what every folk club needs

Subject: what every folk club needs
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 03:29 PM

help for the struggling guitarist,and you can play it in the bath.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVlucTG1YO8

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 03:44 PM

What do you get when you cross a guitar with an accordian?

If god had meant guitars to work like melodeons, he wouldn't have given them strings.

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: Betsy
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 03:56 PM

Captain,
do mention these things .
I went to a folk gathering where someone accompanied themselves on a mini battery operated organ.Our UK subscribers may understand if I say it sounded like an ice cream van which had it's tune tape stretched - it was horrible.
No doubt some twat will eventually turn up with one of these contraptions.

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 04:32 PM

the problem here,is that this inventor,has not taken into consideration
1 .inversions.
2.modal chords/power chords,added chords sixths, ninths, or flattened fifths.
3. he clearly has no knowledge of chords or music,or understanding of the subtleties of doubling certain chord notes,to alter the timbre of a chord.
neither can he understand,that the right hand of a guitar is not supposed to sound like a sledge hammer.
I suppose it might be of some use to a disabled person,but wouldnt an open chord tuning be more useful.
still if your inclined you can take it up mount everest or play it in the bath,but then you can do that with a harmonica

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: Will Fly
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 05:21 PM

It's basically the simple principle as an autoharp - but on a guitar. No - I wouldn't have one either - but - if I, through some physical disability, couldn't form conventional chords (and open tuning isn't always appropriate) - it might have an applicability for some people.

Not particularly aesthetic, but I wouldn't knock it completely.

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 06:07 PM

very limited,but as you say ,ok for someone with a disability.
but I hope to god they never catch on,as a replacement for the guitar,or that beginners think they can buy one of these and do pub gigs,instead of learning to play a guitar properly.
I find his idea that beginners can pick it up instantly and play, an insult to musician/guitarists ,he clearly has no understanding of the nuances of guitar playing.
however I find the video hilarious

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Jan 09 - 06:38 AM

willfly,its not quite the same as an autoharp,with an autoharp,the player can pickout a melody.
I find the attitude of this inventor insulting,he clearly doesnt understand that musicians,enjoy, learning to master their instruments.
part of the important thing for children ,is that learning an instrument,requires self discipline and perseverance,but the end result is pleasure and satisfaction at managing to play music.
this guys attitude typifies,the 21st century,everything must be produced instantly,at the click of a lever.
Personally I wish hed throw his contraption off the Twelve arch bridge in Ballydehob.

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: Vic Smith
Date: 17 Jan 09 - 06:51 AM

Dick Miles wrote:-

help for the struggling guitarist,and you can play it in the bath.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVlucTG1YO8

Well, this looks pretty elementary if you compare it with the man who busks around the Bath/Bristol area (perhaps someone from that area can supply his name). He has devised a wonderfully Heath Robinson looking affair where he chooses chords with foot pedals with one foot whilst propelling a belt-driven method of strumming chords with the other. This, of course, leaves his hands completely free to play the fiddle which he accompanies with foot-guitar-system.

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jan 09 - 08:16 AM

I think he's being ironic.....you know King Lear, Chordelia....

he has a look of the wandering madman about him.

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Jan 09 - 08:25 AM

WLD,I am acquainted with him , what can I say ?
I must be positive ,as an engineer, he obviously has a lot of ability.

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: evansakes
Date: 17 Jan 09 - 08:36 AM

The trouble with this is that no amount of gadgetry can ever help those who have a total absence of musical talent in the first place.

Judging by the demonstration of his patented invention he next needs to divert his attention to making a device that enables those with a total absence of rhythm to strum in time.

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jan 09 - 08:58 AM

well to be positive!

1) some people Do have inordinate amounts of problems changing chords, and yet thay have the desire to play the guitar. And to be fair - hearing when the chord change is necessary is just as important as doing the change cleany - so this would enable someone to develop an ear for for the chord change. Split the guitar playing into two jobs - and you could concentrate on them separately.

2) People get their hands damaged, and still want to play the guitar. It could help someone with damaged hands.

3) someone might want to contribute to a round the campfire sort of night, and not have much time to prepare for it.

probably they're are other things - but these are the first that jump out at me.

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: GUEST,iancarterb
Date: 17 Jan 09 - 09:07 AM

There was, in the late 1940s or early 50s, a similar device, marketed in the US with Arthut Godfrey's name, to do that with a uke. Maybe six chord? So, if the uke itself were plastic, you COULD do that in the bath, but more than once. A wood instrument, of course, not so often...

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 17 Jan 09 - 09:11 AM

I have arthritis in my left wrist, making fretting a guitar impossible sometimes. I would never play that monstrosity. It would be no replacement for what I could do under my own power.

You cannot put any of your (pardon the cliche) soul into a contraption like that.

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jan 09 - 09:14 AM

Its always worth a try!

if its all I could do, i'd try it!

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: Mavis Enderby
Date: 17 Jan 09 - 10:53 AM

I'll see your Chordelia and raise you a Bandit!

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jan 09 - 12:51 PM

amazing!

i know Burton Coggles, do you live there?

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: Mavis Enderby
Date: 18 Jan 09 - 02:50 PM

No, same county though - I'm Pete from Lincoln.

I saw the Bandit & creator Phil Wickenden at the FOAOTMAD festival at Gainsborough a couple of years back. He's a very talented & nice man!

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine
Date: 19 Jan 09 - 06:03 AM

LOL the video is hilarious, that is possibly the second-worst version of Star of the County Down I've ever heard (I shudder to think of the worst)

My instant reaction is what a completely stupid idea- he could have learnt to play properly in the time it took to invent that device.

