Quote:
Originally Posted by AndrewG
I'm one of those weird people who doesn't pigeon-hole guitars according to genres; e.g dreads for flatpicking Bluegrass, OM for fingerstyle, 12-strings for strumming etc.
I have a 2018 D-18 Standard which works well for everything. Adapt your style to the guitar, not the other way around.
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Hi, Andrew isn't that weird, but I DO "pigeon-hole" guitars , not by genre but by design for purpose.
Martin particularity did a whole load of research and development over, at least, their first hundred years.
Their intial guitars were very small by modern standards but still achieved good projection for the size of audience (unamplified) from "parlour" to "auditorium" and from 1902 until about 1931, their largest production model was the 12 fret 000 sized guitar.
However, in the late '20s and '30s the guitar really changed its purpose. It became a "rhythm" instrument - with the 14 fret OM and then the dreadnought.
although the OM wasn't a commercial success - introduced in 1929 and discontinued in 1933/4, when the modified dreadnought came around, both were intended largely as rhythm boxes - the OM for orchestral purposes, (fail) and the 14 fret dread for both orchestral (fail) and (small acoustic combos/folk (pass).
To my mind the 00 and the 000 are still far superior for fingerstyle, and the dreads and gibson original jumbos are primarily strumming/rhythm instruments.
A short while ago, a very god blues finger-picker dropped into my club, without intending to play, but I convinced him to do a spot.
I had my sitka/hog 12 fret dread with me that night (the loudest guitar I own) and gave it to him to play.
he sat down in front of the mic as he usually does with his 00 and comeened to pick, and we could hardly hear him, because the dread (with medium strings of course) responded best to a bit more oomph.
Of course you can play anything on anything, and there was a chap called Doc Watson who didn't seem to be too much troubled by playing dreads with fingers -
So, if you can pull out a fair balance and projection from a dread with fingers and thumbs - go for it.