Talk:Guitar/Archive 1

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Contents

Check my edit

I do not play bass guitar and it's been a long time since I've played acoustic guitar, so please check this over. Also I can not recall if the item above the first fret is called a "nut" or a "bridge." And obviously I know nothing about the acoustic bass, so if someone else does, please add it.  :-)

It's called both "the nut" or a bridge. Bridge is the correct term (specifically the "neck bridge"), but nut is used most often, "bend behind the nut" &c. -- Jim Regan
The "bridge" is on the body of the guitar, below the sound hole or pick-ups, under the strings, the "nut" is at the top of the neck, also under the strings. This is true on all guitars, bass or not. Jim Cooper

Terms for an "ordinary" guitar

Something I've always wondered: if Bootsy Collins and the like play a "bass guitar", then what does your average "guitarist" in a rock band play? Tenor guitar or soprano guitar or what? And why has the bass guitar been subordinated to whatever the answer is, instead of always specifying what kind of guitar someone plays? Tuf-Kat

Erm - surely it is quite normal for there to be an "average" sized whatever it is, where the pitch is not specified, and then you specify the exceptions because they are unusual in being fun size or economy size or whatever. The guitar was there first, I think is the answer. cf trumpet, bass trumpet, piccolo trumpet; clarinet, bass clarinet; trombone, bass trombone (OK that's not quite such a good example but hey). I think for nearly all instruments you can get away with saying one basic name and it being understood which one you meant. Saxes are maybe an exception having been deliberately invented as a whole family rather than evolving: there may be others. Does that go close to your quesrtion or am I barking up the wrong tree? :) Nevilley 08:13 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)
I'm not sure if that answers the question. My assumption was that all or most instruments (i.e. guitar) have different forms depending on the intended pitch -- so, at least in theory, there is a bass guitar, a soprano guitar, a tenor guitar and an alto guitar. I don't understand how you can have a guitar that isn't aimed at a specific pitch, but since I have no knowledge whatsoever of musical theory, I may be ill-informed in this regard. Even if a "guitar" is not normally specified as to what kind it is, I assumed that's because there is one most popular kind, with a "bass guitar" as a second-most popular and, presumably, a "soprano guitar" or whatever after that? If this isn't true, why is it true for saxophones but not guitars. Sorry if I'm being ignorant about something basic, I don't mean to be -- I like a lot of different kinds of music, but don't know the meaning of many technical words and the like. Tuf-Kat
No, they don't necessarily come in loads of different forms. Some have developed into whole families, others maybe just have the basic instrument and one variant. I think there is nearly always a default usage which indicates the one that most people think of when they hear the unmodified word. With guitars, I think the size and pitch of the average guitar have been stable for quite a long time, and that's why it has been able to baggsy the word - there just isn't any real competition for it. The bass is a relative newcomer, doesn't really exist outside its electric form (slight oversimplification here but ...) and so it has to come second in the queue for a name. You have to say alto or tenor sax because there is room for confusion: in guitar there is none. Saxes are indeed quite different becase M. Saxe actually invented the whole idea one day in the 19th century so they sprang into the world as a full-formed family, and you can't really guess at a "default sax". (Although if you had to it's probably an alto, but those in the know always ask!) As for actual terms, the bass guitar is the bass because it's got a low voice, and has the same string pitches as a string bass (double bass, steam bass, orchestral bass etc). I suppose if you had to insist on a ptch name for the ordinary guitar it's a sort of bass/baritone in terms of where you can go down to, but as the sky is the limit in terms of how high it can get, that doesn't really work too well. Tricky, innit? Am I helping at all here or just making it much much worse? :) Nevilley 08:33 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)
No, that answers the question quite well (as well as anything else in music, which stubbornly refuses to assign actual definitions to things). I always assumed that if there is an alto sax and there is no possibility of a saxophone without a pitch-modifier before it, that must hold true for any instrument, but apparently this isn't true. I suppose I was assuming that a guitarist played some type of guitar, bass guitarists played a somewhat less popular type and uneducated people like me would have never heard of the two soprano guitarists in history to play the instrument. But, I suppose it makes sense that there is a guitar and a few subtypes with no guiding hand to make it all reasonable and intuitive. Tuf-Kat
I agree with Nevilley: the (standard) guitar has been that way for a long time, while the bass guitar is a newcomer, invented (or popularised) in the 1950s by Leo Fender. Other variants exist: the baritone guitar is a six-string instrument pitched a fifth below the guitar; the rare tenor guitar [1] is essentially a guitar-shaped banjo with four strings usually tuned in fifths; treble guitars have been made with six strings, a fourth above the standard guitar; and you sometimes see "octave" guitars as well. See also [2] which gives a different family of classical-type guitars, and calls the standard guitar the "prime" guitar (I'm googling this as I go along, if you hadn't guessed). --rbrwr


