Official Luthiers Forum!

Mayer begs to differ with those who say all that matters about a guitar
is how it sounds. "I believe that guitar players and creators, we're all too
scared of sounding superficial, but the bottom line is that when
something looks good, it brings things out of you. And so I'd say half of
the guitar's qualities are sonic or physical and the other half are cosmetic.
All those things factor into the level of inspiration when you pick
something up."

- John Mayer, Acoustic Guitar, March 2004, No. 135

I agree with him. I think people who think you can separate these things
(tone/visual preferences) give their ability to be that linear far too much
credit.

"Shut Up 'N' Play Yer Guitar"

     - Frank Zappa

And with all due respect, I don't think people are giving themselves too
much credit. Since my apprentice is not here on the forum, I'll share some
of his stories. A recurring lesson from his father (who was president of
the VSA for 10 years, and has handled and judged more in fine
instruments than most here will see in a lifetime) was to always listen
before seeing. When purchasing an instrument, turn your back and let a
friend perform with the instrument from across the room. Have it placed
in your hands and play it without looking. If you know anything more
about the instrument than how it sounds and feels before judging which
is best, your judgment will likely have been seriously tainted.

But then again, those fine fiddle folk have always had some strange
priorities in judging the quality of an instrument.


Again, to each their own....

_________________
Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

John's got one of my guitars...

I like making pretty shiny things.   But first they have to be made to sound right and feel right.   I think the aesthetic issues are the easy parts.

James buddy sorry my friend but I have to disagree.  All one can glean from Mayer's comments are what Mayer's personal beliefs/preferences are.

There are tons of musicians who are equally inspired by the beat up old instruments that they play and sound like heaven to them.  Don Ross, Willy Nelson, and on and on.

I read an article recently that with the advent of HD TV things are changing from the news rooms to the movie studios in something that is not unlike when the "talkies" invaded the movie houses of old. 

Our ability to see our heroes now in far more than living color with resolutions of 1080P also makes us aware that some of these people are butt ugly up close.

With the advent of MTV music to some morphed from something that we once listened to now into something that people "watched" and listened to as well.  And with that in came the the glamor and bling and out went some very talented artists that were superb musicians but not someone some studio exec thought they could sell to a viewing public.

Fortunately there are still purists around who not only believe that guitars are ultimately made for players but players and listeners alike who believe that players and their instruments are for us to "listen" to and enjoy what we hear.  If the visuals are there too, all the better, but to me tone and playability are the cake and the icing and the bling is simply the box it is packaged in.

If bling inspires Mayer to be better - cool. but there are many examples of very fine musicians who will never part with their beloved, less than physically attractive guitars.

Interestingly, I know that you are personally interested in relics.  I wonder if you think that to some a relic might be equally as inspiring when the player idolizes the original artist that the relic is a copy of the ax that they used?  Many SRV Texas Strats have been sold to adoring wanna-bees who see the stick on garage door letters as inspiring too.  And again if it inspires them - cool.

But..... as Rick has been saying about wondering what the blind guitarist would say - are not we all blind when we clip on our Ipods and listen to the music, not watch it, but really listen to it?

   Manus et Manum! Usually, if somebody goes to the trouble of making a guitar look good, he has surely gone to the trouble for sound...usually!

   I've picked up some interesting looking guitars that sounded like a wet paper bag, and some plain janes inversely!

    But everyone of us likes a pretty machine!! Nobody has said differently. Meyer is right, if the guitar looks "and" sounds good, few things are better. One seems to play better by the inspiration.

   I just played a Dean about 2 weeks ago. It had an interesting finish to it, but one strum and Plah! It was not so pretty anymore!

As for IPod blindness...
I've have seen things... in the recording studio....

_________________
Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

To me, the aesthetic of the instrument does not equate into Bling.  That beat up old guitar has its own vibe going on.  Pearl encrusted super high gloss guitars just don't do it for me.

On the other hand, a guitar would have to be exceptional for me to overlook an ugly design and sloppy workmanship.

_________________
Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

Ugly can still sound good. Who doesn't love a new shiny instrument? Jaco loved his old J Bass.

