What makes a guitar so special?

music wasn't part of me · Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 5:54 pm Post subject: What makes a guitar so special?

What makes a guitar so special? some say it's the road it has traveled, some say it's the smell , some say it's the smoothness, those more logical say it's the wood and finishing touch or the sound it produces ......

this topic will help with the recent questions from dino, buido, bsterling and especially ME Laughing

, cause my knowledge of guitars is a bit... you know, bec i very rarely play with others and i've only played 2 guitars so far in my life.

i see my cort is special because the powerful sound it makes, even if i strum it very softly and close the door, people outside could tell exactly what i'm playin. sometimes in family gatherings, the worship leader have to sing loudly or the cort will beat his voice. so i always keep a distance to help the singer.

that's my cort, what makes yours special ? or maybe other guitars that are not yours but you know it's special?

PunkStar · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 4:39 pm Post subject:

This is indeed an interesting question. I personally would like to answer it in an almost philsophical regard. With references to swordsmanship, which I will then reapply to guitar.

We all know I'm something of a martial arts addict, particularly with a keen interest in swordsmanship. Specifically Japanese curved blades and their historical users (the samurai). It is well known the samurai held their swords with an almost spiritual respect. This is understandable considering the belief in animism in their culture. But there are other reasons. For lower-ranked samurai in wartime, your swords were your life. You used them in guard duty, fighting bandits as you travelled, and any other situation that required deadly force in a violent world. You'd quite literally live and die by your sword. Because of that, you made sure to keep it in good condition. As such, you spent a lot of time with it. And like all relationships, they grow the more you spend cultivating them. For higher-ranked samurai, those swords sitting on your left side were your symbol of position and power. They were your right and responsibility as a gift from your lord, so you'd better keep them safe. Some swords even belonged to an ancestor, so you keep them safe out of respect for them. Also, with the lack of high-quality iron available in Japan at the time, swords were expensive to produce and time-consuming to make. Really, a true work of art on behalf of the sword's maker. To put it in modern terms, disrespecting a sword back then was equivelent to owning a Di Vinci masterpiece and storing it under a leaky sink.

But they were incredible blades. Due to clever balancing of the sword weight using the curvature of the blade, you could make perfectly clean cuts with very little physical strength. And by tempering only the edge of the sword, you produced a strong blade quite resistant to breaking in combat.

And if you were the type of person that needed to use the sword in combat a lot, your blade would have little nicks and marks where you've clashed with other swords, or have minor bloodstains perhaps. Now your sword, in addition to a work of art, is also a record of what you've been through to get where you are. That obviously puts the sentimental value of a sword through the roof.

All up, that special sword is a combination of factors that are important to you. Now I'll terminate the history lesson and let's apply this same thinking to the guitar. Firstly, your guitar is something you do. It's an important tool we use in the service of your Lord, and we are all quite blessed to have the guitar the Lord gave us. That alone is more than special. Some guitars truly are a work of art. Whether it's the construction, the tone, or even the little details that go together to make the guitar just that little bit more unique. And really, your guitar may well be a record of what you've been though. The sweat stains on the fretboard, the scratches on the pickguard, the personal history of every song you've written with that thing in your arms. It all says where you were and how you got where you are today. Practice, learning, and application, it's all written your guitar guitar. And I say that's what makes any given guitar special, otherwise it's just a constructed pile of woods, metal, and plastic.

But I wouldn't get too attached to it. There may well come a day when it's time for someone else to read your record and you start a whole new one on another guitar that is just as special.

KY Ratshooter

music wasn't part of me · Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 1:28 am Post subject:

i believe this is where i left off before my internet connection failed! now that i have a better connection and switched to Firefox (Thanks PS for the tip), i can login regularly again !

Yeah , i should try other guitars more often, whenever i get the chance to stop at the usual guitar store, i try just about everything.....it's a different feeling .

i think what makes a guitar special is also the connection with the type of songs you usually play, like when you Rock Hard you want more bass and bigger volume? what do you think ?

sharring · Tiger Joined: 04 Feb 2004 Posts: 808 Location: Texas

What makes a guitar so special?-the person playing it. Laughing