Tal Farlow (added Image)

[daveg]

[wintermoon]

look at those mitts! the octopus indeed, the neck looks like a childs guitar in his hands.
the last time I caught him in a small club there was literally a line of people on break waiting to compare hand sizes w/ him, it was funny. it was a long time ago but I should've spent more time checking out his stool w/the amp built in, looked pretty cool and leave it to him to come up w/ something like that. super nice/shy guy.

[Dennis D]

Ok, I'll ask. : )

Please -

What is /are the functions of those 2 screws near the bridge p/u, and the 1 near the neck p/u ?

Thanks.

[wintermoon]

Ok, I'll ask. : )

Please -

What is /are the functions of those 2 screws near the bridge p/u, and the 1 near the neck p/u ?

Thanks.

someone posted that the bridge screws were to mark it's position and I believe the one between the pickups is from a previous pickup

[Cunamara]

Right, I think he put the woodscrews in at the bridge to serve as a backstop to maintain intonation while traveling. At different times there is another pickup right behind the neck pickup, which he ran through a home-built octave divider to play bass lines down low while the bassist was soloing up high. Tal was apparently something of an electronics buff. From an interview:

If I don't have to fly, and I'm working within driving distance from home, I use a stool that I've built that has the electronics inside. It's just like a box, narrow at the top and covered with plywood all the way round. My right foot fits into an indentation and rests on a rubber covered pedal that controls the volume. Near the floor there is a little trigger for flicking the divider on and off. What I've been doing when working as a trio with bass and drums, is to get the bassist to play up high on the neck of the instrument during his solos, while I play a bass line in single notes behind him using the divider, which drops me down an octave.

It can also play the bass note and the original one in parallel. For the purpose of producing a bass line, I cut out the upper note, though you can effectively raise the volume by adding some of the original note from the other pickup. It still sounds real low, as it's the second harmonic of the fundamental note that you have moved down.

I really burned a lot of holes in the rug with the soldering iron, putting the divider together, eventually they became available. I had heard a recording of Eddie Harris using one and had wondered if it would be possible to make one for the guitar. The thing was, especially at that time that the guitar note when you sounded it was as loud as it was going to be. You couldn't sustain it because it would start to decay straight away. Unless you pre-amplified it first, it was going to drop too low to trigger the divider. So I built a preamplifier that went ahead of the divider, and used a circuit that clipped off the top of the transient. It clips it off when you first hit the note and it has got its widest swing. It acts like a compressor, which will limit the loud notes and automatically turn up the volume as the note dies away. It works this way, there's a light dependent resistor that conducts current when you shine a light on it, you put that between your signal and ground.

The l.d.r. opens up when a light shines on it and causes the resistance to drop and part of the signal to be shunted to ground. You use a one or two transistor amplifier to light up a light emitting diode, so that when you play real loud it lights up and shines on the l.d.r. This cuts down the volume and, as it returns, allows the pre-amp to send in more of the signal as the note dies away. In that way it sustains long enough to play whole notes at a moderate tempo. It's very seldom that you get into a phrase where it won't follow you all the way. But of course you can buy them now, this was sixteen or seventeen years ago. The frequency divider is really the basis of computers, it divides by two and you make it divide by other numbers by linking it with other dividers. It's really simple, once you reduce the fundamental, you have to get the harmonics out of it as much as possible, or else it will start triggering off on the harmonics, then it would give you a different note."

You know, personality-wise Tal is one of my very favorite players. Very smart under his humble demeanor and able to articulate exactly why he did what he did.

[sgcim]

There's some good news for Tal fans. A friend of mine who wrote a book on Tal, thinks there's a strong possibility that it's getting published.
He put Tal up for six months after Tal got booted out of the house by his wife, Tina, so we're not talking about a dry, academic study. It will clear up the reason why Tal's playing tanked after the 50s in detail.
There's even a chapter on the players Tal disliked. In private, Tal could really let loose!
It may not be for a while; the publisher didn't like something about the multi-media approach he used originally.

[Cunamara]

That's been in the works for a long time. I remember him writing about it back in the r.m.m.g.j days. The bits he shared were well-done.

[daveg]

Added image.

DG