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Avery

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Everything posted by Avery

  1. Hey guys, Realize I've been away for several years now, (as part of an overall effort to spend less time on internet forums.) But I've been checking this place from time to time. I hope you'll bear with me now...Couldn't think of a better place to pose this question. Anyway, I'd be really curious to get some feedback about something that's been a struggle for me for some time: How to write a good melody when writing a song. [that is a song you sing to, not an instrumental piece]. Everyone talks about lyrics, everyone talks about chords and instrumentation, but it seems like no one really talks about melody. Whenever I try to come up with a melody to sing to when writing a song, it sounds way too similar to the chords I'm playing underneath. But in any good song I cover, I can tell that melody is similar but also really different than the chords that you play. I've bought a book or two on songwriting but it seems that they are too formal and technical when discussing melody, and I don't think real world songwriters follow the approach in these books. I do know some basic theory, but still, these books seem a little excessive. I can also tell that if you listen to enough music [whether rock, country, pop, folk, whatever] songwriters are obviously digging into the same bag of tricks, because I often catch myself thinking oh, these 3 songs have a similar type of chorus. Or, this artist always composes similar melodies. So, what is your approach to making a good melody? I hope this gets some responses; I know there are a lot of good songwriters here, but the forum has been awfully quiet recently. Avery
  2. Hogeye, I respect your knowledge and your perspective, even though I think I disagree. First, many super fancy guitars have grain runout on the tops. Now, I don't know much about carpentry and wood, but from I've read, this is an avoidable problem: If you split the wood instead of sawing it this is not a problem. http://www.lutherie.net/frankford.runout.html And yet Martin, Gibson, and Taylor don't try avoiding this. Probably because they are not boutique builders and don't want to take the time to avoid this. Tops with runout are more fragile than those without and yet many elite guitars have runout, and don't wind up imploding. Now, regarding your main point i.e. the fragility of flat-sawn wood. It's hard for me to imagine that flat-sawn wood is more fragile than Brazilian Rosewood, which from what I've read, is fragile and susceptible to cracking: http://www.guitarnation.com/articles/calkin.htm Brazilian is still the most desirable tonewood despite this. Also, I think there is a very fine line between a workhorse and a budget guitar. Doubtless, there are some shortcomings strictly due to cutting costs that one finds in a J-45. The flubber pickguard is there too, there's a whole bunch of tusq instead of bone. It's got the Grovers that a lot of people don't like. (Is the problem you mentioned only with mini Grovers or all Grovers?). And yet it sounds great, and has become an icon. I don't know as much as you do, and you seem to see the flat-sawn nature as unforgivable. Maybe you are right. But I think that when we buy a Gibson, even a J200 there will be some shortcoming vis-a-vis the craftsmanship that you don't get in, say, a Santa Cruz or a Goodall. I think it is called the J-15 not because it's 1/3 of the J-45, but because it costs $1500. Kind of like a 21st century workhorse, a subtle nod to the J-45 and J-50 that cost 45 and 50 dollars. In the above article about tonewoods, the author is fond of English Walnut, but he is also quite fond of the walnut one gets on the West Coast in the U.S.A.
  3. Look at James Taylor's Olson guitar. Got a 5 piece neck, costs at least 12 grand. http://www.olsonguitars.com/guitar_models.html And Denversteve, I think I read a review on premierguitar where they said it was a Rosewood stringer...But everywhere else I've seen others say walnut.
  4. You know, Denversteve, I think it's a "walnut stringer" too, as the stripe. This guitar has a theme, I think :-). And that's a beautiful guitar, Mojo.
  5. Hey Dom, I've never tried these guys, but I know some other people on this forum liked the pickguards from Terrapin. http://www.terrapinguitars.com/index2_php.php?content=acousticContent#acoustic
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