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Mr. B are the jeff Matz songs all yours?? Really like the sounds you get!! Maybe Misty was done on the archtop??
Sailor
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01-02-2009 11:07 PM
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Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Man Mr Beaumont, fun it was! You ROCK, dude! Oh, sorry, is there an equivalent in english for "rock" in jazz lingo, if you guys get my drift...?
Obviously, since all the songs were free downloads, I downloaded like there was no tomorrow
. So more stupid questions like...you know the standard you did for "Stella By Starlight"? How much was it was improvisation and how much was the "song" in itself.
And I agree with Sailor, sounds like Misty was played on an archie and it sounds mighty fine!
An after hearing you play...I DON'T believe the formula that jazz is 1% creativity and 99% practice anymore...
later,
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the archtop had to be It might as well be spring. They're all good. I'll probaly download them all too. I live on a farm so I could barter you some chickens but every time I try to ship chickens they won't stay in the envelopes.
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Mr. B, very nice.
I have three guitars I use for jazz, a Gibson Johnny A which is full hollow body but about the same size and thickness as a Les Paul. I also have a Telecaster and an Epiphone Joe Pass, this is a larger hollow body arch top. I almost never play it, but it is the best value for an arch top, so it is a good one to start with.
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Mr. B, sounds like you use a hybrid picking technique. (You are using a pick and finger picking with your 2nd and third fingers, is this correct?
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From what I heard, you can say "that cat really swings". Originally Posted by siewmengtan
Hey Banksia, for chickens, you have to put them into the bubble pack envelopes. They can't peck through the seal.
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Or "that cat lays down swinging vibe"
Last edited by dix_fix; 01-03-2009 at 09:41 PM.
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I like that one better than mine.
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01-04-2009, 12:29 AM #34chitlinsonrye Guest
You can play any music on any guitar! It's a GUITAR! it all depends on the sound you want to get.
I love archtops. Always have. Even before I was into jazz I loved 'em. The shape of f-holes was most likely burned into my brain through a hash haze at several Ted Nugent concerts as a kid....shh lol
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^^ I'd say (being the owner of several Maton's myself) That Tommy Emmanuel is very concerned with the guitar he plays. The particular guitar is a Maton 808 series & they are one of the best sounding guitars period yet cost a fraction of a top end Martin etc. Not trying to get up your nose. Google the EBG808 or indeed the TE808 (i.e. Tommy Emmanuel series) I have found myself playing mine to the exception of all other gutiars of late. The sound is fantastic not super loud but great for a small room or plugged in. MMMM
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^^^That's for sure^^^
His brother Phill isn't a slouch with the gee-tah either. LOL
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the first instructional DVD I watched was a Tommy Emmanuel. It was excellent the only problem was when he got up to the part where he does all the harmonics I couldn't learn anything because I was fixed on watching him. But he's aplayer like Chet Atkins: when you're that good, genre is irrelevant.
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Originally Posted by siewmengtan
whoops! i forgot i had "misty" and "spring" still up there!--of course, misty's the archtop, and spring is on a nylon string acoustic.
of the others, they're all tele except "cute," which is the archtop (a rather inexpensive epiphone emperor regent) plugged in...that was the sound i wanted to see if you could pick out--i botched my own experiment!
as for improv/arrangement, i use loose arrangements that i can mess with, so for something like "stella," that opened up with a little improv noodling, once thru the tune, with some improv-ed embellishment) and then once thru the song form while improvising.
for better or worse, i have a tough time really playing anything the same way twice, so my chord melodies are always "shells," to an extent.
oh, and sailor, they're all me playing, but they're all standards. soon, i plan on posting some original stuff.
and nic, yeah, pick and fingers--pick + middle, ring, and occasionally pinky.
