QuestionMark Posted June 21, 2011 Share Posted June 21, 2011 Hey all- Here's an audio/video recording I just put on YouTube of me playing "Classical Gas" on my 1956 NY Epiphone FT79 (pre-Texan. When Gibson bought Epiphone they expanded the FT79 to be the FT79 Texan...and the rest is history). The '56 FT79 appears in the video when I'm wearing the larger plaid shirt. When I'm wearing the smaller plaid shirt, the video shows me playing my 1994 Gibson 100 Year Anniversary Gospel...I ran short of photos of me and the FT79. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8X7TFZ4K2Y Hope y'all enjoy! QM aka Jazzman Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombywoof Posted June 21, 2011 Share Posted June 21, 2011 Fun recording and it is good to see somebody else playing one of those final gasp Epi FT-79s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuestionMark Posted June 22, 2011 Author Share Posted June 22, 2011 And, it is a final gasp NY Epiphone FT79. Most NY Epiphone FT79s have the parallegram-like block inlays on their necks...mine has just the dots. There is no question the neck is original on the guitar. No sign of anything replaced. They must've been cutting corners or interchanging parts wherever they could at the end to still produce the model. It's a great playing/sounding/looking guitar as well as an interesting relic piece of its time. Thanks for listening. QM aka Jazzman Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombywoof Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 Mine is a dot neck as well (it has the brownburst finish). At first I thought the board might have been a replacement but over the years I have run across two other dot neck FT-79s from that period. Mine also came with a rosewood saddle (which I have replaced). But I agree that maybe Epi was just trying to get guitars out as fast and as cheaply as they could to fill orders. While the Epi is not the loudest or warmest sounding guitar I play it does have a really sweet rhythmic jingle. It is the only guitar I own that I string with 12s (rather than 13s) because it just responds better with the lighter guage strings. I also tune it down half a step to get a fuller sound out of it. Anyway, I enjoyed the photo montage and tune and as I said it is just nice to see someone else gigging with a pre-Gibson FT-79. They are a very different feeling and sounding guitar from the Texan and I would imagine not everyone's cup of tea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuestionMark Posted June 23, 2011 Author Share Posted June 23, 2011 Likewise...great to connect with another pre-Gibson FT79 player. QM aka Jazzman Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red 333 Posted June 23, 2011 Share Posted June 23, 2011 Nice job, Jeff. The FT-79 and your playing really suit the arrangement--you give it a Baroque meets Jazz feel, like it was played on a harpsichord by Eubie Blake or someone. Is that an arrangement you wrote yourself, or did you learn it from sheet music/TAB? Thanks for posting. I enjoyed it. Red 333 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuestionMark Posted June 24, 2011 Author Share Posted June 24, 2011 Nice job, Jeff. The FT-79 and your playing really suit the arrangement--you give it a Baroque meets Jazz feel, like it was played on a harpsichord by Eubie Blake or someone. Is that an arrangement you wrote yourself, or did you learn it from sheet music/TAB? Thanks for posting. I enjoyed it. Red 333 Thanks for the complimentary critique. I definitely went for a Baroque meets jazz feel (with a bit of rockin' rhythm in there, too.) The arrangement is mine. Worked on developing it for about two months...fun stuff. First I did the song simply by intuition and worked through it, then I listened to Mason Williams' original version about 50 times and tried to pick up nuances of what is melody and what is accompiament, what accompiament constitutes the melody, etc. Then, I got to work on how can I capture the horn part bridge in the song on the guitar, how can I jazz up the refrain to make it different, but the same, how can I somehow incorporate the drums in the original with only guitar, as well as capture the orchestra parts that frame the guitar melody in the original. Then, I listened to Eric Clapton's classical version of the song (he eliminates the horn bridge section)and keeps the rhythm at a minimum, and, of course, listened to Tommy Emmanual's wild ride version of the song (and thought I want to capture a bit of that feeling, but not imitate what he did either (who could?) From there, I explored tab on the internet thinking I should probably learn how the song really should be played. After learning that, I added my own sections from my earlier musings and then went through about five re-writes of that to put it on paper so I could always generally play the same arrangement I came up with. From there I practiced the arrangement I came up with for about two weeks. Played it at a couple gigs to see how it played in public (things can often sound different in solitude than in front of people). From there the arrangement was good to go...right now I'm just trying to memorize it. Having it on YouTube helps with that as I can now imitate how the arrangement sounds in the YouTube. Guess now its a staple in my repetoire. Chose the FT79 because as you indicate, it seems to suit it. An interesting guitar journey as they all are. Again thanks for listening and the great critique. QM aka Jazzman Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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