Guitarists? Guitars?

cannone · Post by **cannone** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 4:59 pm

Great thread by the way.....

Close to the les paul purchase now.....perhaps too close.

capta1nA · Post by **capta1nA** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 6:08 pm

dj superflat wrote:my theory: if 4 strings was good enough for paul, john paul, bootsy, stanley, jaco, ron, flea, les, etc., it's good enough for me.

When most of those players were first popular, the 5 string had barely existed. Of course, you failed to mention Anthony Jackson, who came up with the concept of the 6 string contrabass tuned BEADGC. Jackson is a madman on the 6 string (and uses a pick! Weird, right).

Anthony Jackson wrote:“Why is four [strings] the standard and not six? As the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family, the instrument should have had six strings from the beginning. The only reason it had four was because Leo Fender was thinking in application terms of an upright bass, but he built it along guitar lines because that was his training. The logical conception for the bass guitar encompasses six strings.”

What works for some people doesn't work for everyone.

I'll just add a note that bass viol instruments have existed with up to 7 strings for over 400 years.

Jeroen · Post by **Jeroen** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 7:38 pm

Why not 7 strings, or more. Ever heard an old lute, with the low free bass string buzzing on the background. Love that sound, can someone multisample for me?

http://www.nigelnorth.net/audio/varieti ... sons02.mp3

BTW, Godin XTSA.

dj superflat · Post by **dj superflat** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 8:24 pm

i'm obviously somewhat kidding about the number of strings -- people should play whatever they want. but i think limitations are useful -- whether it's rhyming lyrics, the sonnet form, or number of strings -- because they force people to make choices, do certain things. 4 stringed bass guitars led to a certain kind of playing that i love, i've heard very little on more strings that i much liked, unless they were pretty much just ignoring the extra strings (you also can't dig in the same way on many basses with xtra strings).

as for getting the les paul, you really can't go wrong (aside from the shoulder strain and rubbing your forearm raw while playing out).

phased · Post by **phased** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 9:15 pm

Yep, les pauls are heavy. Yeah, the tone is great. I just wired mine with splittable pickups, the single coil sounds are GREAT! I prefer the skinnier 60's style necks...