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Thread: Great quote about instruments from Gordon Lightfoot

  1. #1
    Registered User John Flynn's Avatar
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    Default Great quote about instruments from Gordon Lightfoot

    I just watched the new documentary "Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind," which I highly recommend. It is excellent.

    He says something that really grabbed me about the guitar sound he goes for that I think could apply to mandolins also. I just thought I'd share it.

    "I want to hear the wood, not the wires."

    Not something to be taken technically, literally, of course, but a great sentiment.

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    Registered User Glassweb's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great quote about instruments from Gordon Lightfoot

    Much easier to change "the wires" than the wood! MAS rages on...

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    Default Re: Great quote about instruments from Gordon Lightfoot

    Great quote! I have often thought that guitars have three components to their sound: string, wood, and air. A trinity of sorts. Which makes a kind of sense, in that it is a string that vibrates when struck, moving the wood of the box, which in turn vibrates the chamber of air in the body. On some instruments the metal ring of the string is very prominent, some you really hear the woodiness, and some are breathier with a more feathered sound. But those seem like the main ingredients.

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    Default Re: Great quote about instruments from Gordon Lightfoot

    My friend lent Gordon his guitar when he debuted the "Edmund Fitzgerald" at Amazing Grace in Evanston, IL.
    Gordon broke a string and needed a guitar right before he went on stage.

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    Default Re: Great quote about instruments from Gordon Lightfoot

    You can read 'wires' two ways. Strings, certainly, but also electronics.
    David A. Gordon

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    Default Re: Great quote about instruments from Gordon Lightfoot

    Quote Originally Posted by Richard Mott View Post
    Great quote! I have often thought that guitars have three components to their sound: string, wood, and air. A trinity of sorts. Which makes a kind of sense, in that it is a string that vibrates when struck, moving the wood of the box, which in turn vibrates the chamber of air in the body. On some instruments the metal ring of the string is very prominent, some you really hear the woodiness, and some are breathier with a more feathered sound. But those seem like the main ingredients.
    I like that, Richard. Thanks.
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    Default Re: Great quote about instruments from Gordon Lightfoot

    At a festival in Colorado several years ago Peter Rowan was playing a guitar that looked brand new. He was tuning more often than usual, and after awhile he said "This guitar thinks it's still a tree..."
    Riley

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    Registered User John Flynn's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great quote about instruments from Gordon Lightfoot

    Quote Originally Posted by Dagger Gordon View Post
    You can read 'wires' two ways. Strings, certainly, but also electronics.
    Good observation, but in the documentary, he was clearly talking about acoustic guitars.

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    Registered User Pete Martin's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great quote about instruments from Gordon Lightfoot

    Not only can you hear the wood, you also feel the vibrations the instruments make as they move the air to make the sound.

    For a number of years, I played acoustically (no PA) in a trio in a very small bar in a unique building hotel, about as far away from a chain hotel as you could get. The building is in the National Historic Register, so it was not the usual tourist/business hotel crowd. People from all walks of life. It was always cool to see the reactions of the first time they heard acoustic music in person, not recorded or through a PA. They were often mesmerized by the experience and quite often converted to being acoustic music fans.
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    Barn Cat Mandolins Bob Clark's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great quote about instruments from Gordon Lightfoot

    Quote Originally Posted by Pete Martin View Post
    Not only can you hear the wood, you also feel the vibrations the instruments make as they move the air to make the sound.

    For a number of years, I played acoustically (no PA) in a trio in a very small bar in a unique building hotel, about as far away from a chain hotel as you could get. The building is in the National Historic Register, so it was not the usual tourist/business hotel crowd. People from all walks of life. It was always cool to see the reactions of the first time they heard acoustic music in person, not recorded or through a PA. They were often mesmerized by the experience and quite often converted to being acoustic music fans.
    That is a great story, thanks for posting it. I, too, have seen the impact of in-person acoustic music on people and it has brought to my mind just how unusual it is for a large segment of our population to experience what I think of as 'unprocessed' music, or music in its natural state. I love how stringed instruments excite not just the ears, but each of our senses. I love how we can feel the music via sensors elsewhere on the surface of our bodies, not just through our ears.

    Now if only we can take folks from being acoustic music fans, to beginning players. I believe experiencing this real, natural music can be the first step in that process.
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    Default Re: Great quote about instruments from Gordon Lightfoot

    For just close to the last 20 years we have had an old time jam in a bar, the bar of a restaurant, or some public place. We sit in a circle, not trying to perform, and no PA. People have loved it.
    THE WORLD IS A BETTER PLACE JUST FOR YOUR SMILE!

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    Full Grown and Cussin' brunello97's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great quote about instruments from Gordon Lightfoot

    Quote Originally Posted by Bob Clark View Post
    ..... I love how stringed instruments excite not just the ears, but each of our senses. I love how we can feel the music via sensors elsewhere on the surface of our bodies, not just through our ears.
    Well put, Bob. I feel that way about horns, too. I enjoy sitting close in a small jazz bar and hearing and feeling the honk.

    I recall being in tiny bars in NO and the air pressure from the second line bands would push you around in the room. Honest.

    Kind of felt that way trying to get into the vestibule to see Michelangelo's stairs at San Lorenzo in Firenze. But it was the marble blowing me away.

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