Specialised guitars and stigmas surrounding it?

Charlie4

I know it sounds like I'm writing an essay but something that really grinds my gears is when I hear people say
"that guitar cannot do this, that etc."
"You cannot play jazz on a Flying-V, you cannot play metal on a hollowbody (partially true ?) etc."

My question is: WHY NOT?
At the end of the day if it fits the description in terms of playability (able to handle the music) and tone then what is the problem?

I'm curious to know why do people play certain guitars when there are alternatives to their desired sound? Is it an image thing more than a practical/musical thing?
I know you get guitars for a specialised purpose, but really to what extent?

Your opinions?

DonovanB

I played a nylon string through some heavy drive once. If you manage the feedback or play directly to record (or with cans) it sounds pretty cool for rhythm playing.

makepeace

in my opinion, its not that you "can't" (you can do whatever the hell you want), its just that its easier to get a certain style or tone on certain types of instrument, because they had that style or tone in mind when they designed the thing.

sure, if you can manage undesirables like feedback (for certain applications, it is useful for others), you can use any guitar for anything, its just that its not going to sound firstly as good as it could and secondly as is the convention for a certain style regarding tone and playing dynamics, or as its "meant" to sound.

also, there are features on guitars that lend themselves to certain styles that other guitars simply don't have, such as a trem bar, or b-bender. if you're trying to play a style that has big bends and divebombs etc, you're not going to have much luck if you don't have a trem bar..

what i like to think is that if you can get a tone that YOU like out of your equipment, and that YOU think sounds adequate for the style you're putting across, then you're your own judge. some may like it, some won't. that's the crux.

singemonkey

You're not the first person to wonder this. You can play any kind of music with any guitar. But:

Image is a big factor. Once a genre is established there's less variety. People get a sense of which guitars are most commonly associated with the genre and want to be recognised themselves. Playing a Jackson V is shorthand for saying you play aggressive metal. Jaguar = indie. A 335 means blues... OR indie. These are just conventions.

Sound: Certain guitar sounds work better for some styles of music than others. A OOO body acoustic is not going to give you the tight, high volume distortion and fret access you need for metal. A Jackson soloist may be fine for blues, but it's a little more clinical sounding than a 335, a Les Paul or a Stratocaster.

So really it's pretty much just convention. Play whatever you like. But realise that you have to do more work to convince people you're a metal guitarist if you're playing a Gretsch 6120. And you'll have extreme difficulty convincing Indie fans with your Jackson Randy Rhoads.

VellaJ

You raise an excellent point here. I've often wondered the same thing. There are some obvious reasons for some of these stigmas, as have been mentioned (eg. feedback).

I for one really dig the looks of some of the Ibanez hollow-bodies (if you read some of my posts, you'll know looks are a big thing to me ?). I shock some people when I play some heavier stuff on them ?

Ultimately it depends on the sound you want. I get a nice growl on overdrive from my Cort acoustic, but if I wanted to play Rammstein I'd be looking at the Ibanez RGA series or (please!) an ESP, because of the active pups.

I'm very happy with my Epiphone Strat-copy, it gives me all the sounds I want for most styles ?

Keira-WitherKay

As a rule i'm also a musical rebel that i will play anything that gives me the tone i want ? but i will be 1st to agree that certain guitars have distinctive voices like tele's or strat or les paul but i also from years in the cover band market know that certain guitars also offer a non distinctive or neutral tone , to name one i would say some of the ibanez range can with a coil tap and a hint of eq morph from strat to les paul tone with minimal effort but of course the tone they provide is quite sterile and gets the general tone of the desired strat or gibson but lacks the complexities of the tone of the target instrument . But they good enough for theatre shows . And amazingly i find these guitars to lack their own tone and i worked with a monster guitarist who swore by ibanez for this very reason , but i do think as we move away from cover bands and shows we tend to stick to one genre and then i feel one needs the real deal as in horses for courses cos tone is more complex than most of us care to admit and the critical audience can hear a tele twang as being country flavoured even if they don't know that a tele or strat is . Same goes for all genre's and same for tube amps they all have distinctive voices so why not use em for what they do well .

Charlie4

Keira WitherKay wrote: As a rule i'm also a musical rebel that i will play anything that gives me the tone i want ? but i will be 1st to agree that certain guitars have distinctive voices like tele's or strat or les paul but i also from years in the cover band market know that certain guitars also offer a non distinctive or neutral tone , to name one i would say some of the ibanez range can with a coil tap and a hint of eq morph from strat to les paul tone with minimal effort but of course the tone they provide is quite sterile and gets the general tone of the desired strat or gibson but lacks the complexities of the tone of the target instrument . But they good enough for theatre shows . And amazingly i find these guitars to lack their own tone and i worked with a monster guitarist who swore by ibanez for this very reason , but i do think as we move away from cover bands and shows we tend to stick to one genre and then i feel one needs the real deal as in horses for courses cos tone is more complex than most of us care to admit and the critical audience can hear a tele twang as being country flavoured even if they don't know that a tele or strat is . Same goes for all genre's and same for tube amps they all have distinctive voices so why not use em for what they do well .