Willie has Trigger.

Why do people put up with ugly guitars? Beats me but somehow I understand, those old cankered boxes have a history with their owner.

Roy never put his Trigger out to pasture either. I guess someday, most of these instruments will end up in a museum.

_________________
http://www.dickeyguitars.com

That isn't "ugly", and neither is Trigger. Not to my eyes. To me, they're downright beautiful. And I've seen shiny, new guitars, and guitar-like objects, many on these forums, with perfect miters, flawless finishes and the best of woods, that I thought were butt ugly.

I'm going to sound like Howard here, but, y'all need to read, and understand, Pye.

Who is John Mayer?

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

     This is interesting as are all thread with such subjective topics being
discussed. I've had Willie Nelson's "Trigger" here on one of my benches
and it is truly a nostalgic and emotional attachment that keeps it on tour
with him. It does sound great, but it is really beaten. The same is true of
Jaco's Jazz bass. He frequented the college that I attended in Boston and
would sit in on classes and give some input so it was easy to grab a
glimpse of it up close. He would coax and awesome tone from it and had
made it recognozable at a glance, but it was Jaco that made that bass
famous....not the other way around.

    It is by no means a beautiful guitar and even though some may say it is
for the sake of controversy or to give the impression that they have some
deeper "artistic sensitivity" or a "true" understanding of beauty that others
lack.

    It has been repaired many times and not always by the most skilled
craftsmen, it has suffered the weather and wear of long tours and
handling by careless techs and roadies, but it plays and sounds just the
wy Willie likes it to and that's all that really matters.

    I think that the beauty in that particular guitar lies in its affiliation with
the player that has made it famous and the endearing character and style
that he has shown over the past decades. That same guitar coming out of
an attic in some rural setting would be quickly thrown in the trash or
given to the kids to beat on until it was destroyed, but its long time
connection to Willie Nelson and his great songs makes it a treasure to
him and the music world.

    Too many times, people will attack and belittle the work of others in an
effort to separate themselves as authorities on the artistic or expressive.
Other times, they do so simply because they can't do the quality work
that others can and don;t want to be viewed as less skillful, talented or
willing to put the efoort and time in to develop those abilities.

    It's the old, "I build sloppy guitars because tone is all that matters to
me." syndrome and it's gotten a little old to those who have not only
ficused on growing as tone creators through their instruments, but have
also taken the time and developed the patience necessary to perform
those little tasks that players consider beautiful in a guitar.

    There are a small group of builders, some wth loads of time and
guitars to their credit and others with little of both, but with loads of self
ascribed accolades, who just refuse to put the aditional time into making
things fit right and look right after they've shaped the tone sufficiently.
They will be the first to tell you that the beauty of their instruments lies in
their tone with a real, "you'll only appreciate and understand it if you
really know what you're talking about." attitude in an effort to shame
people into agreement. I'd much prefer people liking my work because
they like it rather because they're afraid to be the next on the list to be
criticized for not getting it. (The story of the Emperor's new clothes pops
into my head every time they talk.)

   Some players are inspired by a brand new guitar straight off of the rack
and others are inspried by one from the latest vintage auction that looks
like it's been through a war, but the inspiration is real in either case. The
interesting thing is, though, that most vintage lovers usually have a nice
stable of brand new guitar too, while alot of new guitar lovers shy away
from the worn and beaten look of the vintage pieces.

   This is one of those situations where the old cliche', "Beauty is in the
eye of the beholder." is perfectly applied. We really need to consider the
motives of anyone who offers the abstract or controversial in these
threads.


    "Y'all need to read, and understand." is certainly true, but falls on more
fronts than just tone or what artist has made an instrument famous. If
tone was all that mattered, I'd venture to say that the builders who make
that claim would be saving the time and money that it takes to put a
finish on their guitars at all. Their guitars would be leaving their
respective shops with nothing but a quick sealer of some sort...if that.
The fact is, though, that they all try to out the best finish that they are
able to on them...some with great results....others with not so great
results, but time, effort and expense are invested because, in the end,
they do know that appearance is and important aspect of producing a
great guitar.

