves significantly when the whole guitar is built correctly to optimize the energy a solid soundboard can generate. Each model is designed to get the best out if its components, and for them to work together to produce balance, lively projection and great response. These components include our designed bracing systems, real bone nuts and saddles, great quality tone woods and thin finish. Thank you for choosing Alvarez.