Can you trust what you hear?: 'Opening Up' and other Guitar Lore

[Kindness]

Larry,

I sooo agree with you that a guitar is a multidimensional experience. With my new luthier built guitar, I simply am astounded at the vibration against my chest, and the sound differences I am hearing as it does open up. The experience for me has almost been undescribable...I'm in absolute heaven when I play and feel and hear the guitar. And I have to say, for me, a very different experience from the 000-16SGT that I owned. It didn't feel "Alive" like this guitar.

The guitar truly touches us on some many levels of our senses...we are all so lucky to be able to play such an amazing instrument...

Lisa

[brian a.]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

...
You may be right, they may bear different model numbers. The ones I've played are - all-mahogany-bodied - small bodied - 14 fret Martins built in the late 1930s to mid-40s. My assignment of 000 is likely wrong, as they told me the model, and I seem to have it confused (or they do)......

Martin made both the 0 and 00 as all mahogany models since 1929 with 12-fret necks and since 1932 with 14-fret in some models.
The 0-15 14-fret in 1935 and the 1940-61.
The 0-17 12-fret from 1929 to 32 and 14-fret from 1932.
The 00-15 from 1998.
The 00-17 12-fret from 1930 to 34 and 14-fret from 1934.

[studio1087]

Vibration begets vibration.

Things that tend to vibrate will vibrate better or with greater ease as they vibrate over time. I'm a mechanical engineer; I see this all the time.

I can hear volume and harmonics improving with age in many of my guitars and recordings that I did 5 years ago don't have the harmonics that yesterday's recordings have.

I live in Wisconsin...in winter it can be 38 degrees and wet one day and 5 below zero and bone dry the next day. I have fine solid wood guitars that sound like they are stuffed with old sock one day and they sound stunning the next day. Guitars change. Guitars react. Guitars improve. Guitars can be down right moody.

In our living room we have a 6' tall x 10" wide glass window that overlooks our woods. Sitting and playing in front of that sheet of glass is heavenly. You can hear yourself as though you are playing at yourself. I play for hours and hours in front oif that window weekly. I believe that I can hear guitars opening and I believe that I can hear the effect that weather and humidity have on top wood.

It's real.

John

[1cubilindo]

Originally Posted by itself

Larry,

I sooo agree with you that a guitar is a multidimensional experience. With my new luthier built guitar, I simply am astounded at the vibration against my chest, and the sound differences I am hearing as it does open up. The experience for me has almost been undescribable...I'm in absolute heaven when I play and feel and hear the guitar. And I have to say, for me, a very different experience from the 000-16SGT that I owned. It didn't feel "Alive" like this guitar.

The guitar truly touches us on some many levels of our senses...we are all so lucky to be able to play such an amazing instrument...

Lisa

I agree with you and Larry that the guitar experience is multi "sensual". Of interest, it is one of my least expensive guitars that gives me the best chest/vibration experience among my acoustics. Go figure.

That said, some of my solid body electrics do likewise. One in particular, a basswood super strat style that I play unplugged for that particular reason.

[AndrewG]

Psychoacoustics is a wonderful thing; you hear what your brain wants you to hear. Like those $xxx fossilized dimosaur tooth bridge pins you just bought-they **** well better 'sound' great for $xxx so you convince yourself that they do. Think about MP3 and audio compression; your brain is filling in the gaps and telling you you are hearing what isn't in fact audible-because it isn't there.

[random works]

I really like Larry's comment on the multidimensional experience of the guitar.
How do we remember someone we have not seen in let's say 20 years, especially if they have lost or changed hair, developed a limp, or changed their accent by living in another part of the world? You just know because of the complexity of a person. It's the total being greater than the sum of the parts.
Guitars are not people ( does everyone agree) but they are very complex and when coupled with a complex person, it's no wonder folks can remember a certain guitar experience from years past. I like the multidimensional idea much better than relying of tone descriptions. This moves us no closer to a system for agreeing though.

[Brent Hutto]

Among my favorite Wendell Berry poems (I have many) is this one titled "A Meeting"...

In a dream I meet
my dead friend. He has,
I know, gone long and far,
and yet he is the same
for the dead are changeless.
They grow no older.
It is I who have changed,
grown strange to what I was.
Yet I, the changed one,
ask: "How you been?"
He grins and looks at me.
"I been eating peaches
off some mighty fine trees."

[jeremy3220]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

If some here are correct, and they actually sounded like they do now when they were new, and indeed have not aged/opened up, then Martin has made some serious mistakes in the past few decades and should go back to building instruments like the 50-90 year old Martin guitars I've been fortunate to play.