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Very interesting to see the Ed B. clip. That was a long time ago now. It really looks to me that he is using a stock Tele pickup for the neck position, and he transitioned to a humbucker. I used to see him a lot in Toronto in the late 80's and early 90's. I was in a jazz workshop thing taught by Al Goreman, he knew Lorne Lofsky pretty well, and Lorne was of course the other half of a great guitar duo with Ed. Several times a friend who had a great big loft in the manufacturing district downtown got 20 or 30 people together, we each kicked in $20 and potluck food and drink, and we hired Ed and Lorne to play in the ultimate small intimate setting on a Sunday night. They would just sit in the middle of a circle of intensely quiet people (think beatniks sitting on cushions in a coffee-house) and play for three or four sets. One or the other would just call a tune, and they would go. Ed would complain we were kind of freaking him out we were so quiet and intense, but about every person there was a serious jazz student, and this was like an informal master class in playing like Ed!
I owned a custom 7 string through-neck Telecaster that Lorne had made by 12th Fret for a number of years, I probably bought it from Lorne in about 1989. It was actually first made as an 8 string, but the string spacing was too tight to work. He restrung it as a 7 string with a high A string over normal tuning on the bottom 6. I couldn't deal with that so I strung it as a low A or B, usually. I still have the original EMG active pickup from that guitar. Lorne usually played thumb pick and fingers, Ed played pick and three fingers, which is what I still try to follow.
Cool, haven't thought about those days for years.
BrianLast edited by brian evans; 01-13-2009 at 11:36 AM.
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Originally Posted by siewmengtan
Absolutely it is NOT NECESSARY to go out and buy another guitar.
One advantage to an archtop over some other designs is that you can hear it when unplugged for practicing. Of course you already have that part covered.
Archtops were the early electrified guitars used by Charlie Christian, et al, in Big Band settings, so traditionally have been what jazz students wanted to emulate Charlie Christian. Solidbodied electric guitars came later.
So-called "Gypsy-Jazz" players of the Django Reinhardt "school" use modified Classic designs built lightly for projection but reinforced for steel strings: they often add a magnetic or piezo pickup for amplification.
Piezo-electric bridges on acoustic guitars allow them to be heard in loud settings as well. Now, there are blended hybrids of all sorts being used in a wide variety of music performances.
It comes down to what works for you in the settings you most often find yourself. Or just preference, since modern technology has leveled the playing field. Anything that can be heard in an ensemble situation will do.
I played Pop, Standards, and Big Band, in large venues for decades where a traditional archtop was actually a PROBLEM because of feedback and projection issues. I wound up using a solidbody Telecaster for years on those jobs.
Now that I'm more likely to play in more intimate straight ahead, or dinner-jazz settings, I prefer an archtop design just because it's just easier to get a nice sound quickly and I like the relationship of the top to my arm (it's comfortable and efficient for my picking hand), though I can adapt to about anything.
However I still get occasional calls for louder venues, so have settled on a 2000 Gibson ES-135, which has a traditional archtop look and is versatile enough to get a decent jazz type sound on, then also be able to handle higher volumes and styles requiring more sustain, because it is semi-hollow like an ES-335 design.
Though it looks like a traditional archtop construction, the body has an internal wood block extending from the neck to the tail, which damps the top and back from sympathetic vibration caused feedback, yet still presents enough absorption of highs from the strings to reduce twang on the bass strings and ping on the treble strings, though I have modified the bridge saddles some to enhance that aspect of the ingredients. That helps the so-called "jazz" tone so I can very quickly get the fluffier treble string jazz tones without a lot of critical tweaking of various amp and guitar controls. I find I need to tweak the amp and guitar more to get a passable jazz tone out of some other designs.
Compared to more traditional US made hollowbody archtops, it was cheap at $750 (used).
And though its particular set of design compromises limit its acoustic response for practicing, my wife appreciates that aspect very much. She's my biggest fan, but has caught my act enough already.
Last edited by backline; 01-13-2009 at 02:40 PM.
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hi anybody - just stumbled across the thread.
Of course there is no need to by any equipment for any kind of music as long as one has any instrument.
I heard heavy-metal guitarists play on an old classic guitar and it sounded authentic and great, and I heard beginners tormenting a 2000$ Ibanez with "Blowing in the wind" - and it did not sound so great...
Special good equipment is used for three major reasons:
1) A good guitar can be played better. The string distance is optimized, no frets are in the way, you won't tear up your fingers sliding up the fretboard etc. etc. This reason applies to any good guitar for any music, if it's a heavy axe as well as an archtop.
