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Post by newey on Jul 16, 2017 20:27:44 GMT -5
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Post by sumgai on Jul 16, 2017 21:50:50 GMT -5
Nice illustration. Was there supposed to be any literature along with that? I didn't see anything else.....
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col
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Post by col on Jul 17, 2017 3:02:17 GMT -5
Yes - I read that at the time. I didn't think too much of the article. I'll have to re-read it to recall why. Nice illustration. Was there supposed to be any literature along with that? I didn't see anything else..... Scroll down. It appears that you do not need to have a subscription (I had assumed that you would).
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Post by newey on Jul 17, 2017 7:41:21 GMT -5
Yes, you have to scroll down. They give you 10 free articles per month, before you have to pay.
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Post by sumgai on Jul 17, 2017 11:01:39 GMT -5
Sorry, scrolling down prohibited.... at least for any desirable effect. All I get is the headline moving up a tad on the screen. The burning Strat image remains in place, and that's it.
And for the record, if there is a quota, then I'm pretty sure I haven't exceeded it - I don't habituate sites that think eyeballs are money.
As to "quiet around here", I'll go with what's behind Door Number Two, Monty - the near-universal summer doldrums. (For those of the upside-down persuasion, that would be the winter doldrums.)
EDIT: What will often work is a link to the Printable Version page. Anybody got one of those?
sumgai
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Post by b4nj0 on Jul 17, 2017 12:53:25 GMT -5
We went through this before with the prevalence of ascetic keyboard tunes assailing our cab doors back in the 1980s. The demise of guitar oriented music was widely proclaimed and then what do you know- along came Seattle to rescue us and renew our collective six-stringed love affair. Plus ça change- plus c'est la même chose n'est ce pas?
What with people seemingly prepared to pay a premium for the benefit of the excercise they get from jumping up to flip vinyl, a return if not to the heady days but at least sustainable guitar sales seems inevitable to me. It only needs for the manufacturers to come to terms with the conservative nature of six string stranglers. (We don't like change- well change at a premium price, present company excluded of course?) Tub thumpers are not so afflicted, but you can't compare the two because they enjoy measurably different volumes of production.
The other issue touched upon in that article (which I'd read before) is pricing. Just like vinyl, this is set at what the seller thinks the market will withstand, and has no bearing on fair pricing. Address this and you have a partial fix. Unfortunately that offers no short term solution for the big boys' cash flow situation.
And what's all that about shooting a Strat to bits at a corporate bonding event? Oh come on Henry J / Gibson.
e&oe...
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Post by newey on Jul 17, 2017 14:09:08 GMT -5
As John Hiatt would say, they were "smashing a perfectly good guitar"
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Post by reTrEaD on Jul 17, 2017 20:17:14 GMT -5
So much drama. I thought the byline should have had a picture accompanying it. The slow, secret death of the six-string electric.“John Mayer?” he asks. “You don’t see a bunch of kids emulating John Mayer and listening to him and wanting to pick up a guitar because of him.”Not at all surprising. Mayer plays intricate riffs and complex chord structures. Kids can't wrap their minds around that and they can't wrap their fingers around it either. Back in the day, when kids emulated Eric Clapton and Ritchie Blackmore they didn't gravitate toward the finesse guitar work. It was all about the simple shiz and power chords. Think Sunshine of Your Love and Smoke on the Water. Later kids latched onto Billie Joe Armstrong and Tom DeLonge.
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Post by gumbo on Jul 18, 2017 8:25:08 GMT -5
Ha! Same article printed (without acknowledgement!) word-for-word, in the 'magazine' supplement to my local Saturday paper last weekend... ...who says that Oz is out of touch ?? I seem to remember we used it to wrap up the kitchen scraps on Sunday.. g (still!) - f - b
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col
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Post by col on Jul 18, 2017 15:06:58 GMT -5
Ha! Same article printed (without acknowledgement!) word-for-word, in the 'magazine' supplement to my local Saturday paper last weekend... ...who says that Oz is out of touch ?? I seem to remember we used it to wrap up the kitchen scraps on Sunday.. g (still!) - f - b www.gfb.org/ ?
