#31
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Last edited by ross748; 09-13-2018 at 06:36 AM. |
#32
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I understand that some metal players us it, but when I see one, I sure don't think "metal." |
#33
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Most of what I see as being advertised as 'Blues Boxes' are usually 12 fret, parlor size instruments. Of course, there are exceptions with a few 14 fret instruments, but just about every 12 fret parlor comes with that tag.
For the most part, I feel this had to do with the re-emergence of the 12 fret guitar, and those ad agencies certainly knew that the modern demographic for these instruments enjoyed playing the blues on them, which certainly represented one of the genres that they were originally intended for, as well as other old-timey types of music. Most of the instruments in the 20's and 30's were small Stellas or Stella like counterparts. These guitars were easily affordable by 'blues' musicians and perhaps for that reason, the 'blues' label stuck. The electric guitar, when first introduced, was not marketed towards blues players, but rather fell into the hands of the early jazz musicians, and later on, when Les-Paul invented that solid body electric, jazz and later on rock musicians used them. The same is in the case of Leo Fender, whose 'casters' were marketed during the rise of Rock and Roll in the mid-fifties. Of course, many blues musicians who were playing with pick-ups stuck in their acoustics saw the value in those and subsequently started using those. At least that's my suspicion.
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Fingerpicking Acoustic Blues/Rag/Folk/Slide Lessons https://www.tobywalkerslessons.com/ |
#34
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Good lordy. That is one of the most beautiful things i've seen in this life.
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"A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." - John Shedd |
#35
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I think this is probably mostly marketing driven to get us to buy more guitars.. despite having owned a guitar marketed as a blues acoustic.
Blues is such a big tent and it seems there has been someone successful in it with just about every type of guitar and/or other instruments. Maybe small acoustics are better than big ones or something but I went from a small Alvarez "Blues Acoustic" to a small Taylor which is supposedly bright and it doesn't really matter at all for playing blues. I don't own a Dread or big acoustic but it's hard for me to believe that big booming bass wouldn't sound good for pounding out blues rhythms. If you're doing a little palm muting that big acoustic is going to get you more powerful volume on the low bass parts of the rhythm parts. Seems like it's more in your fingers and attitude. One of the things I hear a lot in my lessons, I've been getting a lot of blues instruction has to do with with note selection and "playing loose", sometimes including some extra strings, not necessarily playing stuff exactly the same every time through, etc.. I think that is a bigger factor than the guitar. On electric muting notes produces some interesting results, maybe acoustics that people think are good for blues do a better job of producing some choppy partially muted sounds. I don't think there is anything you can really point to on the electric side either.. just about any guitar through just about any amp and with a pretty wide range of effects can work. Though I can't really believe I'd enjoy hearing/playing blues with a heavy delay type sound. |
#36
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I have an ES-347 which has a coil cutter switch so you can get the traditional 335 bucker sound or an almost Stat-like single coil sound as well. It’s a great blues machine and all around versatile guitar.
Last edited by HeyMikey; 09-13-2018 at 09:49 AM. |
#37
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Really? I LOVE my WL12 for DADGAD and fingerstyle. It's not super lush, but it sounds very pretty to my ears.
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#38
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As many have already said, this idea, that certain guitars suit, or do not suit, certain kinds of music is not an electric or acoustic only phenomenon: it's there in both camps. And what is suitable in one person's mind is not the same as another's. For example: I bought my first 335 style guitar from a fellow during the SRV years. He was selling it because he felt he couldn't get a blues sound from it. I like playing certain kinds of things on certain guitars, but that's a personal decision not a general rule for players, and there may even be an element of placebo effect to mix in with the timbral differences. That last part, the element of costume, is irrational, sure--but have you ever heard an actor say that they finally got the gist of their role when they got their costume or found a particular piece of business that informed the rest of their performance. Why should (at least some) musicians be different?
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----------------------------------- Creator of The Parlando Project Guitars: 20th Century Seagull S6-12, S6 Folk, Seagull M6; '00 Guild JF30-12, '01 Martin 00-15, '16 Martin 000-17, '07 Parkwood PW510, Epiphone Biscuit resonator, Merlin Dulcimer, and various electric guitars, basses.... |
#39
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Of course you can play the Blues on any particular guitar. But, given a choice, do you really want to?
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#40
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One evening listening to blues on Youtube I followed a series of videos down a proverbial rabbit hole. The last one of the series was a 60-something looking Black man sitting on a folding metal chair in a dirt-floor, corrugated metal building playing Mississippi delta blues and tearing it up. He was playing an Epiphone Masterbilt AJ-500M. Slope-shoulder, long scale dread.
I think bluesmen played whatever they could afford/find.
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Epiphone Masterbilt Hummingbird Epiphone Masterbilt AJ-500RENS Teach us what ways have light, what gifts have worth. Edna St. Vincent Millay |
#41
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#42
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Thanks Muddslide! Sounds pretty good too! Just posted a recording of some bottleneck playing on it in Show and Tell: https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=521811 BluesKing777. |
#43
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It is just marketing. For whatever reason builders do not feel the need to attach the "blues" moniker to electrics as much as acoustics. If they felt they needed it to help move instruments you would see it a lot more.
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"You start off playing guitars to get girls & end up talking with middle-aged men about your fingernails" - Ed Gerhard |
#44
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Listen to a CD called Tone Poems by David Grisman and Tony Rice. They pay a different guitar and mandolin for each cut, ranging from pre-war Martins and Gibsons, modern Boutique instruments to cheap entry levelguitars with painted finishes (Vintage Gintage Blues) Each cut sounds like Tony and Dave, leading me to feel that the player has more to do with the sound than the instrument.
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Jim _____________________ -1962 Martin D-21 -1950 Gibson LG1 -1958 Goya M-26 -Various banjos, mandolins, dulcimers, ukuleles, Autoharps, mouth harps. . . |
#45
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Way back in the beginning...
...The blues players played whatever they could get their hands on and/or afford. Many were impoverished and created their music on inexpensive Stellas, Harmonys etc. Some were purchased from Sears catalogs, in the 1920s Delta there were limited resources.
Insofar as sizes, they ranged from parlor style which were popular then to big Stella jumbos that Blind Willie McTell played. The guitars were cheap, the songs recorded crudely and in the case of Paramount artists the 78s themselves were manufactured from inferior materials which is what we are used to hearing. |