what's in a guitar?

Subject: what's in a guitar?
From: 53
Date: 31 Dec 01 - 06:28 PM

a guitar is made from wood and various other items, but what really is in a guitar? heart and soul of the player and the respect that the player gives the guitar and the respect that the guitar gives the player. man it feels good to sit down and have the ability to play. it truly is a gift. BOB

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: Gary T
Date: 31 Dec 01 - 06:42 PM

Amen.

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 31 Dec 01 - 07:16 PM

yeah, it was.

but what's in it?

a rubber chicken !

Art

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: 53
Date: 31 Dec 01 - 08:55 PM

art you are so funny, if your guitar has a rubber chicken in it then yours must be a dud. BOB cluck cluck cluck.

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: khandu
Date: 31 Dec 01 - 09:42 PM

The personality of the heart of the musician. His hurts, hopes, aspirations, disappointments, grief, joy, victories and losses. Everything that is within the true musician is in his instrument.

That is why I would choose "feeling" over "technique", though both are important.

Also, included inside my instruments are short letters to my son, to whom the instruments shall some day belong.

khandu

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: 53
Date: 31 Dec 01 - 09:44 PM

khandu, thats a great post, thanks very much. BOB

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: Cappuccino
Date: 01 Jan 02 - 02:01 PM

Please forgive me straying ever so slightly from the point, but I've always been fascinated by the way that a really good player can take the cheapest and most awful firewood guitar and make it sing.

I actually do believe that even cheap instruments deserve respect... they've got wonderful music in them somewhere.

- Ian B

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: Rolfyboy6
Date: 01 Jan 02 - 03:18 PM

Mine have air and dust bunnies in them. When the kids were younger they also had a variety of small plastic toys in them.

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: 53
Date: 01 Jan 02 - 09:05 PM

even dust bunnies inside a guitar that is played can make good music, try it and see. BOB

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: Rolfyboy6
Date: 01 Jan 02 - 09:07 PM

You betcha. I'm superstious about that dust, if I ever get it all out of there I worry I've lost my connection with tradition.

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: 53
Date: 01 Jan 02 - 09:14 PM

i've had dust bunnies in my gibson j-40 since 1980, and i just can't bear to remove them , they look so happy in there, besides, it's there home. BOB

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: Tweed
Date: 01 Jan 02 - 09:22 PM

I like a good cheap guitar. You don't feel overwhelmed by the quality of the instrument or scared to pull and hammer the strings. If it stays in tune and the strings ain't too far off the neck it's good enough for me. I've played expensive guitars (other people's) and found myself gently brushing the strings carefully, unable to get to that "place" that you can get to with relatively inexpensive but functional beaters. Or maybe it's just that the ones I have like to get played and don't go for that brushing business. They all seem to have separate personalities though. Maybe part of us goes into them somehow. Sounds crazy but they do seem to be somewhat alive and happy when played regular and they get pissed when they sit around in their cases too long.

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: 53
Date: 01 Jan 02 - 09:26 PM

tweed tha is just great, i fell the same way too sometimes. BOB

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: Rolfyboy6
Date: 01 Jan 02 - 09:32 PM

Yeah, my Epiphone semi-hollow is mad at me right now cause I've been playing the acoustics. It really hates the 12 string. Probably 'cause the 12 is tuned down a full tone.

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: 53
Date: 01 Jan 02 - 09:36 PM

i have 7 guitars, 4 acoustics, 2 electrics,1 classical and 1 baritone uke, i can't play them all everyday, so i try to switch as much as possible so the other won't get an attitude. BOB

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: Tweed
Date: 01 Jan 02 - 09:38 PM

Ya, but the red Epiphone is world famous now! (that's it with Rolfy in the foreground of this Clicky Pic

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 01 Jan 02 - 09:50 PM

Nah 53, I think you are confused on this one. What's in the guitar is the wood and other stuff, arguably a luthiers time and loving care, arguably the playing efforts of a past owner if we are talking about maturing the instrument, arguebaly an item of beauty... Largely stuff we could get clinical about or even analyse in terms of looking at the workmanship, structure, etc.

The rest is what one can get OUT of a guitar not what is in it - by that I mean apart from the tech side the feeling, emotions, etc. is all within the player.

