The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by DC Ron
    Here's another possibility. Maybe solid wood guitars dry out and get more resonant with age even if you don't play them. If this is true, solid wood guitars will get better as you play them because they are also getting older and drying out more.
    An old Danish violin maker wrote a book on violin making. One of his points was that it took violins 7 years to open up sound wise - played or unplayed didn't matter. He claimed that it was due to changes in the structure of the wood and particularly due to the fact that the tensions always left in the wood of a newly assembled instrument will lessen over time because the wood will gradually mold itself to the shape it is forced into when building the instrument. Now, I don't know why he wrote exacly 7 years. I'm also aware of that violins are often deliberately made with built in tension - the bass bar is supposed to have some spring when glued in - but that was not the way this violin maker did it. He believed in building the violin with as little tension as possible, just like archtops which ideally should not have such a tension built in. However, i figure it's hard to avoid altogether. Maybe a gradual relief of tension over time also plays the role in the "opening up", "maturing" (or whatever we prefer to call it) of the sound.

    But then there are those who say that a guitar doesn't really "open up". It's the player who adapts himself to the instrument - both in how he hears it and in how he plays it. I don't know what's the truth.

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  3. #27

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    Let's put it this way--I ain't waiting for a guitar to change. It better sound good when I first pick it up. Otherwise there's always another that will.

  4. #28

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    Quote Originally Posted by gasvictim
    What a shitty reply from you Patrick ...insulting in fact. THank God I never owned a heritage

    my collection is definitely better than a heritage. That includes a vintage 54 d Angelico New Yorker, a 38 d Angelico b-1,a 59 Gibson l5 and custom archtops from Lower end luthiers such as buscarino, bill comins, triggs, thorell, Andersen, victor baker, Benedetto, and ric mccurdy.

    I am outta here

    Sounds like a provocateur to me.

  5. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Soloway
    Those will improve the musical value of the instrument more than any changes in the wood of the guitar. The guitar may improve over time but not by nearly by as much as my relationship with the guitar does (in the same way that my wife may or may not have really grown more beautiful over the last twenty years, but she certainly has to me).
    That's about as sweet a sentiment as I've ever come across on an internet forum. Make sure to leave this page up on your computer with your post cued up so that your wife can "accidentally stumble" on it.

  6. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by gasvictim
    What a shitty reply from you Patrick ...insulting in fact. THank God I never owned a heritage

    my collection is definitely better than a heritage. That includes a vintage 54 d Angelico New Yorker, a 38 d Angelico b-1,a 59 Gibson l5 and custom archtops from Lower end luthiers such as buscarino, bill comins, triggs, thorell, Andersen, victor baker, Benedetto, and ric mccurdy.

    I am outta here
    I thought it was quite bland for Patrick

  7. #31

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    I agree with the views expressed by archtop and RP. I have a tonerite and have used it on all my acoustics, and the results vary widely, but interestingly.
    Not interested in arguing fors and againsts, no one has to do it! The reason I did was simple, I don't know that have enough years left to wait for it to open up over 10/20/30 years, and I'd like the guitar to sound as good as I can get it to, now.
    OP - it may be worth you considering. Don't get put off by what may seem like over-reaction by some, its only an opinion.

  8. #32

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    Quote Originally Posted by DC Ron
    Here's another possibility. Maybe solid wood guitars dry out and get more resonant with age even if you don't play them. If this is true, solid wood guitars will get better as you play them because they are also getting older and drying out more. Don't shoot me. I love older guitars because they sound great and because they are lighter and more resonant than their modern counterparts. Physics of dessication is certainly a part. Not sure how significant playing the guitar is relatively. Am sure I'll get banned for this post.
    I totally agree with you. My personal experience is that it is time, not playing, that causes the biggest change. If you leave a brand new guitar (carved archtop) hanging on the wall for a year it is going to sound much better than when you got it. If it is a dog, it will be a slightly nicer dog. If it is an angel on day 1, it will be an angelic doo wop group on day 366—and a choir in 3 years, maybe. So I'm totally on board with the drying out / hardening train.

    I've had 4 archtops, brand new, all with wildly varying hours of play on them. One that sat in the case because I couldn't play it (sticky neck) took a full year to fully dry to the point where I could play it more than 10 minutes. The change was dramatic. I hated it when I got it, but a year later it was rich and resonant. I'm sure much of that had to do with the finish hardening.

    Years ago Gryphon Strings had written an article about 2 of the same model guitar, one was never played but they were both vintage (or some scenario like that) and the conclusion was they sounded very similar despite one having many hours and the other having none. I know that is second-hand anecdotal from memory but it was interesting. I've not been able to dig it up.