    
Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

This is getting interesting responses. Thanks for thinking about it! We're talking about what blind guitarists would say, so why not talk about what Grammy guitarists might say? Or at least one of them. I enjoy the posts so far.       

While I'm not a relativist, I do know that you can say vanilla ice cream is good, and I can say peanut butter and chocolate ice cream is good, and neither of us will be wrong. Looking good does not always mean looking untouched. Minimalism is a good example. Minimalism is very popular in interior design and makes me feel like I'm in the interior of a refrigerator.   

This Gravity video shows him playing a relic he loves. And he plays it again here in this jam with Buddy Guy.

This video and
this video show him playing a beautiful, clean, Jimmy Hendrix Monterey Strat.

I don't have any idea what kind of guitar he's playing in this performance of Neon

I would agree that a guitar doesn't make a musician who he/she is. I hope that's now what was implied. Our entire environment contributes to how we respond to things and create expressions. What we see in our hands interacts with what we hear in our heads and that interacts with the space around us and it all works together in our expressions, whether they be musical, emotional, literary, visual, etc. They all work together to create a perception/image. The way they all interact is called transmediation. Think of writers who need to be in their "spot" in order to write. Something about that spot interacts with what goes through their mind and helps inspire them. Have they been conditioned? Maybe. But that spot and it's ambience has become part of the process.

I have never heard if Jaco or his bass, until now, so I'm not attached to it in any way. I simply think it looks great. It's honest wear.

I also admire old weathered barns, fences, and homes. I love old brick work and wood siding; vinyl siding may be "perfect", but it does nothing for me and I think all vinyl clad homes are incredibly ugly. And I much prefer an old beat-to-no end Martin over some of the shiny guitar-like objects we see a lot of these days. Give me a photo of a 300 year old violin over a photo of a shiny new one to hang on my wall, any day.

So, when I say those guitars are beautiful, don't come back and put words in my mouth that i didn't speak, or affix another meaning to what I said. I meant what I said. Please and thank you.

Worked for great builder. He can make them plain and has been asked to do so by some of his players. He can build them with the "bling" and again has been asked to. Thing is plain or with all the bling, they sound and play great. He has done the same thing with laminated line of guitars. I have heard many times the thing Rick stated about once got what he and players wanted to hear and feel, the other came pretty quick and easy.
I am not as fortunate in my ability to do all of that after even several years and guitars, so still working on all of it.
I wish I was good as others who after 2nd or 3d guitar going to do a whole different design and add stuff because seen one of the older guys pictures and they want to do all of that the next one. Then the next post is the "how to" and thing of how do you make a neck attachment or binding ledge only as examples. personally and think in my opinion I would want to get a good sound, and playability (the basics)first and before taking off to do all of those other things. I can be a slow learner though and know others get it faster than me, but some don't.

The beauty of a guitar is what will initially attract a sighted musician, but it's the playability and sound that will keep him or her playing it. Visual appeal of a guitar is like a billboard to grab attention...and it can indeed be an artform unto itself, but if you can't deliver the goods in terms of musical utility, then it's just going to be a wall-hanger.   I've had scads of young luthiers come through one or another of my shops and inlay the last square millimeter of a fingerboard or hippie sandwich up the laminates...and then they realized that the guitar was basically unplayable.   Hundreds of hours worth of bling on a 1 1/2" wide neck...dips and humps that couldn't be sanded right because the inlay would be sanded through...non-existant neck angle requiring that the bridge be inset...inlays cracking when frets were smashed in...and then the guitars wound up in this museum or that show, but they were never played.

There is absolutely no reason not to decorate guitars to whatever level a client may want, but that shouldn't be at the expense of utility unless the client just wants to put the thing in a glass case and lock the door and lose the key.