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Post by sumgai on Jul 18, 2017 15:37:07 GMT -5
That was funny!
For those readers not yet 'in the know', g-f-b stands for gum-for-brains. Appropriate in many cases, if not most.
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Post by blademaster2 on Jul 19, 2017 14:22:45 GMT -5
Like b4njo, I went through this already in the early 1980's when all of my 'cool' friends would poke fun at me for playing guitar. Guitar was very uncool - synthesizers and drum machines ruled. Even when guitar *was* used the sounds needed to be more electronic and less organic (same happened to drums sounds, where the closer a mix was to a drum machine sound the better, i.e. Sound Garden's 'Badmotorfinger' around 1990). In fact, this slump now is far less noticeable to me than the early 1980's, but evidently more of a problem to the guitar manufacturers' bottom line.
Like lapels and neckties (and reverb on studio recording mixes), I believe that this will turn around again... and again .. and again.
And heck, if I am wrong then maybe I can look forward to snapping up some vintage guitars for a lot less than they have been fetching recently .....
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Post by sumgai on Jul 19, 2017 20:50:35 GMT -5
I finally managed to trick WaPo into letting me read the article. I'll report back later with my thoughts.....
EDIT: No, I'm not gonna say anything, except that this was clickbait and nothing more. As noted above and below by other posters, this diatribe doesn't stand the test of time.
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Post by cynical1 on Jul 20, 2017 1:50:20 GMT -5
Well, back in the 30's Anslinger's American band or narrow minded prankster's were terrified of horns. These were the chosen weapons of "jazz musicians"...you know, those evil purveyors of anything wicked and rebellious capable of making young girls do unspeakable immoral things. They were the instruments of choice for anyone wishing to rebel against anything resembling conformity and social comfort to forge a new social order.
Moving into the 50's this trend changed to guitars as these evil hornsmen became more acceptable within polite society. Again, the need to rebel and create a new social order, or counter-culture, allowed for profits to be made by those wily enough to forge ahead into this new movement. The guitar industry coughed up blood for a bit in the 80's, but Grunge seemed to breath a bit of life back into them.
Sadly, with the crash of 2007 most industries took a hit. Anything resembling a non-essential or luxury item went on the block. I know it was the worst time in memory to own a horse farm...but I digress. With the advent of the Internet, social media became the vehicle for defining the next generation wishing to shed the debris of the old order.
Digital social acceptance and attention seeking seems to have circumvented the desire to rebel these days. As a culture, we would prefer to be "liked" more than "feared". And is it any wonder that the next generation coming up feel the need to shun their fathers...and in some cases, their grandfathers chosen instrument of choice to rebel with?
Some of you may have locked yourselves away for hours to learn and master your chosen instrument. The discipline required to acquire this mastery of an instrument appears to have faded in the coming generation. Expectations have changed. These days it's just easier to piss off your parents by getting a tattoo, piercing or dying your hair blue.
We live in a world where booksellers pay billions for grocery stores while Gibson and Fender become quaint references on the History Channel. But is it really that surprising? Times change and music always reflects the culture of the day. It seems the guitar has had its day as the phallic symbol of rebellion. What hurts most is that it appears to have been replaced by an iPhone.
newey alluded to it in another thread when he referenced a whimper.
HTC1
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Post by gumbo on Jul 20, 2017 5:27:25 GMT -5
...well, at least WE'LL all be ok for firewood when the planet runs out of electricity..
Which then spurns the next thread: "Which one will you burn first ?"
...glad to help with these things, as always...
g-f-b
( Actually stands for 'great firewood, bro..' )
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Post by sumgai on Jul 20, 2017 11:04:17 GMT -5
...well, at least WE'LL all be ok for firewood when the planet runs out of electricity.. Which then spurns the next thread: "Which one will you burn first ?"
Ahh, clever turn of a phrase there, quite clever.
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Post by newey on Jul 20, 2017 15:52:44 GMT -5
Not the Nitro-finished ones, surely- that would create toxic fumes . . .
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Post by b4nj0 on Jul 20, 2017 17:07:10 GMT -5
Looks like I'll be sitting pretty with my Zebra-bird Fire-wood then.
e&oe...