  9. #33

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    Hey Patrick's job is to keep us all in check. He is just doing his job very well. :-). All I can say is my guitars never sound good in Dec. Jan. Feb. like me they don't like the cold. When the birds are singing so are my gits.

  10. #34

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    Quote Originally Posted by Para
    I thought it was quite bland for Patrick
    Actually Para . . it was quite bland. I had to re read my post several times to see exactly what it might have been that gasvictim objected to. I think it might have been this;

    "Was the luthier whistling, humming or singing as he was carving the top?? Was he wearing boxers or tighty whities when he was carving?? I could go on and on with the variables."

    Shame on me for not realizing that some here just don't understand my style and sense of humor.

    Also, I did preface my post with the comment that any answer to his question, whether the answer would be correct or incorrect, would need additional info. I posted what I felt were very relavent questions that needed to be answered before anyone could give any type of a response except one with very broad generalities.

    Anyway, this guy signed off with . .. "I'm outta here" . . so I don't know if he's still looking in. But, I regret any offense my post my have caused him, and if he feels like I owe him an apology . . then, I do apologize.
    Last edited by Patrick2; 01-22-2015 at 05:20 PM.

  11. #35

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    Well Patrick's remarks were made well over a year ago.

    TruthHertz - pretty much exactly what I said last year - cedar doesn't seem to change much but spruce ages and changes in the first few years according to how much you play. But you are not going to experience those changes to the same extent as a violin or cello player - different technique to get the string vibrating and sustaining I guess (not being a string player - or asking advice from one either!)

    Mr Beaumont - yes agree and would want it on day one to sound good - but would live in hope it would get even better over the decades. I would never ever buy a guitar like wine on the promise it will sound great in five years. Good wine doesn't start out tasting like drain cleaner even when its two weeks old - a bad sounding guitar will stay that way.

    It adds to the aguement that a twenty year old guitaris a good buy if everything is working and sound good - not likely to get any sudden surprises like a warping neck after twenty years. (Just go and talk to any repairer about how many new guitars they see that need attention in the first couple of years).
    Last edited by ChrisDowning; 01-22-2015 at 02:37 PM.

  12. #36

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    Quote Originally Posted by ChrisDowning
    Well Patrick's remarks were made well over a year ago.
    Yeah . . but, I'm still the same guy! :-) And, I still stand by the content of the post . . (not withstanding the tighty-whities)

    TruthHertz - pretty much exactly what I said last year - cedar doesn't seem to change much but spruce ages and chages in the first few ears according to how much you play. But you are not going to experience those changes to the same extent as a violin or cello player - different technique to get the string vibrating and sustaining I guess (not being a string player - or asking advice from one either!)
    There are quite a few classical guitar players here, so maybe they'll chime in on this; I've heard that with a classical guitar topped with a very fine piece of spruce, there is indeed a period of time of continuous playing, over which the guitar's voice will *open up* . . . to what ever degree. Further, I've heard that the same guitar's voice will once again tighten, if the guitar is left unplayed for long periods of time . . and therefore need another, albeit shorter break in period. Not sure if that true . . but, from what I've learned from some very knowledgeable people, this does sound plausible. Likewise with very high end violins, I've heard that they are played periodically specfically to prevent them from, *going to sleep* of I may use that expression.

    Mr Beaumont - yes agree and would want it on day one to sound good - but would live in hope it would get even better over the decades. I would never ever buy a guitar like wine on the promise it will sound great in five years.
    Ahhh . . but, this is where it gets interesting. When a knowledgeable wine connoiseur does a barrel sampling, or even a wine tasting after bottling . . and tells you that the wine will be far better in five years, it's usually an assessment based upon an many factors about the wine . . dating back to the vines and up through the aging. Similarly, when a talented and knowledgeable luthier makes an assessment of a guitar's charachteristics, it also based upon many factors. From the type tree the wood came from, where that tree grew, how it was felled, how the billets were split, how the wood was aged . . so on and so forth. That's why I asked all of the questions I did. However, to Mr.B's point . . if the wine tastes like shit when it's first bottled . . I'm not going to buy it and lay it down for 5 years in the hopes it will get better.

    It adds to the aguement that a twenty year old guitaris a good buy if everything is working and sound good - not likely to get any sudden surprises like a warping neck after twenty years. (Just go and talk to any repairer about how many new guitars they see that need attention in the first couple of years).
    This brings up another great point. A 50 year old L5C, which has been cared for correctly . . and played often, will more than likely have had any problems or deficiencies from when it was new, already worked and and corrected. It will almost always sound *different* than a brand new guitar of similar brand, material and craftsmanship will.