Rick, you are taking a view of acoustic perception that belongs in the last millenium. The science of psychoacoustics has come a long way since then. For example, you are ignoring the well-known effects of sensory synesthesia that are now known to affect perception. Auditory experience is a subjective impression in the mind, not to be confused with the movements of air molecules that are only part of the stimulus for that experience. As a subjective mental experience, it is profoundly influenced by other subjective experiences that may be triggered by optical and fiscal inputs, among others (such as pheremonal olfactory input to the ancient reptilian part of the brain (bypassing the sensory filters in the thalamus), which incites temporary hormonal imbalances and can in extreme cases render the entire left hemisphere inoperative). In other words, don't underestimate the importance of the guitar smelling good. This is probably even more important to the blind guitarist, although good research in the area is still in its infancy.

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

For example, see C.M. Snodgrass, "The Effects of Macrocyclic Musks on Retrograde Signalling from the Olfactory Epithelium in the Rhesis Monkey," 28 Journal of Psychoacoustics pp.238-244 (2005).

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Where is that edit button, anyway? Oh, well . . .

Nevermind.

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

I'm thankful that I don't need this like you do, Howard.

My dad graduated from Berkley, then Hastings, back in the 60's, too. I'm
also glad that he didn't have to stay or go back to a town like that in
order to find a place.

James: just FYI, the guitar Mayer's playing in Neon is his fanned fret Novax. It's a great song, but dropped C tuning kinda doesn't work terribly well on a standard scale guitar. Funny that.

Ahh, the sensory thing.   Just got a couple of classicals in on which I'm doing some OEM R&D work adding pickups, and boy that scent of cedro is really something coming out the sound hole.   Cedro linings (or should I say kerfing?, and the neck block/interior of the Spanish heel. Wonderful...

Dropped C tuning works fine on 25.4 .. just not with light gauge strings. I play Cockburn tunes in drop C all the time .. meds or heavy's ...

As for Mayers take on aesthetic things (I do admire his playing though), just look at the first edition Mayer OM Martin - its a hodge podge of stuff thrown together - silver inlay here, shell there, herringbone ... what did they give him a box of scraps to choose from ??? .... next to those painted countertop Martins, the ugliest OM I have seen.

_________________
Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

    I didn't see anyone putting any words in anyone else's mouth....I just
saw things that i've seen a thousand times before.

   I like pd stuff too and have never bought into the "relic" fad with the
planned wear that looks so fake to me. Good old fashioned wear is a
great thing to see on an instrument.

   I believe that it's the stories that are behind every scratch, nick or scuff
that really puts the charm under that kind of worn look. I love 'em, I own
'em and I have a memory for each piece of damage that's been suffered
by them....vintage guitars are like autobiographies of the players who use
them.

   It's just the comments made with underhanded insults toward anything
other than what the commenting person lkes that are so funny and
unnecessary. "If it's shinier than I like..." or, "If it has inlay and adornment
more than I'd have on my guitar..." , "then it's not really a guitar.".

   It's comical and those being insulted should just see it for what it is.
More of an effort of self elevation than of diminishing to the work or
efforts of others.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

My motto is always "Find a Balance". No reason not to strive for excellence in tone and playability, and make it pretty in the process. There's no reason why you can't have it all if you simply plan it out.

I'm glad the folks here like Kevin and Rick and Grumpy and Howard et al are constantly harping on folks to learn how to build, and how to make an instrument playable. Learn repair, learn what problems happen to manufactured guitars that you can avoid in your builds. Concentrate on that stuff primarily, and the woodworking will come along as well.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

  It's comical and those being insulted should just see

Who's being insulted? And by whom? certainly not by me, I hope. All I said was that jaco's bass and Willies guitar were beautiful after someone referred to them as ugly. I didn't try to explain why I thought them beautiful. But they surely aren't ugly. That's like pointing to someone's Grandmother(and everyone has a Grandmother) and saying she's ugly. Well, she's not 16 with flawless complexion anymore, but my grandma's still a pretty lady, and so are all your Grandmas!

Then I said some of the shiny new ones were ugly. I didn't say why, but it has noting to do with them being shiny or because of the workmanship. I didn't 'read' anything of the sorts into what anyone else has written, either. Nothing underhanded or cryptic. Wassup? You seem suddenly insulted... We all make shiny new guitars, here... Don't take it personally <bg>

This thread was chugging along nicely , and we may just have swung into why some things are 'ugly' to one set of eyes and lovely to another's.