"Electric Bass" may be a better name for that instrument anyway. They are not infrequently made without frets. Also, they are played with a pick sometimes, but more often using a two-finger pizzicato technique that is essentially the same as that used on a bass viol in jazz music or in classical passages that call for pizzicato. Most players of the instrument who I know, if one asked them what they play, would say "I play bass." This is perhaps a recognition of the fact that the

instruments' role in a band usually corresponds to that of a bass viol in classical music or jazz: perhaps people think more in terms of the instrument's musical function than its construction or looks. Anyway, basses go "thunk" and guitars go "twang", so this instrument must be a bass!?

There's another thing: I seem to recall reading a book that discussed both the electric bass and another instrument that it called the bass guitar. The second of these appeared to be somewhat of an oddity: it may

have had six strings and been tuned like a guitar only an octave lower, or it may have had four strings and been like what you are calling a bass guitar, except that it had a shorter scale, and was more the size of an ordinary guitar. Anyway, if such an instrument exists it adds some new elements to this discussion. I apologize for my horrendous formatting. Can't seem to get those darn indentations to work right. -- fos


There is a reasonably well defined difference between a "bass guitar" and a "bass viol." (Allow me to take a moment here to address the terminology confusion. Both instruments are generally referred to as a "bass." If you ask Mark Winchester of Brian Setzer's Orchestra what he plays, he'll say "the bass," and if you ask me what I played in my band in college, I'd say "the bass." However, Mr. Winchester plays a double bass or a bass viol while I played an electric bass guitar.) A bass guitar is just that - a guitar that is an octave lower than your "standard" guitar. It's body is shaped like the body of a guitar, it has frets (usually), is worn on a strap and slung in front of the body (or supported in one's lap) like a "standard" guitar, and electric versions of it have magnet-and-coil pickups that are of similar construction to that of "standard" electric guitars. A bass viol, in contrast, is shaped like a large violin, it usually doesn't have frets, it is played with the butt-end resting on the floor and the strings more or less vertical (as opposed to a bass guitar being supported by a strap on one's shoulders or by one's lap and the strings being much more horizontal), and the pickups used are usually microphonic or piezo-electric, not of the magnet-and-coil-interacting-with-metal-strings variety that most electric guitars use. The REAL difference, though (which spawns all the differences enumerated above), is that of pedigree. The bass guitar grew out of the guitar family of instruments, while the bass viol grew out of violin family of instruments. They're like a porpoise as compared to a large fish - they look similar, act similar, and occupy similar habitats and roles in nature, but the evolutionary paths by which they arrived at their respective niches are very different. -DSH

I allways thought that the "electric bass" grew from the upright bass that was just the same but acoustic. I've never understood why people use the term "bass guitar". All the people I work with call it the "Bass" or "electric bass"- anyway, and early rock'n'roll bands were using the upright before it became electrically amplified. I would say that the guitar and bass are from different families but have both evolved in a similar way (with electric amplification etc...).

Wording

The wording of this part gets a little confusing, I think:

"The joining of the strings to a large membrane, the top, which they pull back and forth where they connect to it at the bridge, creates an effective air-moving system because the top is large enough that the air can not readily side step its motion."

“internal links” (See also)

Hi, I try to organize the “internal links” (See also).

There are different articles on the same subject or on some subject that in my way could be in the same article. For example the articles Slide guitar - Pedal steel guitar - Lap steel guitar - Slack-key guitar, etc.

