Official Luthiers Forum!

    Nothing taken personally here.

    I agree, all Grandmas are pretty ladies. No need to explain why anyone
thinks anything is pretty or ugly or anything in between.

   Guitars are guitars whether they're beautiful or ugly to any particular
set of eyes....but they are guitars....and not "guitar like objects." They've
all had someone's time and energy poured into them. Those are the kind
of comments that cause some builders to think, "I wonder if I fall in that
category of building "guitar like objects.", but they're nothing new.

   It's still pretty common to find people who think only a Martin is a real
guitar or the same about their Taylor. Everything else is just a guitar like
object.

    There's no issue at all concerning why any guitar can be beautiful and
another ugly in any person's personal opinion...only why some are guitars
and others are guitar like objects. Great tone or poor tone, great finish or
poor, lots of inlay or none....they're all guitars and the tag of guitar like is
an effort to insult.

   I love Jaco's Jazz bass and I love Willie's old Martin N20. Are they what i
want to buy when i'm shopping? No, I'd rather give them my own damage
that tells my own story, but they are guitars and great guitars at
that....mostly because of the stories that are shown by their scars.

    I guess that last line in my previous post that was quoted should have
continued to read, " 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 before they feel too badly.

That's it...I wasn't insulted...no biggy. This is a thread about a quote
from a great player who can and does buy any guitar unde the sun that he
wants to add to his collection. Mayer has a huge number of guitars, both
new and vintage and he mixes them up regularly as he performs, but he
obviously prefers using newer shinier guitars. Because that inspires him.

   The funny thing is exactly what ToddStock said earlier. It wasn't long
ago that this same musician that is given so much credit for knowing
what's important in a guitar was hoping to get two consecutive nights
booked at a club that would pay him. I saw him at Toad's Place in New
Haven during his short stint at Berklee College of Music and he was great,
but nobody was ready to listen to much that he had to say back then.

   Shine is beautiful...scratched is beautiful...it's all in the eyes of the
beholder, but they are all guitars.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

[QUOTE=grumpy] 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. [/QUOTE]

Hey, I'd love to hear what some folks think is ugly and what they think is pretty about some guitars. On occasion, someone will post a guitar here on the forum that just doesn't do it for me for one reason or another. Then I have to question what they were thinking in the preliminary aesthetic design stage. Other times, folks show an instrument that absolutely makes me go all Pavlovian.
Unfortunately, on a forum like this, all we can do is look at people's guitars and appreciate (or not) their visual appeal. We know that this is important but secondary to what makes a great guitar. I'd love to see a thread on what kinds of aesthetics people like and dislike. Of course, participants would have to check their egos at the door and be willing to question their own sense of aesthetic style in the light of what others think. Nah. It'll never happen. Not sure how it could happen without someone getting hurt...

_________________
"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."

I guess this Mayer guy is so famous that people thought I was joking when I asked "who is he?" No joke; I never had heard of him. Just when I thought I was getting a little caught up, the bar keeps moving. Well, thanks to Google I now know that he is a 20-something guitar god. I'm still not sure why his opinion matters, unless he is ordering a guitar. Then it matters a lot.

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

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Yeah the dude can really play. Sings good too. He and Brad Paisley did a Crossroads concert on CMT awhile back that was fantastic.

_________________
"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."

You're not alone, Howard. I know not of him, either. but i also don't know who the Jaco guy is, either. 

Kevin, maybe it's the sheer volume/length of your posts that makes me -think- you're all worked up or something. You must type 140/minute! The only time I come near to posting anything as long as that is when I'm really torqued <bg>

A "guitar-like object", to me, is a guitar that was built primarily as an eye exercise, and not really practical. perhaps not so much of it here, on the OLF, but many of the electric things we see, with pointy points that will catch the player under the arm, or 17" jumbos with 6" deep sides and a 3 lb headstock that would make a Kenworth mudflap look dainty, that kind of stuff. That sort of guitar may be pretty to someone, but it is so player-unfriendly that it will soon lose its "shine" and just become another guitar-like object on the wall.

I'm with Mario and Howard in that I never heard of Mayer before either until this thread. 

But I don't admit to this to discount what he has to say - nor do I personally agree with him thinking that he is speaking about absolutes here.  Some will be inspired to be all that they can be by a shiny guitar, some will treasure their personal relic and as Kevin pointed out the personal legacy of every dent, scratch, time your buddy closed the case to fast and the latch dented the binding.........

About the only thing that I read here that I have to disagree with is that my grandmother WAS ugly.......  And before you go there I know this makes me ugly too.

I have a memory of being 7 years old and watching this 400 pound woman with hair that looked like she had been dead for 10 years.  She was moving toward me with a butter knife and saying that she was going to go outside and cut a "switch" to beat me with.........  Probably the real shame here is that she never caught me.

But regardless of how she looked or acted I still loved her.  And this is my point  - what or who any of us choose to love be it a guitar or a person will always be a very subjective thing and highly personal as well.  If we all could recognize this, that there is no right or wrong answer to this question, we all win.

Mayer's point of view is just that, his.

Early on, I was impressed by various people's worn guitars, and the fact that they had played them into that condition.
Until I saw Jimi Hendrix' white Strat at Experience Music.
The guitar in countless posters, and the Woodstock movie, didn't have a scratch on it. It was in better condition than most new guitars hanging on music store walls! That's a different take on an experienced guitar!

_________________
Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Jim I heard a long time ago and perhaps others in the biz here will fill us in, that Hendrix was provided with perhaps as many as 300 strats by Fender.  He often played them once, perhaps set them on fire on stage, threw them into the audiences, etc.