  13. #37

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    I think the more relevant question (referring to the original post) is...through an amp, does it matter?

  14. #38

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    Quote Originally Posted by coolvinny
    I think the more relevant question (referring to the original post) is...through an amp, does it matter?
    I'm not sure how much the acoustic tone matters when you play through an amp but I do know that my two Heritage archtops with the same scale length, near identical necks, the same pickup, the same fingerboard wood, the same construction method but different body woods and different body thickness sound very different acoustically and the difference is even more pronounced when I play them through an amp using the same settings.

  15. #39

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    Living in the south, where there are lots of traditional and bluegrass players, I've been around quite a few pre-war Martin guitars. There are also 4 (that I know of) signed Lloyd Loar mandolins in the area. A friend of mine has a 1939 L5. I recently had the opportunity to play a 1941 Epiphone Deluxe. I was fortunate to have had a job recording classical music (and jazz) for about a decade; when the soloist is playing a Strad, believe me, you can tell. My main instrument is a relatively new Campellone, so I hate to say this, but I think that it may take a VERY long time for an instrument to mature. Someday, decades after I'm gone, I'm pretty confident that my Campellone will have developed a fantastic acoustic voice. Not that there's anything wrong with the way it sounds today, but I suspect that it will improve greatly over time.

  16. #40

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    Jim - I used to think that but then I came across a Tokai Strat in a shop that just sounded great acoustically and I felt it would play great through an amp. Well it did to some degree and a couple of years later I was persuaded by a shop owner who had the same guitar to change the PUs to Alnico 2 SDs. Huge difference- it sounds great now. So I think great sounding guitars can sound great through an amp as well if the electronics are top quality - but I have never played a poor sounding guitar that sounded better once plugged in.

  17. #41

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    Not knowing which modern instruments you are referring to it is difficult to comment specifically on your observation. But I am happy to share my general perspective and experience. My comments relate to the acoustic tone and not to the electric tone through an amplifier:

    The more a "modern instrument" has been designed for acoustic play vs. electric play, the more you will notice that it timbre and perceived openness evolve over years in my experience. Particularly if it was made by an experienced luthier skilled in the art. I say this because they are more lightly constructed (thinner plates, shallower arch etc.), the more rapidly they open up like a steel string flattop or classical guitar with play. Many archtops are heavily built by design. Many of my recent custom guitars are made from hardwoods and softwoods that have been seasoning in a luthier's wood locker for 20-30 years before it was used to craft a guitar.

    Unfortunately, these guitars can also tend to feed back a bit more easily at amplified band gig volumes. I believe much of this transformation occurs over the first few years of play but likely continues to some further degree over time (first order transformation). I think however, you need to like the tone from the "get go" because if you don't, time wont make you like it in my experience. Learning the nuances of your guitar and how to make it respond, strings, setup and humidification are likely influencing factors as well.

    So in short, be able to articulate your goals for an instrument, choose the right luthier and you will likely get >90% to where you want to be. The last 10% is in you getting to know your guitar, string experimentation, set up adjustments and a few years of play.
    Last edited by iim7V7IM7; 01-22-2015 at 09:55 PM.

  18. #42

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    Quote Originally Posted by patrick2
    however, to mr.b's point . . If the wine tastes like shit when it's first bottled . . I'm not going to buy it and lay it down for 5 years in the hopes it will get better.
    lol

  19. #43

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    Apparently, it takes just over 2 years for a thread to open up....

  20. #44

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    Quote -.Not knowing which modern instruments you are referring to it is difficult to comment specifically on your observation. But I am happy to share my general perspective and experience - Quote

    I didn't want to get into name calling - but for example, repairers seem to see slab cut necks that go out of true in the first few years for example and it is pretty easy tobunderstand how that happens with mass manufacturing. Interestingly,for example, Ibanez produce multi layered necks on some of their best models that counters that ageing of the wood as each element pulls against the next one and should cancel out warping to a large degree. The neck on my Tom Waghorn is made like that with two side blocks of mahogany with the grain set at 90deg. (if I remember rightly when I saw it being made) and a centre section of 5 laminated woods between the join.

    And you arevright about custom made guitars being made lighter / looser - my Tom Waghorn has lots of openness about it's tone and response and is way lighter than my Yamaha LL16 - or some Martins I have tried. I guess if you are designing at Martin or Yamaha you make guitars to go all over the World and they have to be tough enough to withstand the dry cold of Alaska and the hot humid conditions of Singapore - havingnto design a guitarbfor those conditions probably compromises what you would do for a guitar that's going to spend its life in 'neutral' humidity and temprature.