I don't think they sounded the exact same when they were new but I agree with the last part of your statement. I think most would agree Martin has made some serious mistakes. The good thing is they and others are trying to build them like the old ones. Some of the best guitars I've played were over 70 years old but like I said in an earlier post some of the worst I've played were 30-40 years old.

[Jeff M]

Originally Posted by 1cubilindo

...

Guitars, like people, change over time. How we remember them is in our heads.

I agree.
LOTS of a guitar's "opening up" is in peoples heads.

[SongwriterFan]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

.
I remember with great specificity the sound and feel of my Martin D-28 that I played several hours per week for 17 years, I remember how it felt and played and sounded and resonated

I'm sure you THINK you do. And maybe you do.

But how do you demonstrate that to yourself?

Surely you can see the difference in what you state compared to your wife's ability to remember colors. She can actually COMPARE after the fact she's bought something to see if it's an exact match or not.

My guitars seem to change enough to me on a month to month basis (well, at least I *think* they do ) that I would be hard-pressed to "remember" exactly what a particular guitar sounded like. Sounds a bit contradictory (and I suppose it is at some level), but it's the way I feel. There's just no way to remember how my guitar sounds . . it changes too much!

The "ups and downs" (probably more like a sinusoid) of its sound, to me, completely mask any kind of possible up or down linear trend it might have. In other words, the "noise" swamps whatever signal there might be.

BTW, have you ever played one of Tim McKnight's Hollow Back guitars? At Healdsburg, my guitar will have that option, and I think a couple of others, too. The whole idea of that option is to let the inner back resonate more freely, so I'd think that the vibrations getting to the outer back would be diminished compared to a similar guitar without that option.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by SongwriterFan

...I'm sure you THINK you do. And maybe you do.
...But how do you demonstrate that to yourself?
...BTW, have you ever played one of Tim McKnight's Hollow Back guitars? At Healdsburg, my guitar will have that option, and I think a couple of others, too. The whole idea of that option is to let the inner back resonate more freely, so I'd think that the vibrations getting to the outer back would be diminished compared to a similar guitar without that option.

Hi SF...
I just think about when I was playing it...and remember it.

My memories are not fickle nor the impressions of my personal instruments. They don't sound different to me month-to-month.

I have played one of Tim's double backed guitars, and didn't like that aspect of it...and he & I chatted about it. That would be a feature I'd not be interested in having incorporated into any guitar I play. They were not only diminished, but nearly non-existent. I don't block the back from vibrating, and almost always play sitting down (except for when I'm leading worship).

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by studio1087

... In our living room we have a 6' tall x 10" wide glass window that overlooks our woods. Sitting and playing in front of that sheet of glass is heavenly. You can hear yourself as though you are playing at yourself. I play for hours and hours in front of that window weekly. ....John

I really like the thought of playing in front of a great big window, looking at a beautiful scene, and hearing your guitar being reflected back at you.

What a great picture that makes...

Thanks for that,
Glenn

[Twelvefret]

[QUOTE]I don't think they sounded the exact same when they were new but I agree with the last part of your statement. I think most would agree Martin has made some serious mistakes. The good thing is they and others are trying to build them like the old ones. Some of the best guitars I've played were over 70 years old but like I said in an earlier post some of the worst I've played were 30-40 years old.[QUOTE]

A couple of weeks ago I played a 1929 OM-28 that was the most pristine and unblemish Martin I have ever seen or played. Obviously it had not been played or handled much in its 80 years. However, it had the tone normally associated with a prewar lightly braced Martin.

What Martin has is a life time warrantee that could be catastrophic economic burden if it had continued to build guitars according to prewar constructs.

In 2005 Martin introduced the D-18 Authentic which is very similar to the prewar model it was patterned after. Most noticeable is the tone and volume of this guitar in comparison to its other models. I would venture to suggest that this guitar sounds like the prewar Martins did when new. Thee is no valid reason to suspect that there was that much difference.

The Authentic has a price tag approaching $8000. Since this model has the same tone woods as a D-18GE, I suggest that the price difference is to compensate for possible warrantee claims from having a non adjustable truss rod and being lightly braced.

[SongwriterFan]

Originally Posted by Charlie Niall

The Authentic has a price tag approaching $xxxx. Since this model has the same tone woods as a D-18GE, I suggest that the price difference is to compensate for possible warrantee claims from having a non adjustable truss rod and being lightly braced.

Or, perhaps, the price is higher to create demand for the product.

And old marketing trick.

[Twelvefret]

Or, perhaps, the price is higher to create demand for the product.

And old marketing trick.

How would increasing price alone result in more demand? Anyway, here is Chris Martin explaining what I have thought since the product was introduced.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7UtKDmtDu0