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Post by PistolPete on Oct 31, 2021 17:04:54 GMT
I love the sound of a finger-picked blues on a dread! Those lovely ringing bass-notes, or the deep thud if you're muting the strings! John Fahey agreed... But to answer the question, I think there's an audience expectation and I think there's a guitar-music combination that works well for certain styles - Telecaster and country twang is just perfect. You can't get that sound on, say, a Strat (or, rather, I can't). And gypsy jazz really does benefit from those gypsy jazz guitars. And resonators, of course, for that small branch of blues. But these examples are few and far between. Mostly it's that audience expectation thing - like having to wear hats and long dark coats if you're playing Stevie Ray style blues... I recall we did a rockabilly gig once, and the promotor said the music was great, as good as he'd heard, but he wouldn't rebook us because we didn't have the right image. Those rockabilly crowds want the correct engineer boots, and full sleeve tattoos, and the jeans turned-up just so. Oh yeah, you'll need a Grestch, too... I did a few gigs with the American singer-songwriter Jonathan Byrd a few years ago & his guitarist, Johnny Waken, could definitely get that classic "telecaster twang" out of a Strat. I remember thinking at the time it was odd you didn't see them in country bands more often, given if you'd blindfolded me I would have sworn he was playing a tele. Funny you bring up gypsy jazz - one of the reasons I asked the question was that visiting my mother-in-law in Barcelona last week, lots of the buskers on the metro played impressive jazz pieces, or jazz-guitar arrangements of pop songs, but they all seemed to do it on traditional looking Spanish guitars. Not a D-shaped soundhole, or an archtop electric in sight.
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stringdriventhing
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Post by stringdriventhing on Oct 31, 2021 19:54:42 GMT
So taking Mr Martyn's song as the example, if you take away John's really aggressive picking style, and his particular EQ/tone setup, and all of the effects he uses, and hear it played on a slightly more natural toned sounding instrument, does it sound worse or just different ? I'm not sure that there are a lot of effects on the John Martyn performance beyond a bit of EQ and some reverb on his vocal that the OGWT engineer has put on - I think part of the sound might just be that it was recorded in 1973 on analogue equipment. The two cover versions are really nice (I especially like the second one) and both are played on dreadnoughts I notice, but you definitely don't need to play this song on a dreadnought for it to sound good. You could get 10 people to play this song on the same guitar and they would all sound a bit different... whether it's good or bad is subjective, as you rightly point out.
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Post by curmudgeon on Oct 31, 2021 20:22:38 GMT
I'm curious how far people agree that certain types of guitar are 'right' for certain types of music and 'wrong' for others? If I want to fingerpick blues on a dread, or flatpick country on a ladder braced parlour is that a crime that against humanity, or just what you do when that's the nearest guitar? Technically speaking, any style of music or playing can be played on any type of guitar.
However with the relatively easy availability of pretty much all the types of steel string flat and arch tops available now, why not use the appropriate style for the types of music?
archtops - american song book, jazz.
Dreads - hard rhythm - bluegrass etc.
Jumbos, country and other rhythm style 000,00m 0m for fingerstyle, blues, ragtime, etc.
Resonator - bottleneck or other etc.
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Post by delb0y on Oct 31, 2021 20:38:27 GMT
I guess the reality is these days you can buy one of those modelling guitars and sound like any guitar that ever lived (and at at the click of a button any tuning you want without touching a tuning peg, and even turn six strings into 12). One of the finest guitar player I know does exactly this - sold his Les Paul Custom and other guitars that he'd lusted after all his life and bought a Variax. He's a gigging player and needs to be able to jump from Eddie Van Halen to Eagles to David Gilmore to Mark Knopfler instantly. I even recall seeing a YT video in which Russ Barenberg talks about how his gorgeous sounding acoustic is actually using 30% microphone sound and 70% a sample of that same guitar in order to control the sound - but you could sample any guitar and have that Martin drive it. I don't really understand any of this, but when players of this calibre do it then it must work.
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Post by sweyne1 on Nov 1, 2021 9:15:21 GMT
My initial thought is that fingerpicking sounds lovely on my S12 Lowden (in spite of me most of the time) but chords don't sound right (or as good as i'd like). On another thread recently someone said J45 Gibsons really suit chord work. I've never played one so can't comment. Chords fit certain styles whereas fingerpicking fits others. John The S12 sounds good with open tuning chords. It is a fingerpicking guitar for the most part as are most of the Lowden guitars IMO. That's a good point Shaun. I've still to experiment fully with it's capabilities other than drop D (and double drop D from memory). John
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Post by robmc on Nov 1, 2021 9:31:28 GMT
I went to my first Show of Hands gig a few years ago, Steve Knightley talked about David Oddy and the intruments made by David that both he and Phil Beer play and he told a story about a fan who had asked David Oddy to make him a guitar similar to the main one Steve plays. Apparently after having owned the guitar for a little while the guy called David Oddy a little irate to complain that when he played his new guitar it didn't sound the same way as it does when Steve Knightley plays his guitar... David Oddy was a tell-it-like-it-is kind of guitar maker and told his customer fairly bluntly that it was most likely because he wasn't Steve Knightley and he didn't have decades of experience playing as a professional musician.
