Welcome Paradoxers!
This blogspot will be our new home to share updates on everyone's new cd's, links to music venues, and other activities.
You can also post remembrances, photos, and any other memorabilia you would like to share. It would be great if this could become like an archive for the Paradox -- then and now.
More information to follow as I figure this out. In the meantime, please add your comments and keep the site alive and growing.
Nitpick. Seemingly minor, but something I consider important. That's not an acoustic guitar. It looks like one, and it sounds a lot like one. But it's an electric.
The last 10 years has seen the rise of the amplified acoustic as a new instrument in its own right, with aspects of both the electric and pure acoustic.
It began in the 30s with the invention of the first usable electric pickup. But the technology was crude, and it didn't really do what it was intended to do, which was to give the sound of an acoustic guitar through an amp. It had a sound all its own, which led to Jimi Hendrix and Steve Vai, by way of Charlie Christian, Barney Kessell and Pat Metheny.
But it didn't do what it was supposed to do, which was make the sound of an acoustic guitar loud enough to play rhythm in a jazz band. That technology only matured in the last 15 years or so, so you could say that the electric guitar was a sidetrip in the pursuit of a decent amplified acoustic.
But it didn't end there. Players like Richard Thompson, Adrian Legg, Thom Bresh and Buster B Jones took the subtle differences in touch and tone on the amplified acoustic and used them for more sustain, more penetration, and lighter touch. It became an instrument in its own right.
Adrian Legg plays an Ovation strung up with .009s, which is the same guage Eddie Van Halen uses, and he really has hybridized the style. Light touch and easy bends, but with a tone more like an acoustic. And the gentleman in this video has spent a lot of time listening to Legg (who has a video out called "How to Cheat at Guitar" Highly recommended)
The boy is good, however. And that's a nice piece. He couldn't have done it without plugging in, though.
Granted. Postmoderism means it looks like an acoustic, but it's and electric guitar. Microphones, Transducer mic's and electro-magnetic pickups plus stomp boxes add up to some electric modification of the sound every time. Guitar makers have lifted the art of projection of acoustic sound to wonderful heights. Then the players mic and electrically amplify these wonderful sounds, modifying and desecrating the sought after acoustic tone. In venues where 30 people are listening 15 feet away.
No pick-up, transducer or microphone. Strings and wood vibrating sound through air only. Stradavari. That and only that is acoustic sound.
Apologies for the pedantry. I've just spent the last couple of weeks explaining to people that they probably want to wait before they open the can of worms called acoustic/electric when buying their kids' first guitar, and that they'd be better off putting the extra $100-$150 for the pickup system, and another $200 for the amp, into a better quality guitar.
The other discussion that we're constantly in is expalining that an acoustic isn't a starter electric, and that, if the kid wants to play electric, they need to not do the equivalent of buying him a tennis racket when his heart's in baseball
I always look forward to the "yeah, but" additions to these discussions. I've learned a lot!
Plus, I sometimes question if such music is even possible (like the amazing young Swede who doesn't even appear to be playing in some of those videos posted earlier). So it's always good to have it confirmed by people here who know there are indeed young Swedes and others out there who can play like that. Who knew?
Yer right on Rik. I totally appreciate your professional, musical points, always well taken. Every minute point can't be stated in posts. I always know you have a thought-out and informed statement to make and listen to you with that in mind. I also know a lifetime of artistry and dedication to sound, music, is gonna come with some "uniqueness". Rave on. If you think it, I want to hear it.
I tend to agree with you Rik, and if we want to really dig deeper into that thought, we can also claim that my big Klein L-45.8 acoustic that I used at the reunion, was not really acoustic music I played that night because I used a mike to amplify it. Not much purity these days, there is always a twist somewhere, and I try to accept it the way it comes....usually :-).
"...not really acoustic music I played that night because I used a mike to amplify it"
Yes and no. A mic comes the closest of any electrical syatem I know of to project what an acoustic guitar does. I have yet to hear a pickup system that comes close. My point about acoustic/electrics is that they have become a category in their own right, and that players like Michael Hedges, Adrian Legg, and Kaki King have found sounds and response characteristic in them that aren't found in acoustics or pure electrics.
So an acoustic electric, originally developed to let the acoustic guitar player play louder without being pinned to a mic, turns out to have characteristics of its own that it doesn't share with the other two categories.