    A you can often get a guitar custom made for the same price as a stock guitar, it is worth considering. However you do have to be patient - I think I waited 18 months. And strangely that guitar became one of Tom's standard designs because another player ordered one after seeing mine waiting for me to pick it up - he wanted one EXACTLY the same - so is that still a custom made guitar if you do that? I think it was because I had it made in very traditional colours and had the spruce top toned down to somewhere between spruce and cedar. It kind of looked older on day one. If I can work out how to post a photo I will (anyone can help?)

  21. #45

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    What does it mean for a guitar to "open up"?
    What does a "tight" guitar sound like?

  22. #46

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    Quote Originally Posted by Broyale
    What does it mean for a guitar to "open up"?
    What does a "tight" guitar sound like?
    I always love that nebulous descriptive gap between what a player's experiencing and what a luthier needs to know. We used to discuss creating a translator's book for that purpose. That being said, a good instrument has a complex voice that imparts a rich sound that changes from the immediate attack, through the sustain envelope to the decay. During this time, the personality of the instrument can be revealed. Words like "thunky", "woody", "dead", "cardboardy", "singing", "rich", "cheap"...etc (you get it), have been thrown around. And no two people feel it the same. We would hope the luthier and the player can hear the same thing.

    That being said, from a physical point of view, what you hear and feel is due in no small part to the contributions of the overtone series, a harmonic choir, if you may, of notes within a note. The more of them you hear, the more interesting the sound ( in general of course). This series of harmonic overtones depends on certain "members of the choir" dying out at different rates so though many actual notes are present at the attack, certain ones will retain their strength and they will all die out at different rates. This is decay envelope. And THAT is a function of how subtly a piece of wood can be manipulated by the luthier. Too thin and the energy dissipates, it sounds weak and lacks power. Too thick and the string vibration stays within the string, the overtones are rich there but they don't get heard through the wood (hey, somebody get an electromagnetic device so we can hear those!), and in between, is a sweet zone of balance.

    A balanced instrument vibrates well for all the overtones, of all the notes you play, and allows the top and back vibrations to freely radiate along clean nodal lines of the wood; that and the air resonance will give you the frequency signature of the guitar (in general) and here's the rub: the wood does not learn where those nodal lines are, and does not break the resin fibres of the wood on a microscopic level in order for the wood to vibrate freely, until it's played...throughout the frequency spectrum.
    A new guitar has a strong fundamental. You can hear a recognizable note, but it can sound like a black and white picture, or a charcoal sketch waiting for detail. That's a little like "tight". As the instrument lives and is played, like a pair of leather shoes or gloves, it learns where to bend so the patterns of vibration natural to a note, can be heard. Like those shoes, it learns where to bend, to be natural, to wear music, to be comfortable to vibration, the overtone modes. And as this happens, the air will be moved in those patterns and the instrument "opens up"...the black and white picture takes on shading and colour and detail.

    Sure this is a generalization and I know from years of building and acoustical research that there is much to the picture. Too, what one person hears is very different from what another does. I had a colleague who would complain that customers were fussy and too demanding with imagination and silly descriptives. But I heard exactly what they were after; he didn't. A good luthier hears, and understands what needs to come out and what in the wood needs to be retained and what taken off. And still, when it's new, it won't be there. It needs time for wood to learn what to do to transition from a piece of strange sculpture to a musical tool. That's the way I see the luthier's craft and the life of a piece of wood.

    This is one person's take, it's just me, and other builders here will surely take issue with my take. So take this with your grain of salt and a bit of sawdust.
    Hope this clears up your nodal lines for the moment.
    David
    Last edited by TH; 01-23-2015 at 07:36 AM.

  23. #47

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    Thank you TruthHertz, your posts are always so interesting !

    Quote Originally Posted by TruthHertz
    the wood does not learn where those nodal lines are, and does not break the resin fibres of the wood on a microscopic level in order for the wood to vibrate freely, until it's played...throughout the frequency spectrum.
    Personally, i sold my Tonerite: it was more or less explicitly described that one could choose the harmonic content of the vibration and ... in the box was just a kind of aquarium pump with only a strength button.
    I tried it on a few guitars with not enough effect to surely discard the placebo effect.
    And the whole idea that it's just a basic Bb or whatever drone just goes against my instinct.

    If i have to wake up an acoustic guitar, i clamp an old dislocated MDR-7506 pair of headphones with loud and carefully selected high end guitars playing all sorts of beautiful music.
    I did once, i have the feeling it did good things on a flat top i have (takes longer than a TR though).

