When I was a kid in Australia, 'hell and gone' was a popular expression and my ol' Dad used it a lot. Over-reaction is not unique to Americans. So, there was a place named Wollongong not so far from where we lived and I thought Hellongong was a real place ... but a long way off. I'm a heathen kid, what do I know.
No idea if Neil Young was a heathen kid but he has just played a set on Farm-Aid and he's playing Old Black, a Les Paul with a Bigsby tailpiece (i.e. twang bar). That's unusual as most Les Pauls don't have a tailpiece. The guitar is a legend and Old Black's history is recorded (WIKI). Young has had the guitar since 1969 and he traded Jim Messina for it.
Note: the set went insane for the closer song with the classically-grandiose crescendo to complete the finale. There was some mad guitar playing in the set as why have just one guy playing lead. Noooo, we came for a party.
The other guitar Young was playing is a Gretsch White Falcon (WIKI) and it looks like a Gibson ES-335 at first glance but it's the Gretsch answer to a different Gibson model. The article quotes $12,000 US for a replica model of the original from the 50's. Found one at Musician's Friend and you can get that White Falcon for $10,000. Yes, they do take credit cards. Get two.
Note: even if I had the money, I would not do it. The Godin xtSA is my One True Guitar Love as I'm doing it like Goldilocks in that the fingerboard for a Les Paul is wider than I want and that of a Stratocaster is just a wee bit narrower. The xtSA is in-between and is just right. Changing between guitars which have different scaling to their fingerboards is unnerving for me as your fingers get to know the fingerboard better than your woman.
The above is no exaggeration as you will spend, in aggregate, years of your life and quite a few of them directly caressing that fingerboard with the most intimate touch you can manage. If you tried to give a woman that much physical attention, she would probably explode from the pleasure of it ... but what a hell of a smile.
The reason for the interest is both guitars have a twang bar and Young uses it a lot. There are two 'schools' as there are those who believe the twang bar compromises their style of play too much to make the capability worthwhile. There are others who insist the guitar must have one. Arguments against the twang bar most-commonly are the twang bar will pull the strings out of tune. Other more subtle arguments involve changes to the action (i.e. way it plays), sustain (i.e. how long a note hangs and the contour it takes), etc.
My experience is that locking tuning keys on the Godin keep tuning exceptionally stable. It seemed many thought you need heavier gauge strings if you have a twang bar but I've used .046 - .010 almost exclusively and it will lose tune more from temperature changes than from banging on the twang bar.
The action has to be just right too as jazz players often want the strings extremely close to the fingerboard but this makes it difficult to bend strings because it's harder to 'under' them. If you want to play blues or rock, you probably won't like the jazz guitar setup.
In watching Young's style with it and listening to the effect of it, I was hearing an entirely different technique from how I like to do it. There's a vulnerability in the way I do it in the style can make the note 'too beautiful' and it's easy to sound like Zamfir with his pan flute. That's cool if you want to be really, really, really pretty but I'm not that pretty. Maybe that sounds like bragging but it's not because there's not too much dynamic to really, really pretty. It is or it isn't.
That goes back to Young as I wouldn't call his style of play necessarily pretty. It's highly-emotive, powerful, captivating but Zamfir and the pan flute don't fit into that. The way he uses the twang bar is a significant factor because he uses it one hell of a lot, like to hell and gone ... which is a long way, I think.
No idea if Neil Young was a heathen kid but he has just played a set on Farm-Aid and he's playing Old Black, a Les Paul with a Bigsby tailpiece (i.e. twang bar). That's unusual as most Les Pauls don't have a tailpiece. The guitar is a legend and Old Black's history is recorded (WIKI). Young has had the guitar since 1969 and he traded Jim Messina for it.
Note: the set went insane for the closer song with the classically-grandiose crescendo to complete the finale. There was some mad guitar playing in the set as why have just one guy playing lead. Noooo, we came for a party.
The other guitar Young was playing is a Gretsch White Falcon (WIKI) and it looks like a Gibson ES-335 at first glance but it's the Gretsch answer to a different Gibson model. The article quotes $12,000 US for a replica model of the original from the 50's. Found one at Musician's Friend and you can get that White Falcon for $10,000. Yes, they do take credit cards. Get two.
Note: even if I had the money, I would not do it. The Godin xtSA is my One True Guitar Love as I'm doing it like Goldilocks in that the fingerboard for a Les Paul is wider than I want and that of a Stratocaster is just a wee bit narrower. The xtSA is in-between and is just right. Changing between guitars which have different scaling to their fingerboards is unnerving for me as your fingers get to know the fingerboard better than your woman.
The above is no exaggeration as you will spend, in aggregate, years of your life and quite a few of them directly caressing that fingerboard with the most intimate touch you can manage. If you tried to give a woman that much physical attention, she would probably explode from the pleasure of it ... but what a hell of a smile.
The reason for the interest is both guitars have a twang bar and Young uses it a lot. There are two 'schools' as there are those who believe the twang bar compromises their style of play too much to make the capability worthwhile. There are others who insist the guitar must have one. Arguments against the twang bar most-commonly are the twang bar will pull the strings out of tune. Other more subtle arguments involve changes to the action (i.e. way it plays), sustain (i.e. how long a note hangs and the contour it takes), etc.
My experience is that locking tuning keys on the Godin keep tuning exceptionally stable. It seemed many thought you need heavier gauge strings if you have a twang bar but I've used .046 - .010 almost exclusively and it will lose tune more from temperature changes than from banging on the twang bar.
The action has to be just right too as jazz players often want the strings extremely close to the fingerboard but this makes it difficult to bend strings because it's harder to 'under' them. If you want to play blues or rock, you probably won't like the jazz guitar setup.
In watching Young's style with it and listening to the effect of it, I was hearing an entirely different technique from how I like to do it. There's a vulnerability in the way I do it in the style can make the note 'too beautiful' and it's easy to sound like Zamfir with his pan flute. That's cool if you want to be really, really, really pretty but I'm not that pretty. Maybe that sounds like bragging but it's not because there's not too much dynamic to really, really pretty. It is or it isn't.
That goes back to Young as I wouldn't call his style of play necessarily pretty. It's highly-emotive, powerful, captivating but Zamfir and the pan flute don't fit into that. The way he uses the twang bar is a significant factor because he uses it one hell of a lot, like to hell and gone ... which is a long way, I think.
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