2) Our favourite guitar player uses this special guitar. This might be a motivation. But it will not add to my playing capabilities and therefore not to my sound. The favourite guitar player might play this guitar for different reasons - it sounds good, it is easy to play, he has contracted an advertisement treaty with a guitar company. In most cases he will use a guitar of high quality. This is the weakest reason for buying a guitar, aside from using the motivation that results out of it, to play more. I will not sound like Joe Pass, even if I use his guitars - I would also need his amplifier, his time of playing, his musical background and propably his life to create such great music, as he did. The guitar has the least influence on anything JP did.
3) Good guitars sound better for a certain purpose. Well this might be. I own a Kramer - Axe and a Klirachord - the latter one as cheap as the name suggests. When I bought my Kramer, I even liked the sound of my old guitar better - it was warmer and I was used to it.
But well an archtop mostly sounds a little warmer - granted.
This christmas I bought myself a new guitar - waying all these arguments against each other. I also wanted to start playing jazz on a better basis as running II-V-I with the chords from my chord table book and that also was the reason why I stumbled across this site. But I did not buy a new guitar suited explicitely for Jazz - ok my Kramer does not match my emotions playing Desafinado, when it is more designed to play Pantera
I was looking for a guitar to play anything. One that can be played in front of the TV without carrying tons of equipment with me, one that sounds nice and does not create to much feedback in front of my marshall, one that looks nice and one that can be used for virtually any music.
First I realized was, that any guitar can be used for virtually any music. I even used my lute for playing DreamTheater as well as some children-songs or Bach.
But - though I can access 7 guitars (including the lute), I wanted a new one. The main reason was, that all were difficult to play: The lute has slightly to long frets (ouch), the neck of my western-guitar isn't straight any more, the tremolo of my Kramer drove me nuts a.s.o.
Eventually I ended up buying the msc650 of Ibanez - one of those hybrid guitars. It is beautiful with its vintage violin design. It sounds great amplified and very satisfying played without amp. It was not too expensive. I can use it for Jazz as well as for Rock. It comes with a build in distortion (nice add on). In short I fell in love with it as soon as I grabbed it from under the christmas tree.
What I want to say, is only this: A guitar is a very individual decision. There are lots of parameters, which lead us to a certain model. And each parameter is important for the searching guitar player. But I do not think that it makes sense to buy an Archtop only to play Jazz and because they are on all those cd-covers. A good archtop can be a great guitar - but don't buy it for simple mimikri-reasons. Buy a guitar, because you love it.
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Hey GolanTrevize. That's one of the best explanations I've heard on buying guitars. You speak the guitar truth.
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Which all just goes to show
No you don't need to buy an archtop to play Jazz
BUT
you might want to.
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My question is do you prefer acoustic or electric guitar period.
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The OP has had nearly 10 years to ponder this question so hopefully he's come to a conclusion by now!
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It's interesting but most tend to lean towards electric. Even my teacher majored in performance and composition with a classical guitar at Atlanta school of music, Peabody, and Berkeley. But he teaches with and prefers electric. Another interesting tidbit is as good a guitar player as he is, he's an even better bass player! That's inspired me to take up the bass a couple years ago. I bought the bass he was currently teaching with. Got it for relatively cheap.
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What do you guys think of this whole thing about when you change threads you can't like anything for the first 100 posts?
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Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Jeff, this link brings me up a ukulele site (above) - it seems the link is redirected - but others haven't had a problem by the look of it.
Any ideas?
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Yeah, that site is old, went defunct a few years back, so I lost that stuff. If you notice, all the people who listened to it did so many years ago--this is a very old thread, maybe one of the first on the site! Originally Posted by ragman1
Jeff, this link brings me up a ukulele site (above) - it seems the link is redirected - but others haven't had a problem by the look of it.
Any ideas?
I had those recordings on my website, but I let that tank too, as it wasn't generating anything really, and wasn't worth paying for.
Now I just have my youtube, I have all these old recordings on a hard drive somewhere, maybe someday I'll get them on SoundCloud...
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Best to let sleeping threads lie - who knows what horrors may be unearthed?
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