I've found that I need all three in my palette. Now if someone would only develop a decent pickup system for banjos.....
8 comments:
I wish Bob and Helen could hear some of these -- it's amazing what these young people can do with guitars.
Nitpick. Seemingly minor, but something I consider important. That's not an acoustic guitar. It looks like one, and it sounds a lot like one. But it's an electric.
The last 10 years has seen the rise of the amplified acoustic as a new instrument in its own right, with aspects of both the electric and pure acoustic.
It began in the 30s with the invention of the first usable electric pickup. But the technology was crude, and it didn't really do what it was intended to do, which was to give the sound of an acoustic guitar through an amp. It had a sound all its own, which led to Jimi Hendrix and Steve Vai, by way of Charlie Christian, Barney Kessell and Pat Metheny.
But it didn't do what it was supposed to do, which was make the sound of an acoustic guitar loud enough to play rhythm in a jazz band. That technology only matured in the last 15 years or so, so you could say that the electric guitar was a sidetrip in the pursuit of a decent amplified acoustic.
But it didn't end there. Players like Richard Thompson, Adrian Legg, Thom Bresh and Buster B Jones took the subtle differences in touch and tone on the amplified acoustic and used them for more sustain, more penetration, and lighter touch. It became an instrument in its own right.
Adrian Legg plays an Ovation strung up with .009s, which is the same guage Eddie Van Halen uses, and he really has hybridized the style. Light touch and easy bends, but with a tone more like an acoustic. And the gentleman in this video has spent a lot of time listening to Legg (who has a video out called "How to Cheat at Guitar" Highly recommended)
The boy is good, however. And that's a nice piece. He couldn't have done it without plugging in, though.
Granted.
Postmoderism means it looks like an acoustic, but it's and electric guitar.
Microphones, Transducer mic's and electro-magnetic pickups plus stomp boxes add up to some electric modification of the sound every time.
Guitar makers have lifted the art of projection of acoustic sound to wonderful heights.
Then the players mic and electrically amplify these wonderful sounds, modifying and desecrating the sought after acoustic tone.
In venues where 30 people are listening 15 feet away.
No pick-up, transducer or microphone.
Strings and wood vibrating sound through air only.
Stradavari.
That and only that is acoustic sound.
Apologies for the pedantry. I've just spent the last couple of weeks explaining to people that they probably want to wait before they open the can of worms called acoustic/electric when buying their kids' first guitar, and that they'd be better off putting the extra $100-$150 for the pickup system, and another $200 for the amp, into a better quality guitar.
The other discussion that we're constantly in is expalining that an acoustic isn't a starter electric, and that, if the kid wants to play electric, they need to not do the equivalent of buying him a tennis racket when his heart's in baseball
I always look forward to the "yeah, but" additions to these discussions. I've learned a lot!
Plus, I sometimes question if such music is even possible (like the amazing young Swede who doesn't even appear to be playing in some of those videos posted earlier). So it's always good to have it confirmed by people here who know there are indeed young Swedes and others out there who can play like that. Who knew?
Yer right on Rik.
I totally appreciate your professional, musical points, always well taken.
Every minute point can't be stated in posts.
I always know you have a thought-out and informed statement to make and listen to you with that in mind.
I also know a lifetime of artistry and dedication to sound, music, is gonna come with some
"uniqueness".
Rave on. If you think it, I want to hear it.
I tend to agree with you Rik, and if we want to really dig deeper into that thought, we can also claim that my big Klein L-45.8 acoustic that I used at the reunion, was not really acoustic music I played that night because I used a mike to amplify it. Not much purity these days, there is always a twist somewhere, and I try to accept it the way it comes....usually :-).
"...not really acoustic music I played that night because I used a mike to amplify it"
Yes and no. A mic comes the closest of any electrical syatem I know of to project what an acoustic guitar does. I have yet to hear a pickup system that comes close. My point about acoustic/electrics is that they have become a category in their own right, and that players like Michael Hedges, Adrian Legg, and Kaki King have found sounds and response characteristic in them that aren't found in acoustics or pure electrics.
So an acoustic electric, originally developed to let the acoustic guitar player play louder without being pinned to a mic, turns out to have characteristics of its own that it doesn't share with the other two categories.
I've found that I need all three in my palette. Now if someone would only develop a decent pickup system for banjos.....
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