    And i feel i am truer to my guitar sending it friendly voices than raping it with a sinister indifferent buzz.
    Plus TR kills strings.
    Last edited by xuoham; 01-23-2015 at 07:56 AM.

  24. #48

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    Quote Originally Posted by xuoham
    Thank you TruthHertz, your posts are always so interesting !



    Personally, i sold my Tonerite: ...
    And the whole idea that it's just a basic Bb or whatever drone just goes against my instinct.

    If i have to wake up an acoustic guitar, i clamp an old dislocated MDR-7506 pair of headphones with loud and carefully selected high end guitars playing all sorts of beautiful music.
    I did once, i have the feeling it did good things on a flat top i have (takes longer than a TR though).

    And i feel i am truer to my guitar sending it friendly voices than raping it with a sinister indifferent buzz.
    ....
    Interesting. I don't know how the Tonerite works, I don't have one so I can't say, but this is a really interesting topic. We'd take a new guitar and put it by the stereo speaker, or take a speaker driver and attach it to the bridge, or attach a constant sine wave sweep generator to the bridge (if it's not soundproofed, it'll drive you crazy) and enforce the wood resonances.
    It's not a guarantee or a number of reasons.
    -The aforementioned nodal lines are where the top needs to become compliant. If the finish is new, it'll cure over time. -The wood may acquire a "memory" but the finish will dampen it. That's why play in over a long period of time works the way it does, it works with the hardening finish.
    -If the top is too thick, it won't drive the top hard enough to get it really moving at those thousands of vibrations per seconds it needs to move to break in.
    -If the top resonances are not tap tuned precisely, the frequencies enforced will not coincide with the notes of a properly tuned guitar and it'll never be as strong as it can be. (regraduating and re-tuning an archtop is another controversial practice I've done with great success but it's not worth the man hours and it does border on lutherie blasphemy)
    There are resins in the wood, concentrated in the fine lines of the winter wood bands. They are excited by the vibrations and when they are heated by high frequency vibration (playing a lot) they break down and become more compliant. Literally "warming up". In fact, most of the energy of a radiating top is lost through heat, not movement or sound wave generation. So the resins heat up, they find the music, the top gets looser, it sounds better and you put the guitar down...it will gradually return to entropy and it won't sound or feel quite as good when you pick it up the next day. Good news, the warm up time decreases with time. I had an instrument that would feel "tight" and I knew within 20 minutes it would feel great. And that time decreased gradually over time. Yes, on this guitar, which was build well and tuned, I could feel and hear the change.

    Pretty interesting stuff, eh?
    Maybe more information than necessary, and only the tiniest fraction of what's out there.
    Time to play
    David

  25. #49

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    David - I think you will find a whole lot of players out there that have never heard what is possible from different designs of guitar (dreadnought, archtop, classical, etc.). Rather like a current generation brought up on iPhone speakers, iPhone docking bay speakers and the like, and fed with 64kbs MP3 tracks. I guess at some point thiat generation will rediscover full size speakers with 15" bass drivers and a three way crossovers driven by a good amp, fed with a high quality audio signal. In a similar way players need to get in touch with what guitars sound like at the top end of what is available, and measure where they are with their own instrument and where they want to improve their tone, attack, decay, and complexity of what they project.

    As with audio reproduction becoming inexpensive and everywhere, I think we may have drifted over time into a parallel expectation that guitars should be inexpensive whilst not costing a lot. I have said this so many times - as guitarists we expect so much more from our instruments compared to, for example, a violinist or cello player. A pro violinist wouldn't expect to use an instrument costing what we consider reasonable for a top quality guitar. They pay at least ten times more. I would say their starting price would be at least $20,000 for a violin and our guitars seem to be $2,000. Veiwed that way Collings, Martin, Taylor mid range guitars at $2-4,000 seem cheap and the best archtops are priced very modestly at $5-7,000.

    Talking about getting GREAT tone from a guitar costing $1500 is just unrealistic - unless you are prepared to play with the bell curve of manufacturing quality and try 50 guitars, all the same, before you choose the one which is at the far end of the quality spectrum. (As one luthier I met did for a client who had a deal to play an inexpensive model from a top manufacturer - he found in the warehouse, THE one that he said played like a $5,000 instrument. But they were all about to be shipped as identical $750 instuments.)
    Last edited by ChrisDowning; 01-23-2015 at 11:26 AM.

  26. #50

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    About 3 months, playing the instrument a couple hours a day. That's not to say the sound won't continue to change over time. I find that the mid-range gets more focused after the instrument is broken in. Also the ax gets more responsive (quicker projection).