#1
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Tone and technique
I am curious to how much people on here feel that technique affects tone on a good nylon string guitar. Open to hearing discussions of all sorts about this topic.
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Larry Buscarino Cabaret Bourgeois OMC (Adi/Madagascar) Bourgeois OO (Aged Tone Adi/Mahogany) Bourgeois 0 (Italian spruce/Madagascar) |
#2
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It’s a given. A lot of one’s tone depends on one’s technique.
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#3
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Classical guitarists (which are not the exclusive players of nylon string guitars) spend years learning and perfecting technique to sound "right" on their instrument. It's astounding to me to hear a great player with dynamics, volume, clarity that far exceed what I can produce from the same instrument. I always thought of nylon strung guitars as "quiet" until I heard a professional classical guitarist completely fill a room with their sound.
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Brian Evans Around 15 archtops, electrics, resonators, a lap steel, a uke, a mandolin, some I made, some I bought, some kinda showed up and wouldn't leave. Tatamagouche Nova Scotia. |
#4
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I was thinking about this today.
I have steel string guitars of various types and cost. They start at about $340 and end up at around $3,000. You can literally hear the difference with just a simple strum. Not so with classical guitars I have found. I strummed a few over $1,000 last year and they did sound very nice, but when I played the trebles using my steel string finger style fingers, I got "plunk plunk." The same thing happened this year when I played several between $340 and $900. "Plunk plunk." Now at home, on my Cordoba I get an awful lot of "plunk plunk" but every so often I hear something besides a "plunk" as I struggle through some beginner stuff. Nylon is all technique.
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Barry My SoundCloud page Avalon L-320C, Guild D-120, Martin D-16GT, McIlroy A20, Pellerin SJ CW Cordobas - C5, Fusion 12 Orchestra, C12, Stage Traditional Alvarez AP66SB, Seagull Folk Aria {Johann Logy}: |
#5
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Yep, it took me almost a year of work to fix my right hand technique. What worked great on steel string guitars, sounded like junk on nylons.
Plink plunk is about right.
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2003 Froggy Bottom H-12 Deluxe 2019 Cordoba C-12 Cedar 2016 Godin acoustic archtop 2011 Godin Jazz model archtop |
#6
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So is steel string once you know what to listen for.
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#7
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Quote:
but both are very good. Nail shape and macro-smoothness can make a big difference, and "pushing" the string inward, toward the soundboard, is essential to getting a good sound, IMO. For me the acid test is playing on the open high 'e' string: if you can get the sound you're looking for there, you can get it anywhere. I like to start with the a-i-m-i RH pattern. |