Quote:
Originally Posted by rick-slo
Guitars vary in sensitivity. Some bloom (mainly on the bass side) only when driven. Overtones vary more with picking angle of attack and picking distance from bridge than volume in general. Also it may be more about sympathetic string vibrations than overtones per se. Appropriate duration control with string damping is important to clarity. And etc..
Recording yourself a listening back is very helpful to gauging how the sound and performance in your head matches reality.
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All this is true... But in the thought process I believe I've coined a phrase that seems to keep coming back at me... "Epiphany of the obvious". I'm going to keep it short initially, but it could get lengthy. Get some coffee, this could take awhile.
The Andy Powers/V-Class bracing thing, with him claiming "improved intonation" got me thinking (more than usual). In his response to Tony Polacastro he said that we need to "rethink the concept of intonation". AND HE IS RIGHT! It's been under our noses the whole time and just accepted the what-is. We really don't much discuss the concept of guitar bodies abililty to generate harmonics... and how aligned and in-tune those harmonics, sympathetic, resultant and otherwise might be.
What he seems to have been working on is ways to bring guitar bodies more in tune throughout the harmonic spectrum with the overtone series of the strings. Think about the signature sound of the Martin D28. Has anyone noticed that their "signature sound" produces overtones that are a little off in some areas from the string harmonics? [I just used the D28 as general example, but we hear this in many guitars, particularly vintage models. Use any vintage brand. Harmony? Kay? Silvertone? ]. And (using the Martin example) why the HD28? What's different about that model from the D28 and why?
Less expensive guitars tend to sound less lively than "better" guitars, no? Why? Because they seem to produce harmonics that don't quite jive with the strings overtone series. How can that be? If you think about it logically, as notes get higher the strings get shorter (which you can see as frets get closer together. As a trumpet player when you get up in the upper register the notes are so close that sometimes it's hard to separate them- and playing them in tune often requires alternate fingerings. So, it stands to reason that the overtones, comprised of higher notes need to be very precisely in tune to produce their own harmonics. But is it possible that the a guitar body isn't equipped to vibrate sympathetically to those overtones???
Case in point: I can sing on key and if I'm not asked to move from note to note quickly or accurately I can sing pretty well in tune. But even so, nobody is going to pay me to sing for them. While I can sing the fundamental notes in tune, my body will not let me produce the proper resonance and overtones that would make a pleasing tone. I'd love to sing with a rich, warm, round voice. But that ain't going to happen. Not because my vocal chords won't let me hit the notes. But because my body just isn't equipped to resonate properly to make pleasing vocal sounds. It's the same thing with guitars. It comes down to wood selection and how the wood is manipulated to make is more susceptible to sympathetic vibrations that will allow it to resonate with an aligned response to the fundamentals and overtone series of the strings. So while I can take voice lessons and improve my technique to the point where people won't run when I sing, there's only so much that can be done. And this resonance thing. As a small factoid, Barbara Streisand, as beautiful as she was in younger days, never had her nose fixed for fear that it would change the resonance of her voice.
And thus you have some other stuff that I've pondered in my old age.
Temporarily dismounting soap box.