Maturing and learning…

Good or Bad Music ! ?

Continuation from “the old man”: Know thy tools (No. 4)

We stopped with the early “development” of the “modern” electrical guitar, more or less as the instrument is today. 

Of cause there are technical improvements, but the basic principles are the same.

An electric guitar without any peripherals serves little purpose. Hence let’s spend some time on how the loudspeaker developed.

In the 1920s, it was very hard for a musician playing a pickup-equipped guitar to find an amplifier and speakers to make their guitar sound louder. Often they were stuck with “simple” speakers, sort of radio type equipment of limited frequency range and low acoustic output.

The first amplifiers and speakers could only be powered with large batteries, which made them heavy and hard to carry around, hence unpractical.

When engineers developed the first AC mains-powered amplifiers, they were soon used to make musical instruments louder. Engineers invented the first powerful amplifier and speaker systems for public address systems (PA) and cinemas / theatres. The PA systems and movie theatre sound systems were large and expensive.

After 1927, smaller, portable AC mains-powered PA systems that could be plugged into a regular wall socket "quickly became popular with musicians".

During the late 1920s to mid-1930s, small portable PA systems and guitar combo amplifiers were fairly similar.

These early amps had a "single volume control and one or two input jacks, field coil speakers" and thin wooden cabinets. Early amps did not have tone controls or even an on-off switch.

While guitar amplifiers from the beginning were used to amplify acoustic guitar, electronic amplification of guitar was first widely popularized by the 1930s and 1940s craze for Hawaiian music, which extensively employed the amplified lap steel Hawaiian guitar.

In the 1950s, several guitarists experimented with distortion produced by deliberately overdriving amplifiers, e.g. Elmore James, Ike Turner, Willie Johnson, Guitar Slim, Chuck Berry,  and Link Wray.

In the early 1960s, surf rock guitarist Dick Dale worked closely with Fender to produce custom made amplifiers,^[13] including the first 100-watt guitar amplifier. He pushed the limits of electric amplification technology, helping to develop new equipment that was capable of producing "thick, clearly defined tones" at “high" output.

Distortion became more popular from the mid-1960s, when e.g The Kinks guitarist Dave Davies produced distortion effects, and connecting to the already distorted output signal of one amplifier into the input of another amplifier.

- We leave here and pick up this trail in an article later …

 

Let me introduce: “Liza”      

Liza is a Taylor T 3 / B (Bigsby), a semi hollow body Electric Guitar, in Curly Maple Tobacco Sunburst. Liza was imported from Holland in 2011.  

Equipped with High-definition humbuckers. A three-way switch covers full neck, neck/bridge, and full bridge configurations, while a coil-splitting application (pulling up the volume knob) transforms the humbuckers into single coil pickups.  

The Bigsby vibrato tailpiece is paired with a roller bridge to give players smooth pitch control that makes vibrato bends fun to explore. The top is layered, figured maple. 

Warm brown colours, simple yet elegant details, makes Liza a”classical” beauty to watch. With regard to my playing style she’s a good fit, but can be “moody”. 

Taylor was founded in 1974 by Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug.

As of 2012 Taylor Guitars had more than 700 employees in two factories: one in El Cajon, California, and the other in nearby Tecate, Mexico, where the company makes their lower-priced models and guitar cases.

In early 2011, the company opened a Taylor distribution warehouse in the Netherlands to serve the European market.

In January 2014, the U.S. State Department honoured Taylor Guitars with an Award for Corporate Excellence (ACE) citing Taylor's commitment to responsible practices in obtaining ebony for its instruments.

“Good or Bad music !?”

At best such a characterization is false. The music is a universal language to all humanity and evokes feeling, emotions etc., in other words, music “speak to us” individually, often in ways we either like or dislike.

Some music may challenges us, other can make us cry, or even make us euphoric, but it’s still an individual perception and interpretation of what we are listening to.

To me music is nor good or bad, it simply a matter of if the music appeals to me there and then. My “musical ear”, my senses will immediately tell me. – I get goosebumps, and by body hair rises. - That’s how I know I need to continue “listen”.

However much music requires the listener to go through multiple listening’s in order to catch all nuances the composer or artist(s) conveys. On the opposite side one has the music that speaks to you immediately, directly, there and then.

This brings me to an example related to the composer Gustav Mahler (born July 7, 1860, Kalist, Bohemia (now Czech Republic), died May 18, 1911). 

A Saturday morning abt. 1990, I was still in bed, and the radio wake-up had just turned on.

Suddenly, Mahlers Symphony No. 5 (composed in 1901 and 1902), the addagietto part sounded … Still half asleep, I immediately was full awake!

It lasts for approximately 10 minutes. 

(Mahler's instruction for this part is Sehr langsam (very slowly).

- Still to this day this piece awake very strong emotion with me.

Continue to revitalize, listen, reflect , learn …

Credits / references: Thanks to Wikipedia, and any music loving webpage whom inspired / contributing … 

To be continued ...