I do agree with regarding that specialised tone from a certain guitar, if it can't be accurately replicated with another, but in my case I get a better jazz tone out of my superstrat than I do out of my hollowbody.
However, the fact that I use a superstrat gets frowned upon despite the fact that it gives me a more accurate tone (warmer) than the guitar (hollowbody), I bought for a jazz-tone.

On an side note, would you sell the hollowbody and buy a more versatile guitar that can do rock and jazz very well - such as a Tokai LP with P90's? or
Just buy a better hollowbody ?

Keira-WitherKay

Well to what you said re playing jazz on your super strat , you and i are doing same thing , i'm actually writing this in a break at my instrumental jazz gig at sun city and guess what tonight i'm playing on a tele my jazz box is also left at home but normally i play my gig with my strat and nylon for latin and flamenco but tonight i felt like some tele twang and it sits well in the mix , so forget what is prescribed and just do your thing on what you comfortable on . I think using a non traditional instrument can lose you some visual credibility but it can offer you a unique voice to make you stick out from the masses of players that sound so similar , but yes it is a risk in some ways as people don't like to be challenged .

PeteM

Donovan Banks wrote: I played a nylon string through some heavy drive once. If you manage the feedback or play directly to record (or with cans) it sounds pretty cool for rhythm playing.

I do this frequently.

Jack-Flash-Jr

Jumping Jack Flash, one of the greatest electric guitar riffs EVER! Here's what Keith Richards has to say about it:

I used a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic tuned to open D, six string. Open D or open E, which is the same thing – same intervals – but it would be slackened down some for D. Then there was a capo on it, to get that really tight sound. And there was another guitar over the top of that, but tuned to Nashville tuning. I learned that from somebody in George Jones' band in San Antonio in 1964. The high-strung guitar was an acoustic, too. Both acoustics were put through a Philips cassette recorder. Just jam the mic right in the guitar and play it back through an extension speaker.

Of course live he normally uses an electric. I personally love seeeing instruments and players pushed outside their normal comfort zones.
Btw, I think losing visual credibility can be cool if your playing backs it up. It also makes a performance memorable. Playing a rh Stratocaster upside down? How silly that Hendrix was ?

Jack-Flash-Jr

zohn wrote:
Jack Flash Jr wrote:
I used a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic tuned to open D, six string. Open D or open E, which is the same thing – same intervals – but it would be slackened down some for D. Then there was a capo on it, to get that really tight sound. And there was another guitar over the top of that, but tuned to Nashville tuning. I learned that from somebody in George Jones' band in San Antonio in 1964. The high-strung guitar was an acoustic, too. Both acoustics were put through a Philips cassette recorder. Just jam the mic right in the guitar and play it back through an extension speaker.

I would love to know the set-up Keef (or was it Brian Jones?) used for "Streetfighting man" - that is one of the most awesome intro riffs I know of.

They don't go into details but check out the drums description from Charlie!!

Recording on "Street Fighting Man" began at Olympic Sound Studios in March 1968 and continued into May and June later that year. With Jagger on lead vocals and both he and Richards on backing, Brian Jones performs the song's distinctive sitar and also tamboura. Richards plays the song's acoustic guitars as well as bass, the latter being the only electric instrument on the track. Charlie Watts performs drums while Nicky Hopkins performs the song's piano which is most distinctly heard during the outro. Shehnai is performed on the track by Dave Mason. On the earlier, unreleased "Did Everybody Pay Their Dues" version, Rick Grech played a very prominent electric viola.[8]

Watts said in 2003,

"'Street Fighting Man' was recorded on Keith's cassette with a 1930s toy drum kit called a London Jazz Kit Set, which I bought in an antiques shop, and which I've still got at home. It came in a little suitcase, and there were wire brackets you put the drums in; they were like small tambourines with no jangles... The snare drum was fantastic because it had a really thin skin with a snare right underneath, but only two strands of gut... Keith loved playing with the early cassette machines because they would overload, and when they overload they sounded fantastic, although you weren't meant to do that. We usually played in one of the bedrooms on tour. Keith would be sitting on a cushion playing a guitar and the tiny kit was a way of getting close to him. The drums were really loud compared to the acoustic guitar and the pitch of them would go right through the sound. You'd always have a great backbeat."[9]

On the recording process itself, Richards remembered,

"The basic track of that was done on a mono cassette with very distorted overrecording, on a Phillips with no limiters. Brian is playing sitar, it twangs away. He's holding notes that wouldn't come through if you had a board, you wouldn't be able to fit it in. But on a cassette if you just move the people, it does. Cut in the studio and then put on a tape. Started putting percussion and bass on it. That was really an electronic track, up in the realms." [10]