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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
I am playing through my Henriksen amp, which simply does well with archtops, and the Conti is no exception.
Tony
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05-10-2013 09:56 PM
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Peerless guitar, looks a little like the hofner very thin....I have not had a chance to try out a peerless but they seem to be really nice......I wish the body was a bit smaller...
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Originally Posted by artcore
Tony
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Thanks for the info....it has me thinking about it....I've watched the videos of guys sitting down and playing and I'm thinking that looks a little awkward with the size of that body, but I guess it depends on what you find comfortable and how you hold the guitar..
Last edited by artcore; 05-12-2013 at 10:32 AM.
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Originally Posted by tbeltrans
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Originally Posted by artcore
Tony
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
Tony
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Originally Posted by tbeltrans
I have two questions.
One is about your 'classical style' of holding the guitar without a footstool but using a strap instead. I always wear a strap (and play seated) but I don't hold the guitar that high. I used to try lots of different positions but it is only since giving Conti's "Precision Technique" a couple months that I feel my picking is solid enough to make OTHER adjustments worth considering. How did you hold the guitar before?
The second question is about strings. Conti doesn't use flatwounds. I assume the Conti came with the strings Conti uses--what do you think of them? (And more important, how often do you need to change them? I've had my current set of TI .011s on my guitar since last August and I play 2-4 hours a day; that's serious mileage!)
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Originally Posted by tbeltrans
Excellent! You've touched on a very important point here. Most of us practice while sitting and play while standing which creates a different angle on the guitar and the way the hands address the fingerboard. I discovered this years ago when my execution on the bandstand was always several notches below that of the practice room. When it finally hit me what was causing the problem, I began to use a strap to keep the guitar in the same place all the time and was able to acheive a balance between practice and performance.
Jerome
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Originally Posted by monk
(If that makes no sense, well, it won't be the first time I've been guilty of that.)
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Mark,
Obviously. I can only speak for myself. I started wearing my guitars mid-chest a la Roy Buchanan and Les Paul about 35 years ago. That's high enough so that it remains in place whether I stand or sit. Another benefit is that when playing seated in a big band, it's customary for soloists to stand during their solos. I don't have to worry about the guitar shifting or moving around if I'm called on. I can stand up and get right to work.
Jerome
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
1. I have been working with the Conti materials much longer than I have owned a Conti guitar (I only got it a week or two ago and have posted here longer than that as proof). I have only gotten an archtop to use with the method recently, having used a classical guitar and then an acoustic steel string parlor guitar prior to that. All these instruments worked fine. You would need to contend with wrapping around your chord forms when you can't get much beyond the 12th fret, but that isn't a bad thing - it helps you understand the fretboard.
2. Conti would never claim he invented any of the musical aspects of his methods. Everybody has been using what I am referring to as the "Assembly Line" chords for many, many decades in jazz and other musical situations on all manner of guitars. Considering the Conti guitar only came out a few years ago and Conti wrote his books long before that, his guitar could not possibly have had an effect on how he wrote the method.
My point was simply that an advantage of the Conti guitar is that you don't need to wrap around at the 12th fret because you can go all the way up to the 24th fret easily.
With regard to the classical manner of holding the guitar, I have always done some form of that, probably because I have always preferred to use my fingers. Most people seem to rest an acoustic guitar on the right leg when sitting down to play. that always seemed really awkward to me because the player's elbow is then sticking way up in the air. To me, that feels really uncomfortable, and I wouldn't doubt it causes its share of physical problems after a while. With electric, I see people having the guitar slung rather low. It may look "cool" in a haphazard sort of way, but the angle at which the wrists are bent looks very awkward and prone to damage. Proof of this is in various guitar forums where people , especially for acoustic guitar where classical technique seems to be largely ignored, players are having problems with their hands and wrists. Unfortunately, it can take years before the consequences of our choices become known. I have a nephew who did whatever they called the "head banging" thing people did to each other at rock concerts in the 80s. A year ago, he had to have surgery on a couple of vertebrae whose cause was traced directly back to that activity. Same story for ignoring hands and wrists when playing guitar, though maybe to a lesser degree.
With regard to Conti strings, he works with GHS and has sets put together with specific gauges. The gauges are (high to low): 11 - 14 - 20w - 28w - 38w - 48w. The package says "Preferred Guage Strings Manufactured by GHS Strings, Battle Creek, Michigan" on the back, and "Preferred Gauge Strings From Robert Conti" on the front. I like the strings and find they sound good and are comfortable to play. Conti says on the package "This set of custom gauged strings is the result of many years of experimentation. In addition to ease of playability, I believe they achieve an ideal tonal balance for the majority of jazz guitarists."
I am one of the fortunate people who doesn't have weird chemicals coming out of my fingers, so strings tend to last a long time for me. Some people have to change strings every week, if not more, and others maybe a few times a year. It seems to depend on the chemicals in your fingers, how frequently you play, and the environment in which you play. If you play on a cruise ship, for example, the air would be salty, so maybe strings in that environment wouldn't last as long.
Tony
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Originally Posted by monk
I am glad you picked up on that. My choice of words was on purpose, and that was exactly the point!
Tony
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
Of course, when all is said and done, we each have to find the positioning that works best for us. Clearly, monk and I have a similar approach, with similar reasons and results. We all have different hight, arm lengths, etc, so it may take some experimentation to find what is suitable for you.