Then I thought actually it could make guitar accessible to someone who'd be unable to finger it properly, such as a couple of members of the music group for adults with learning & physical disabilities who have guitars and really struggle with the left hand fingering.

Then I thought, but it would also make the guitar accessible to the "differently talented", or just plain lazy, who could then learn to play really badly with minimum effort. Just like Guitar Hero, but with an acoustic guitar.

Then I thought AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGHHH!


;-)

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine
Date: 19 Jan 09 - 06:10 AM

Oops, that should have been "the music group I run for adults with learning & physical disabilities ..."

I just remembered a friend years ago had a device that had 6 levers and keys, that went over the strings at the other end, effectively converting the guitar into a 6- string piano- you pressed a key and the lever hit the string. The left hand played as normal.

It sounded quite interesting (a bit like hitting the strings with dulcimer sticks). I'm not sure if it opened up any particular playing techniques that weren't otherwise achievable with the fingers, but it did look very cool.

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: Mr Happy
Date: 19 Jan 09 - 06:23 AM

I can already play most chords on guitar, using conventional fingering shapes, but my other hand's limited to strumming - that is I don't do picking or fingerstyle.

Has anyone invented a strap-on guitar device which can enable me to sound like Manitas de Plata, Django Rheinhardt, Diz Disley etc?

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine
Date: 19 Jan 09 - 06:31 AM

You could try attaching picks to a power drill, enabling you to play it very,very fast (I believe the guitarists in Mr Big tried this). But that probably wouldn't help, and it's quite dangerous, especially if you have long hair..

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: Darowyn
Date: 19 Jan 09 - 10:40 AM

Paul Gilbert(Lead Guitar) and Billy Sheehan (Bass) in Mr Big both did the plectrums-on-a-power-drill thing. I saw them do it live, and in time.
And they had long hair.
It's a bit noisy, because the pickups pick up the magnetic fields of the drill motor and the sparks from the commutator as well.
Mr Big were good enough to make it sound like music though.
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 Jan 09 - 11:10 AM

If you got rid of the guitar frets and used clavichord-style tangents, that gizmo could enable you to play chords in just intonation instead of the hideous equal-temperament-gone-slightly-wrong you get on every guitar presently in existence.

The only other way to get reasonable sounding chords out of a guitar is to use it as fuel for a properly tuned steam calliope.

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: Piers Plowman
Date: 19 Jan 09 - 11:49 AM

I found the video rather sad and touching.

I once saw a coin-operated, pneumatic guitar-playing machine at an ice-cream parlor called Dr. Jazz in Chicago. The owner had a spectacular collection of player pianos, orchestrions, etc. The guitar was terribly out of tune, as was the automatic violin.

My memory of this is fairly vague, but pneumatic instruments are one of my passions. The violin had rotating rubber wheel instead of a bow. The guitar had something similar for fretting, but I can't remember what plucked or strummed. The were both terribly out of tune.

I think it's a good idea, but not for what he intends, i.e, to make it easy for beginners to pick up a guitar and be able to play right away. I disapprove of playing instruments in the bath.

I think something like this would work much better on something like a pedal-steel guitar. It would be sort of a cross between a hurdy-gurdy and a guitar.

If he invented something for plucking and/or strumming, one wouldn't have to play at all.

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 15 Mar 15 - 03:05 PM

Re.From: Vic Smith - PM
Date: 17 Jan 09 - 06:51 AM

the man who busks around the Bath/Bristol area (perhaps someone from that area can supply his name). He has devised a wonderfully Heath Robinson looking affair where he chooses chords with foot pedals with one foot whilst propelling a belt-driven method of strumming chords with the other. This, of course, leaves his hands completely free to play the fiddle which he accompanies with foot-guitar-system.

Phil Wickenden : biog here

And close up video HERE

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: Vic Smith
Date: 15 Mar 15 - 03:38 PM

"Everything comes to he who waits"

Thanks Freddy, I had forgotten that I posted that more than six years ago. We saw him at the American museum in Bath when we were there to do a show with Shirley Collins.

I must say that if the rate that that money always comes in as quickly as it did in the video that you linked to, then he must be doing pretty well from it.

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Mar 15 - 03:42 PM

in the original video at one minute he says that people with any other complaint can play one, say no more.

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Mar 15 - 05:06 AM

divert his attention to making a device that enables those with a total absence of rhythm to strum in time

That's why they invented the Cajon. It's a seat for bums. (US translation wouldn't quite make the same joke, but might be just as apt).

Now anyone clever enought to invent the soft pedal for banjos?

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 16 Mar 15 - 05:43 AM

Wel it didn't help that the video had synch problems.

Some similarities to the nyckelharpa with all those pegs. But if you can't play guitar in the usual way, just pick another instrument that you can play.

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: Musket
Date: 16 Mar 15 - 06:13 AM

Joking apart. Will is onto something. I know a few guitarists with arm or hand injury. A mate who only ever strummed chords anyway has carpel tunnel syndrome and yeah, it would get him back up to floor spots.

Of course. Much smaller electric versions already exist.

Related, I have a string stretcher which allows me in and out of drop D without retuning, which if nothing else spares the audience my corny jokes whilst pratting about....

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 16 Mar 15 - 12:52 PM

I suppose it might be a help for non playing singers to keep in tune

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: The Sandman
Date: 16 Mar 15 - 02:34 PM

no, they need ear training, pick up am instrument like a guitar and sing chromatic notes, it teaches you how to start playing guitar too.sing scales with an istrument.

Subject: RE: what every folk club needs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Mar 15 - 01:33 PM

chromatic notes.......!

wot be them young sir?