I personally think you can play pretty much anything on pretty much anything as long as it is a decent instrument and you have the capability!
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Post by Matt Milton on Nov 1, 2021 11:00:52 GMT
Yep, you can play anything on anything.
That said, it felt like a homecoming when I played my first 12-fret OM acoustic. I think that's cos I grew up playing my dad's beaten up old classical guitar, so the dimensions and some of the sound qualities just seemed 'right' to me. I don't think it's a coincidence that so many fingerpickers tend to prefer guitars of that size and shape.
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Post by stringdriventhing on Nov 1, 2021 12:33:26 GMT
When you think of (for example, because it was posted above), John Martyn playing 'may you never' on a large bodied dread, you associate that song, with that artist, and as such 'that' is the correct way for that song to sound. I been thinking about this - I've been trying for over a decade to play that song the way John Martyn does in that 1973 video and still haven't managed it - in particular the tag he plays on the D chord that is the signature of the song. I've watched countless youtube tutorials and covers of the song and I've yet to see one that I would consider to be 100% "right". So I think you are right - it's partly down to the sound of the guitar but the most important factor is his playing style and it's very hard to sound exactly like someone else.
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Post by NikGnashers on Nov 1, 2021 18:50:57 GMT
When you think of (for example, because it was posted above), John Martyn playing 'may you never' on a large bodied dread, you associate that song, with that artist, and as such 'that' is the correct way for that song to sound. I been thinking about this - I've been trying for over a decade to play that song the way John Martyn does in that 1973 video and still haven't managed it - in particular the tag he plays on the D chord that is the signature of the song. I've watched countless youtube tutorials and covers of the song and I've yet to see one that I would consider to be 100% "right". So I think you are right - it's partly down to the sound of the guitar but the most important factor is his playing style and it's very hard to sound exactly like someone else. I have spent the past 2-3 years trying to sound like Bert jansch, and failing miserably. While chatting the the host of a jam session / open mic, he said to me I should just try to sound like myself, and not anyone else, so from that moment on, that is what I do. Certainly no expert, and I'm a long way behind most players on here, but John Martyn in particular is a player I find impossible to get close to copying. And as you said, I have yet to find anyone who can really emulate him, even if they played his old guitar I'm 100% sure they still wouldn't sound very close.
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Post by stringdriventhing on Nov 1, 2021 19:11:04 GMT
While chatting the the host of a jam session / open mic, he said to me I should just try to sound like myself, and not anyone else, so from that moment on, that is what I do. That's a good philosophy to have and usually I would do the same. For some weird reason I have got a bit hung-up on May You Never and trying to play it the way he does in that video... I must stress I haven't been trying to learn it constantly for 10 years - that would be silly , but I do keep going back to it every once in a while... I'll never get it to sound like he played it, but it's fun trying Normally if I can get something to the point where other people might know what it's supposed to be then I'm happy.
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Post by vikingblues on Nov 1, 2021 19:53:32 GMT
Some guitars respond best to fairly aggressive impact from the fingers / pick and sound dead when played lightly - some are better played lightly and sound compressed / muddy when played hard. They will lend themselves to different sorts of music.
Some guitars suit particular tunings better than others, and this will impact on which one to choose for a particular piece of music.
Some guitars will have resonances and overtones of a different order which may, for example, make some suit slower tempo longer notes better than quick fire stuff or vice versa.
Not quite the same thing, but in the realm of improvisations different guitars encourage you to play a similar basic initial idea in very different ways, and the resulting music can sound very diverse and indeed have a quite dissimilar (loose) musical structures.
Mark
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Post by martinrowe on Nov 1, 2021 21:31:13 GMT
There is a story about Mike Marshall, if you don't know he is an extraordinary Mandolin player, that when he was younger learning every Sam Bush (one of the very, very, very best mandolin players) solo from Sam Bush's records between 1970 and 1977 - note for note. The thing is this: Mike Marshall doesn't sound like Sam Bush even after all that copying - he sounds like Mike Marshall. I find that interesting.
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Post by geddarby on Nov 3, 2021 15:58:48 GMT
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Post by curmudgeon on Nov 3, 2021 21:59:06 GMT
You hyave to have the appropriate instrument for every purpose ... Dreads for bluegrass and comno work, resomator for bottleneck, 000 for teaching and playing light stuff, old time etc. Archtops for jazzy How else could I justify my colloection
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Post by bellyshere on Nov 3, 2021 22:24:08 GMT
You hyave to have the appropriate instrument for every purpose ... Dreads for bluegrass and comno work, resomator for bottleneck, 000 for teaching and playing light stuff, old time etc. Archtops for jazzy How else could I justify my colloection That’s how I’ve always justified loads of guitars to my other half.
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