The story I heard was that there were countless Hendrix stats and this has kept their collectability value rather low considering his greatness.

[QUOTE=James Orr] 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. [/QUOTE]

James, I'm so glad you posted this. We've been far too concerned here, of late, about the blind guitarists out there. I'm pretty sure that we're overlooking another group of musicians, and we're being pretty insensitive about it as well. My concern is that the deaf guitarists are being ignored! What appeals to them? What speaks to them? "What would a deaf guitarist say?" Why, I venture a guess that what appeals to them is precisely the bling on an instrument. And the more the better!
Here, in fact, are musicians that hear only with their eyes, and by golly, we owe it to them to knock their lights out.

Consider this portrait by Vermeer, of a well-known deaf artist:



See the joy of discovery on her face? I know for a fact that that guitar sounds terrible, but look at the bling! She's in heaven.

Anyway, food for thought....    


Steve

_________________
From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Good point Steve!

Perhaps just as important and since Todd brought up Stephen King is what would a dead guitarist say?

Although the rope or gloss or what ever of an instrument may inspire a blind or deaf guitarist to compose a masterpiece what about dead guitarists?

Perhaps their preference would be an instrument that they are comfortable decomposing with?

grumpy,

    I run about 120-130 a minute typing and can sometimes type faster
than I talk, but it think you can easily read through my posts here in a
minuter or two at a regular conversation pace...which isn;t all that long
when we're actually speaking. My speed sometimes comes with a price of
plenty of typos, tough. I'm not a regular proof reader.

   I guess I just like it when someone makes their point without leaving
things to be assumed or filled in by the reader just because they're typing
instead of talking ans that's the way I've come to post. Believe me, i've
talaken my share of flack from people who completely mistook the
content or intended meaning of a post because I didn't take the minute or
so needed to fill in what would have been blanks otherwise.

    I'm not torqued at all, but offering my input in the way that I like to. I
agree with you on your guitar-like object take now that you explained it. I
was just thinking that you were referring to guitars posted by builders in
an effort to share their work with others. Sorry for the misunderstanding
on my part.

    Sorry for the length of my posts sometime, but I'm still working at a
limited capacity and have to take a break for an hour or so with every few
in the shop because of my shoulder getting sore and needing to rest.
Those breaks are when I scramble to read as much as i can and post as
often as possible.

    Once i'm back in the shop, the computer is nowhere near me and I try
to focus again for the next few hours.

     Thanks for clarifying that "guitar-like" objects thing. Now when I see it
I can jump in with you.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

Hesh, you got a guffaw outta me with your "dead guitarist" concern.
However, I think I'll pass on trying to build for that demographic. (It's hard enough building for the live ones, blind--deaf--or otherwise.)

SK

_________________
From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

[quote]I'm with Mario and Howard in that I never heard of Mayer before either until this thread. [/quote]

    That's because your all really old!   

    Not my cup, but after hearing him play, Yea! His opinion counts!!

    Besides a deaf guitarist that may, or may not of, existed according to Vermeer, is there anybody else that can name one!

    It's odd! The artist is the one that actually makes the music, but because of our concern for the guitar machine we look at that, I think, somewhat twisted. Turner, I think, has mentioned it a few times,as much as I detest admitting it , but we're all making instruments for them.

I think most of us look at it as, to paraphrase Zappa, "Shut up and build your guitar"!

_________________
Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

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

That's because your all really old!

What? Is 40 the new 65 or something? What'd I miss?

[quote=Mr. Grumpy]What? Is 40 the new 65 or something?[/quote]

Man, I hope not....

_________________
"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."

Careful I have been turned into a purple dinosaur by that Billy guy - better not mess with him.......

In response the first time Billy did that to me I sent him a nasty email.  He sent it back to me with lots of words blacked out.  I think that he over redacted............

I love it when people hate to admit that I might be right about something...Means I'm doing something right...

Todd, you win a Tub O' Lard for the funniest post of the month. I know I know, it's not the end of the month yet, but nobody's gonna beat that one.

_________________
"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."

[quote]What? Is 40 the new 65 or something? What'd I miss?[/quote]

   Got plot!
   (I.E. Burial)   

[quote=The Barneyasaurus Hesh] I think that he over redacted............ [/quote]
     As for the... redaction, next time I'll "dedact" to make up for it!

_________________
Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

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

My own seminal development stopped at four kids...

[quote=Rick Turner] I love it when people hate to admit that I might be right about something... Means I'm doing something right...[/quote]

     I got no problemo... amigo... with you being ight!!!

Sabe HOMBRE!!

    I is just flipp'in tired of your candy coated, sissy a$$, nipple suck, coddling of these Official Loser Forum....... LUTHIERS!!! If it was up to me, I'd a poured gas on'em... lit'em up... and stomped their gutz out to a squirmy, squeely, PURPLE PULP!!!

        Repairless BA$TARD$!!!!!
        ALL of'em!!

   GD IT!! NEXT TIME TELL'EM WHAT YOU REALLY THINK!!!

_________________
Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

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

Nice talk...

Looks like another lock down coming...

This is fun

BillyT,
   Thanks for that enlightening and productive post. Whatever it meant or
wherever it came from.

   It was...well...interesting to read.

Any one see Full Metal Jacket?  Of course many of you have.  Great flick.

Remember when Joker meets Animal Mother for the first time?  The exchange was pretty intense and kind of gave me an aversion to peanuts for a few years after that

I can't know but I might suggest please that my friend Billy's post was much like the exchange between Joker and Animal Mother - a role - he was playing a role.

I also suspect that no offense was intended.

May we please get back on topic now?  Thick skin right?  That's what some of you tell me and if I can learn I am sure that anyone here can too.

Thanks.