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Post by gumbo on Jul 21, 2017 6:10:24 GMT -5
Not the Nitro-finished ones, surely- that would create toxic fumes . . . ...only from the Fender CEO, though...
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Post by ozboomer on Jul 25, 2017 6:07:47 GMT -5
Just to add to the commentary... I started playing organ in 1969 whilst listening to all the great rock and blues music of the time... although, I mainly learnt to play movie/show tunes and pop music on the organ (mainly 'coz the fellow I was learning from was ... an older fella... and he had accompanied Judy Garland when she performed in England, etc in the 1950s). I also dabbled in guitar through the early 1970s... even buying a Les Paul copy in 1974... but guitar was pretty much an 'add-on' to my music playing.. It was through my organ teacher that I developed my interest in the 'older' style music - Cole Porter, Gershwin, and so on... and I had always had a bit of an interest in classical music (obviously, since I have the same birthday as Beethoven) ...but it was when I heard Isao Tomita's version of Denussy's Snowflakes Are Dancing in 1978, followed by Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe in 1980 and all of Tomita's other albums, that I started in earnest with exploring synthesizers and home recording. I listened... learnt a lot... bought and studied miniature scores of the pieces... even imported Tomita's 'Sound Creature' double album to learn the techniques he used... (listen to the link to hear how he develops the arpeggios, step-by-step -- up to about 9:50 -- after that it's more about some effects that he used musically in 'Pictures at an Exhibition' ... but skip to ~11:40 and marvel at the development of the choir sounds with a Mellotron ). ...and Jean Michel Jarre and Walter/Wendy Carlos were other great studies through the 1980s. Anyway, I bumbled along with Teac Portastudios, Roland microcomposers and other gear in the early days of MIDI and 'SYNC' signals... and managed to record a few interesting things... ...and when this technology went ga-ga in 1999 and I was hacking around with Cakewalk Pro Audio 9, I found myself having a grand ol' time (Flintstones) with all things digital... ..but come 2006, I was getting disenchanted with all the button pressing, audio hacking and blah-blah-blah... and got back into learning and playing guitar (with lessons, yet).. 'coz I was sick of being a technician and wanted to *play an instrument* again. The younger folk these days still seem to be interested in music but it's more about the beat and more about dancing... and 'modern music' is not 'our' ( oldies?! ) music... and 'twas ever thus, I guess... but they look for the 'instant result' and don't necessarily want to spend years learning an instrument before they can express their musical ideas - the technology lets them get to that point earlier, although, it's probably not any easier, just different. It's also one of the things with my getting back to guitar 'coz the DAWs and sequencers are all too complicated and just get in the way a lot of the time... so these days, I use the simplest (but still powerful) DAWs I can - energyXT and Mixcraft are what I'm currently using (and they're STILL too complicated)... Anyway, enough blah blah from me... just another $0.02 John
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Post by col on Jul 25, 2017 15:52:47 GMT -5
Just to add to the commentary... [...] and I had always had a bit of an interest in classical music (obviously, since I have the same birthday as Beethoven) ...[...] Just how old are you!? On the subject of electronic music: there was time when I listened to a lot of that. I recall borrowing Tomita's Pictures at an Exhibition from the library in my mid-teens. And, maybe the first two albums I bought (or there abouts) were Oxygene and Equinoxe. Tomita didn't really interest me, and I moved on from Jarre; I ended up listening to a lot of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze. As for Japanese electronic music: I preferred Kitaro. But I far prefered what was was coming out of Germany in the 70s and early 80s. Your comments remind me of my reaction to Schulze's evolving style with his use of the new digital synthesizers. Frankly, I felt that his music turned to crap. It was fine at first, when he was experimenting with digital, but he became reliant upon it and he lost something. Frankly, I found it unlistenable. His stuff from the 70s is interesting. Even in through the early 80s. But I stopped listening to his new stuff after a while. I used think maybe it was me that changed. But with the advent of the Internet (and Youtube, of course), I listen back, and to his even newer stuff - it was not me; it was him who changed. It is not as though I'm a stick in the mud when it comes to development of an artist over time. I think Bjork and Radiohead only became more interesting over the years. But maybe this was nothing more than what happens with many (maybe most) musicians (and most other people): they tend to become less innovative over their lives. It take true genius to keep reinventing. My delving into electronic music was somewhat in hindsight (I started listening in the early 80s). If I had started listening a few years later, I might have overlooked the better, earlier stuff and never bothered.
