--- In [email protected], "curtisdeltablues" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:
>
> Great details Spraig.  Thanks.   I was definitely preaching to the
> choir on classical guitars, you obviously know a lot more about them.
>  I was particularly interested in the detail about Segovia not
> performing with older guitars.  It is very common for folk and blues
> musicians to prefer a guitar's sound after it has settled in for a few
> decades.  Of course if it gets too pricey then they start leaving them
> at home!  I guess Segovia's guitars really were antiques and not just
> guitars that had aged a bit.

Segovia apparently DID play one guitar for 25 years, according to a collector's 
website, so 
maybe I'm wrong, or maybe he retired it from concert life and played it at home 
for a long 
time. However, starting in 1961 he used Ramirez guitars and both he and Ramirez 
said he 
got a new one every year. Ramirez said he "traded in his old model"...

 Most of the guys playing the 1930's
> resonator guitars or old Martins spend a great deal of time re-tuning
> the old guitars while they play.  Sometimes it gets so distracting
> that I wish they would give up some of the "authenticity" and get a
> guitar with decent tuning pegs!   


You should watch a lutenist tune. It's a hoot. Even 400 years ago, the 
reutining done by 
lute players was considered a joke. You're right about the gut-string thign. 
That's why 
Segoiva wanted to use nylon strings. That and the fact that they sound dead 
compared to 
good nylon strings.

I don't know that Segovia was tuning "to the piece" but I've noticed that my 
own guitar 
doesn't sound quite right if I do a low-fret tuning and I'm playing a piece 
that has a lot of 
high-fret action.


> 
> Great darshon story about his concert.  Must have been amazing.  I
> didn't realize that you were so into guitars.  I misread your
> intentions about Segovia re-tuning while playing because most
> performing artists end up doing this from time to time, myself
> included, and I never seen to get any extra props for it! 


I've seen plenty of folk/rock guitarists tune while playing, but they weren't 
playing Bach or 
whatever. Segovia would tune during a rest, or a sustained note, while in the 
middle of a 
classical piece. He did it so fast, it looked like he practiced the tuning. May 
have been a 
way of showing off, who knows?


 Do you play
> classical now?

Not in a long time. I still have my guitar and now that I'm settling into my 
new place, I may 
just start playing again.

http://www.cathedralguitar.com/Ramirez1984.html (mine is an '83)







To subscribe, send a message to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Or go to: 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/
and click 'Join This Group!' 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    [EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
 



Reply via email to