Tony
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Originally Posted by tbeltrans
It's a funny thing about playing sitting down. I'm one of those guys who crosses his legs but unlike most guys, I'm long-waisted. (I'm 6 foot tall with a 31" inseam on my pants---that's how long my torso is, and how short my legs are!) So my guitar feels a little "low" when I'm sitting; however, if I use the strap to bring it up several inches, THEN my arm feels like it's at an odd angle.
I play with my fingers with the Assembly Line material, but I'm mainly a pick guy. (Conti's "Precision Technique" and "Jazz Lines" are my daily bread along with "Assembly Line," and I sometimes do the A. Line material with a pick...) I'm not sure your classical posture would work for me. But boy does it work for you!
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Originally Posted by artcore
This makes sense to me because I really have not seen a guitar, especially in this price range with the attributes that the Conti guitar has, as mentioned in other posts. That is another good thing about Conti's organization, he/they will respond if we ask them anything about their products. So I hope this information helps.
This is a link to Conti's Facebook page from the 2010 NAMM show. Notice what the banner says about who Peerless builds for:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=3&theater
TonyLast edited by tbeltrans; 05-12-2013 at 05:37 PM.
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
If I knew that I would only be playing jazz/chordmelody/not pop or rock, then I would have gone for the single pickup.
By the way, I have googled and read discussions about dual vs single pickup configurations and people's opinions about the Gibson Johnny Smith, and people reflect the same views that Conti mentioned. My Johnny Smith has two pickups and is sunburst, so I decided to go the same route with my Conti guitar. I have no regrets, and believe that either would be fine (single or dual pickup). Conti said he plays a single pickup model, and it is black.
You may have some experimentation ahead of you regarding how to hold the guitar. I have heard of other people having long torso/short legs or the other way round, so it isn't too unusual. The issue is to what degree is the length disparity. In your case, it is apparently pronounced enough to affect how you hold the guitar. Fortunately, there isn't ONE right way other than the way that works best for you.
Tony
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Originally Posted by monk
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I always sit in the living room with my back against the couch when I'm working through a tune, in a nice comfortable position and then when I sit in chair, its oh man, I have to shift around to get the fingerboard in the right place...and thats my fault, I know better.....using the strap or adopting the classical position would be the smart thing to do.....
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Soooo, you just need to take your couch to the gig.
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I mostly gig right at home.....these days....
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Originally Posted by tbeltrans
As a kid, I wrote songs and that remains more important to me. Though since I've gotten into jazz, and especially The Great American Songbook, I realize I'm not that good and that I (often, not always) get more out of playing a great tune well than one I wrote myself. (There's an undeniable kick to having a song of your own you think is cool, but my own tunes aren't jazz, though some have a bit of that influence.)
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Its a hobby for me and very glad I found cord melody..I am retired so I can fool around as much as I want with it...I don't use the amp much, but lately I'm plugging in and making some recordings...It really points out the weakness in the arrangements.
Also the positives...
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
To me, a good test of a well written tune is if the melody and harmony are strong enough to stand on their own in a variety of settings. There was a jazz 2 CD set called "A Bite of the Apple" of Beatles tunes that worked really well. I have heard one CD of an attempt to cover some Stones tunes as jazz pieces that, in my opinion, falls flat. I have heard some classical guitar renditions of some Hendrix tunes and though they have a few short moments, overall they really don't work well. Edgar Cruz captures rock tunes as solo classical guitar pieces. I have some of thse CDs. It sounds to me as if he has to work really hard to get it all in. I doubt that they would hold up at all if he weren't skilled enough to capture much of what the band is doing.
The standards hold up well because they have a strong melody line and you can do a lot with the harmony. Not everything written during that time withstood the test of time, but there is a large body of it that did, and still does.
There is so much music coming at us from so many directions today, that it would be really easy to not hear really good music being made that would hold up. We have too much of a good thing, and I really don't know what is being produced that might work in a setting such as solo chord melody.
As for song writing, I am surprised in hindsight how many good tunes there were from the 70s. I don't know what the ratio was from the 30s, 40s, and early 50s between all that was produced and what withstood the test of time, so I don't know if the 70s appraoched that at all, but there is quite a bit from the 70s that could be set in a chord melody arrangement. I don't know about music from the 80s and beyond except maybe a few tunes.
I don't really consider myself "jazz" necessarily either. My inspiration comes not from sax players, as many jazz guitarist seem to want to emulate, nor from jazz guitarists, but instead from certain cocktail style piano players. They take harmonic freedom, but stick to the melody. That is what I aspire to as is presented in The Formula. Conti provides a way to achieve that, but it still takes a lot of time on the istrument, which he makes quite clear. So I am somewhere along the way, but far from any destination.
Tony
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Originally Posted by artcore
To me, music is one of the best things I can think of doing in retirement. It only needs to cost what you are willing to put into it, yet regardless of how little money you choose to spend on it, the rewards are tremendous. That is one of the things about retirement that I don't hear a lot about - what do you intend to do? I don't need to travel, been there, done that too much already. I just want to be at home playing music and maybe teaching in some community program and/or playing in a small group.
Music is a great hobby. You can do it until the end of your life, unlike so many other pursuits such as ballroom dancing, travel, etc.
Tony
Home, guitar playing and travel
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