Do guitars “close down”?

[UncleJesse]

Originally Posted by Paraclete

Sound is really so subjective. However, I have a 200+ year old violin. I set it down in 1994 and didn’t play it again until 2008. It sounded horribly nasal and thin when I first started playing it again. Over the course of the next few months, I could tell by the feel of the resonance and vibration that it was changing. Perhaps those nuances are easier to detect when the instrument is braced against the side of your skull. And yes, the sound improved dramatically.

Could it not be that your skills were rusty and you got better?

[UncleJesse]

Originally Posted by Bax Burgess

Hadn't run into a 'closed' guitar till three days ago. I pulled out a dread that had been in its case for maybe 18 months; the #6 string was nearly lifeless, the other five somewhat thin. Definitely a loser, not what I had remembered back when I purchased it, and I wondered if my ear had advanced that much over those months. I didn't remember buying a lousy guitar by a known luthier. I had two superb guitars out at this time, and the dread was comparatively a dog. I started playing it over the next 12 hours, simply trying to get 'in tune' with it, wondering if I could adapt. One more time I picked it to learn that it had caught up to the other two in richness, the #6 string now powerful and the others well rounded, the equal of the other two. I had heard of this waking up/shutting down before, and vaguely thought that I had experienced it on occasion, but this instance was striking. If it matters, the three guitars are all solids.

Maybe the strings were dead after 18 months of sitting and you were knocking the actual rust of oxidation off of them.

[Skip Ellis]

I wonder if the skill of the player has anything to do with it? Could it be that a certain guitar shuts down because it's owner sucks as a player or has a bad attitude at any given time? It's all too subjective to ever come to any meaningful conclusion and ANY change in a million different variables will affect the outcome of any test.

[Pitar]

Originally Posted by Slothead56

Serious question.

We spend so much time on the mystery of “opening up”. If a guitar is not played for a while does it tend to “close down”?

My experience with closing down is related to higher humidity when the wood moisture content attenuates the natural frequency response of the wood. This improves as humidity lowers. Otherwise, I've not experienced any of the opening up that is claimed to occur, nor any non-RH related closing down.

I've come to consider that change in RH is the sole cause, of both sonic changes people hear, in deference to any other claimed causes.

[BoneNut74]

Originally Posted by Slothead56

Serious question.

We spend so much time on the mystery of “opening up”. If a guitar is not played for a while does it tend to “close down”?

In my experience yes. I find that a new guitar will start to open up, but if not played for even a week or two, will go to sleep pretty quickly. However, after a guitar has been played for a few years, I don't think it ever goes to sleep as hard or as quickly as a newer guitar.

[guitar george]

Does "opening up" mean that guitars will always sound better the more they are played? If that is true, then, "closing down" would mean that guitars will always sound worse the longer they are not played?

Maybe some guitars sound worse the more they are played? Maybe some guitars sound better if they are left in their cases for a while?

[Dog Shape Cloud]

I'm afraid all of you are wrong.

The simple fact of the matter is that neither guitars nor the physical realm in which the gullible allege sound to "propagate" and be "heard" are real.

The only safe assumptions are that a) we are all immaterial detached psyches living in a sort of projected Matrix scenario, or b) y'all are delusional projections of my unconscious mind/illusory creations of a malicious demiurge in the vein of Descartes' demon. Maybe even both!

Given the impossibility of scientifically proving any other scenario to be the case, we can only hypothesize that any apparent variations in the (nonexistent) sound of (nonexistent) guitars are also nonexistent, and if it appears otherwise, this is only because the artificial idea that we (or, rather, I) have perceived such a change (or indeed, any "sound" to begin with) has been programmed into the simulation or deposited full-formed in my mind, QED.

[erhino41]

Originally Posted by Skip Ellis

I wonder if the skill of the player has anything to do with it? Could it be that a certain guitar shuts down because it's owner sucks as a player or has a bad attitude at any given time? It's all too subjective to ever come to any meaningful conclusion and ANY change in a million different variables will affect the outcome of any test.

I don't think the skill level has a lot to do with it, though a more experienced player may realize that what they perceive they are hearing is not always exactly the sounds the guitar is actually putting out.

Musicians play their instruments in real time making all the necessary adjustments on the fly by rote. You know exactly how to fret each note for the sound you want to hear and you know exactly how to caress the strings with your picking hand to achieve the exact response you are looking for on an instrument you are intimately familiar with.

When you put that guitar away for awhile you start to lose that intimate connection with the instrument. When you play that guitar next you have to relearn that connection with it, which will happen rather quickly given your previous familiarity.

I can easily understand jumping to the conclusion that the guitar itself is the reason, but we are vastly and immeasurably more dynamic than a guitar ever could be.

[Skip Ellis]

Originally Posted by BoneNut74

In my experience yes. I find that a new guitar will start to open up, but if not played for even a week or two, will go to sleep pretty quickly. However, after a guitar has been played for a few years, I don't think it ever goes to sleep as hard or as quickly as a newer guitar.

Guitars are inanimate objects and not alive - they don't sleep nor wake up. They are made of wood (and dead wood, at that). They don't (and can't) love or hate and only respond to outside stimuli from the player (which tends to change from one session to the next), the type pick, type and age of strings, standard or altered tuning, mood, even the tune being played can all contribute to what we perceive. I certainly wouldn't count on TE to advise me about tone - he plays OK (too busy for my tastes) but his tone absolutely sucks IMHO. If you want tone, listen to Doc, Tony, Norman, or a multitude of others whose tone is so much better.

[Mike McLenison]

Not sure if anyone mentioned it but Tommy Emmanuel noticed that when he used the same brand of strings over and over the guitar tone was diminished. It's like the guitar no longer was responding to the same brand set when used over and over. Weird, I know. He said the key was to rotate brands. I was using Pyramid brand strings for a couple of years on my my Martin HD-35 and the same thing happened to me! I put on a set of Martin's and the tone was back! Physiological?