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Classical or Flamenco guitar? Whats the difference?
This is one of the most common questions that students and customers often ask me. In this blog i explain what the main differences are between these two closely related instruments.
Classical or Flamenco Guitar — What's the Difference?
People often ask me this on the first day of a course, usually while they're still deciding which guitar to build. It's a fair question —from a few feet away, a classical and a flamenco guitar can look almost identical. Six strings, the same basic shape, the same general size.
But once you start building one, the differences are everywhere — in the wood, the weight, the sound, and even in the way the guitar is meant to be played.
It starts with the back and sides
The biggest structural difference is the wood used for the back and sides. Classical guitars are traditionally built with denser
tonewoods — rosewood, mahogany, or similar hardwoods — chosen for a warm, sustained, rounded tone.
Flamenco guitars are traditionally built with cypress, a much lighterwood. Historically this was also a matter of cost — cypress was cheaper and more available to flamenco players than the imported hardwoods used on classical instruments — but it turns out to serve the music perfectly. Cypress produces a brighter, more percussive sound with less sustain, which suits the rhythmic, rapid-fire style of flamenco playing far better than a long, singing sustain would.
Weight and bracing
Because of the wood choice, a flamenco guitar ends up significantly lighter than a classical guitar. The internal bracing pattern is also different,whilst there are many classical bracing patterns, there is far less variation in the flamenco bracing. The most common pattern is a parallel strutting which helps the top respond instantly, with a fast attack, with not so much sustain — rasgueados, golpes, and rapid picking all need a top that reacts immediately.
A classical guitar bracing is designed for a different job entirely: sustaining a note, blending tone across a melodic line, and supporting the dynamic range needed for classical repertoire. This is achieved by creating a stiffer bracing that allows for the notes to be sustained much longer.
Action and string height
Flamenco guitars are set up with a noticeably lower action — the strings sit closer to the fretboard. This makes fast, percussive playing easier, but it comes with a trade-off: a little more string buzz is generally accepted as part of the flamenco sound.
Classical guitars are set up with a higher action, prioritising a clean, buzz-free tone across the full dynamic range a classical
player needs, from the quietest passage to the loudest.
The tap plate
Look closely at a flamenco guitar and you'll usually spot a golpeador — a thin plate, traditionally made from a material like tortoiseshell celluloid, fitted to the top below (and sometimes above) the soundhole. It protects the spruce top from the percussive finger taps (golpes) that are part of flamenco technique. Classical guitars don't need one, since classical technique doesn't involve striking the top of the instrument.
Two different instruments for two different traditions
None of this makes one guitar "better" than the other — they're built to do different jobs. A classical guitar is built to sustain and blend. A flamenco guitar is built to cut through, react instantly, and drive a rhythm. Once you understand what each guitar is actually for, the construction choices all start to make sense.
On our courses, you'll build whichever of the two speaks to you — and by the end of four weeks in the workshop, you'll understand these differences not just as facts, but as decisions you made with your own hands.