Jon

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: 53
Date: 01 Jan 02 - 09:57 PM

but jon the player has to love the guitar to be able to put something into it, so that's why it's important to know how much is in the guitar. BOB

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: bill\sables
Date: 01 Jan 02 - 10:06 PM

I have a few picks in mine along with the dust. I once found a live moth under my banjo skin, (It's probably a dead one by now) But think of the guitar Allan C has with all the autographs of mudcatters who we met when we traveled round the U.S.A. and Canada on the Great Mudcat Adventure I can understand now why he didn't put it in the auction. That is one guitar you all must see, I would like to see it again sometime. It's full of memories of some of the worlds best people.
Bill

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: 53
Date: 01 Jan 02 - 10:08 PM

see things like that are great, guitar have a heart and soul, and it comes from their owners amd their players. BOB

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: 53
Date: 09 Jan 02 - 10:06 PM

i just had the privelege of playing guitar with my wife and my 2 year old granddaughter, tonite glenda and i played and sang while madison just strummed her soprano uke that santa brought her for christmas, she's going to be a real picker someday. BOB

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: GUEST,MC Fat
Date: 10 Jan 02 - 04:29 AM

A mate of mine once found an old cheese sandwich inside a guitar he hadn't used for a bit. He heard a rattling inside thought it was a pick gave the guitar a shake and it dropped out to say hello !!

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: 53
Date: 10 Jan 02 - 11:12 AM

HO HO HO HE HE HE THAT CHEESE SANDWICH WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FOR ME. BOB

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: GUEST,Desdemona
Date: 10 Jan 02 - 11:27 AM

"What's in a guitar? That which we call a tuba bya any other name would sound as tuba-like".

Over the years, my husband's guitar has played to marbles, matchbox cars and even the occasional potato chip!

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 11 Jan 02 - 10:00 AM

A boundless musical space only slightly smaller than the players ambition..

and sometimes spiders!!!!! :)

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: 53
Date: 12 Jan 02 - 12:25 AM

last nite i heard something in my gibson, and it turned out to be a little piece of sand, BOB

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: brother
Date: 12 Jan 02 - 12:12 PM

Fascinating. I thought that the answer was that teaspoon that isn't left under the washing up bowl.

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: 53
Date: 12 Jan 02 - 10:40 PM

no man what would a teaspoon be doing inside a guitar? BOB

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: Chip2447
Date: 13 Jan 02 - 12:30 AM

I tell you, its the pick eating monster...picks go in and just disappear....POOF. It's like the sock eating black hole that inhabits dryers.

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 13 Jan 02 - 01:41 AM

Banging away on my old Harmony one night without a pick, we had finished the song before I realized I had cut my finger on the strings. Now there is a constellation of tiny dots of my own blood inside the guitar. It's a kind of shared bond.

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: 53
Date: 13 Jan 02 - 08:24 PM

SORT OF GAVE THE GUITAR A PERSONALITY. BOB

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: 53
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 03:12 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 06:51 PM

My older guitars have old beer stains in 'em, but no new ones have been added for quite a few years now.

I've known people that have put rattlesnake rattles in their guitars. Supposed to make 'em more resonant or something. Seems to me it'd just make other pickers ask why in the hell you've got rattlesnake rattles in your guitar.

I also know a guy who just lets the ball-ends from broken strings fall down into his guitar. So far, he has about a thirty-year accumulation. And he plays bluegrass rhythm so you can bet he breaks a few strings. Must have a pound or more of 'em in there. Doesn't do anything to the sound when he's actually playing it, but it sounds a bit like a maraca when he's just carrying it around.

Bruce

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: CraigS
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 06:58 PM

I want to know why was Art using a rubber chicken as a pick? Is this a technique I could learn?

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: Giac
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 07:01 PM

Rattlesnake rattles sound best inside a fiddle. They'll really "sing" then. I once had some with 13 rattles in my long-ago-stolen Gibson. I hope the SOB got bitten by the snake spirit.

My beat-up old Guild has picks, the pick guard (which popped off some time back and hasn't been glued back on) and an orange spiral thingie put in by a small friend.

~;o) Mary

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 08:20 PM

What's in a guitar is the same goddam thing that's in every guitar. Air. All you have to do is look.

Subject: RE: BS: what's in a guitar?
From: 53
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 11:50 AM

Now that my left hand is messed up it so much harder for me to play.