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Post by sumgai on Jul 26, 2017 11:06:22 GMT -5
... It take true genius to keep reinventing oneself in a manner appreciated by others. T,FTFY
I can't say as to the genius part of that statement, but I'm pretty sure that some people (or groups) are one-shot wonders, and that others are capable of coming up with new ideas throughout their entire lives. Q.E.D. in many, many fields of endeavor. But in our particular domain of artistic influences, I'll pop out the name Stevie Wonder, and see what kind of reaction I get....
sumgai
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Post by col on Jul 26, 2017 16:45:55 GMT -5
... It take true genius to keep reinventing oneself in a manner appreciated by others. T,FTFY
I can't say as to the genius part of that statement, but I'm pretty sure that some people (or groups) are one-shot wonders, and that others are capable of coming up with new ideas throughout their entire lives. Q.E.D. in many, many fields of endeavor. But in our particular domain of artistic influences, I'll pop out the name Stevie Wonder, and see what kind of reaction I get....
sumgai
Yeah, in a manner appreciated by others is closer to what I meant. As for Stevie Wonder - he just never spoke to me. I can't asses him. Since it was me who brought up 'genius' with regard to the arts - I think the term is way overused - there is one 'artist', though, who always jumps off the page for me in regard to repeatedly creating something genuinely new and brilliant: Picasso. Of course, Da Vinci too, but we are getting into ancient history (well, very old at least) and an undisputed polymath (true genius, I think). I would also classify Michelangelo as genius. But, music per se: I'm not sure if I could properly attribute 'genius' to anyone. I do think, though, being a lifetime innovator is something of a prerequisite for 'genius' in any field. A single great idea or two is more the realm of 'prodigies' - and they seem comparatively common. I probably should not have referenced 'genius' at all. There are many great musicians, but even the ones with great longevity and wide appeal: how many of them are true lifelong innovators? Maybe the problem with trying to label genius in music is more societal in nature. At least in the modern era, music innovation and change is firmly associated with the young. Music is consumed more by the young - especially innovative music. As we age, we tend to settle down into what we have liked in the past, in our youth. I try my best not to do that, but I'm sure that I must seem like an old fuddy-duddy to the young too. I'd say that most music being produced is crap, but I've always thought that. It is also worth stating that most of the music I do like, I would not think particularly innovative. I do, though, particularly value innovation. So when innovation coincides with something which 'speaks to me', that's exceptional. I guess that's probably the way with a lot of people, and particularly members of somewhere like Gnuts. I suspect that I'm just rabbiting a lot of uninteresting nonsense.
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col
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Post by col on Jul 26, 2017 16:52:54 GMT -5
For the Admins: my post, above, was broken by the incision of a photobucket broken image notification. It replaced the middle two letters of s**t (I edited my post to use the word 'crap'). This was placed in the middle of a sentence: It replaced the 'censored' gif.
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Post by sumgai on Jul 26, 2017 19:21:43 GMT -5
col,
Well, crap! ( )
That image was meant to denote a censored word was replaced with the image, with the first and last letters still intact. In some cases, I set the "too strong" word to be replaced by something less objectionable to a parent of a minor child. In the past, we have had a number of under-adult-age members come through here, but even if they don't sign up, newey and I would still prefer for this site to be known as 'family friendly'.
I'll have to work on that in the next few hours.... And I note, my avatar is still intact, even though it comes from Photobucket - better work on that, too.
in re: Genius classification
I agree, the description is devalued by overuse, especially in the music field. Here's my take on all this:
John "Boom Boom" Ozzie is correct in that as the generations go by, kids seek out ways to annoy their parents, ways that don't duplicate what came before. In terms of music, there was the piano. Playing honky-tonk when you were supposed to be practicing your Requiem, that was heresy, for sure. After that, it was the violin. Note that we've gone from stationary to quite portable, if not nearly so loud.
Then came, believe it or don't, the banjo. Still portable, and a bit louder. But nowhere near the tonality, so a bit limited.
Next up, the tenor guitar and the ukelele, pretty much at the same time. As loud as the banjo, just as portable, but a bit more amenable to accompanying a singer - banjos are quite strident.
And then the Hawaiian guitar, or the slack key, or the slide, take your pick. Coming to the fore about the same time as Richenbacker's "frying pan" (meant for slide style playing), it didn't last long, but it harkened back to the violin, and somewhat to the piano, for the sustain quality.... much like a singer, and not nearly as 'overbearing' as those that came before.
Which brings us to several horn instruments during the 'coming of age' for Jazz. A whole history there, but I'm not gonna get into it, that'd be TMI.
And finally we end up at the guitar, both acoustic and electric. Portable, a very pleasant tonality to accompany a voice, and as easy to learn (the basics!) as the uke or tenor. An acoustic can be loud enough for a small auditorium, or it can be soft for whatever reason desired. Outdoors? No problem there either - witness nearly every Beach movie with a campfire, etc.
Electric? Hah! We get a genius here, for sure. Unfortunately, we can't determine if he'd've made it to old age and still be crankin' out the shockingly jaw-dropping Experiences he did when alive, but my money would be on Jimi Hendrix for this sobriquet, make no mistake about that.
And if we're gonna go out of the music genre, then I'll go only sideways a little bit.... I'd nominate Col. Tom Parker. Recall that he was able to get Elvis The Pelvis past every censor alive, and made more girls raise their laundry bills than almost any human alive, then or now.
Enough, I've gotta get back to work. More on this later.
sumgai
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col
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Post by col on Jul 26, 2017 22:49:59 GMT -5
And if we're gonna go out of the music genre, then I'll go only sideways a little bit.... I'd nominate Col. Tom Parker. Recall that he was able to get Elvis The Pelvis past every censor alive, and made more girls raise their laundry bills than almost any human alive, then or now. You know, for half a beat, I read that as a full stop, expecting a follow-on stinging quip!
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Post by sumgai on Jul 26, 2017 23:53:52 GMT -5
col,
Trust me, I'm not nearly so subtle. Besides, you've yet to do/say anything that would deserve such treatment.
OTOH, gumbo might not be so limited in his thinking..... to him, all's fair in zingers and derailment! Preferably both at the same time!
sumgai
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Post by newey on Jul 27, 2017 6:02:01 GMT -5
I agree the "genius" term is overused. Recently, I heard a bit on the radio, I disremember the source right now, where a sociologist who studied prodigies and "geniuses" pointed out that these things are not simply a matter of innate ability. It's a combination of an innate talent for something, coupled with the love of that something sufficient to propel the person to devote themselves to perfecting that talent. The speaker estimated that it takes about 10,000 hours to perfect just about any raw "talent", i.e., innate ability. The 10,000 hours roughly translates to 10 years of effort, once one excludes time spent sleeping, eating, and attending to day-to-day living.
He pointed out that, while Mozart was deemed a prodigy because he was composing at age seven, no one now listens to the stuff he composed at that age- it's his output starting about 10 years later, after he had immersed himself in it, that garnered attention, both during his lifetime and now.
Best guitarist I ever knew or played with started playing about the same time as I did. He had a better "ear" than I did (or ever will have), and the guitar came easily for him. He had that innate talent. But moreso, from about age 13 to age 20, you never saw the guy without a guitar in his hands. He played all the time, day and night, every free moment he got. Me, I'd pick it up for a half hour a day or so. By age 16, he was in a band and I was still plunking away in my bedroom.
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Post by gumbo on Jul 27, 2017 6:09:24 GMT -5
col,
OTOH, gumbo might not be so limited in his thinking..... to him, all's fair in zingers and derailment! Preferably both at the same time!
sumgai
...the REALLY fun thing is that you never know when they're coming...
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Post by sumgai on Jul 27, 2017 10:29:35 GMT -5
col,
OTOH, gumbo might not be so limited in his thinking..... to him, all's fair in zingers and derailment! Preferably both at the same time!
sumgai
...the REALLY fun thing is that you never know when they're coming... Oh, but I know exactly when they're coming:
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