Good edit

Does anyone know whether this is a good edit? I tried it in Google, Teoma, and Yahoo but I get no results, "...The guitar was first played by Olga Von Streiselbauckernomblemuckenstreisenburger"

yeah, how about NOT DDerby 06:44, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Legends and notable guitar players

Anyone have any thoughts on qualifications for these lists? I guess I agree with many of the "legends", but this is a bit of a POV call. I'd personally lean toward getting rid of the "notables" and trying to get down to a relatively short list (10 or so?) of legends. Then we can pick ones that are most considered "legendary", however we determine that. Friday (talk) 20:39, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I just moved a similar list out of guitar solo and I think it's cleaned up the page. These can be moved to a page just containing list of "notable guitarists". But if this is going on then I guess someone ought to co-ordinate it; we don't want several of these pages duplicating the same kind of material... Ornette 16:20, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Guitar culture

Does anyone see a point to the "Guitar culture" section? I don't see that the content there particularly discusses guitar culture, whatever that is. I'd personally lean toward removing it, but I'd rather have some other opinions first. Friday (talk) 19:34, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Graphite??? You must be nuts!

Graphite used for nuts?? Its far too brittle. Any evidence/refs about this before I remove statement?--Light current 01:04, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

A quick google [3] shows lots of graphite nuts available, so I assume they must be used. Friday (talk) 01:07, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Graphite is also soft (1-2 on Mohs scale) so thay cant last very long before wearing out!--Light current 01:09, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Maybe that's why so many are available as replacement parts.. hmmm.. :) Friday (talk) 01:18, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Good for lube tho!(but dirty)--Light current 01:18, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

When placing a string on any wooden stringed instrument such as the violin, it is advised to take a pencil and makr inside where the string lays at the nut to lubricate the nut so when tuning and stretching the string it does not break. The graphite nut on a guitar serves this same purpose, to keep the string from breaking, which would be much more prevalent in guitar strings since they are coiled and not flat-wound like a violin.

Sanskrit

Sorry if I sound like I am nitpicking...

In the History section, it is mentiond that Sanskrit itself was primarily the official language of the Aryans of Central Asia, that is, Iran, and was spread along the east, as far as present Bihar by about 600 BC where it was later to be established as classical Sanskrit of India.. Checking on the Sanskrit page, shows no such information. There is some similarity in Vedic_Sanskrit, but not quite what the article says. Can anyone please verify this?

--getkashyap 05:50, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Tuning

I was going to just add the part about the four fingers and the tuning in fourths, but decided the whole thing needed cleaning up. Hope I improved it and didn't kill anything we want. One thing I did was to change the notation in the list of tunings. The use of a capital, a lowercase, and a prime to denote consecutive octaves was messy and didn't add much value on a guitar scale where it's customary the tones increase and the string index decreases as you read from left-to-right. Though it occurs to me this article should actually include a section explaining that. Maybe someday. 216.237.179.238 22:35, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I take it back. The notation is too common in music articles in the wikipedia. I'm changing it back. 216.237.179.238 22:42, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Source for Anthony Vick as inventor of Electric Guitar.

No source is given for the claim that Anthony Vick is the inventor of the electric guitar. George Beauchamp of Rickenbacker is linked, and it has sources and patents for his role in the electric guitar invention. If no references or sources are given that shows Vick as the inventor, then this part should be removed.

Squier stratocaster image text

"This Squier Stratocaster has the features of most electric guitars: multiple single coil pickups, a tremolo bar, volume and tone knobs"

It would be worth mentioning that it also has a pickup selector.

Every electric guitar has a pickup selector.--Jason Gastrich 00:14, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Not true, electric guitar may have only one pickup, thus simplified controls %) --GreyCat 02:23, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm not familiar with a 6 string guitar that has only one pickup. Wouldn't that sound horrible? My American Fender Stratocaster has two double humbuckers. Can you provide a citation for your statement?--Jason Gastrich 04:01, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Sure, well-known examples are Gibson Les Paul Junior, Fender Seymour Duncan Signature Esquire, Fender Tom Delonge Stratocaster. --GreyCat 11:18, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
The Duncan GreyCat mentions looks like it has a pickup selector (although I can't imagine what it's selecting). Another I found was the Squire Bullet Special. --David Fell 03 January 2006

Choosing between humbuckers and single coils is a matter of personal taste. However in a strat with 3 single coils, the positions 1,3 and 5 of the pickup selector activate only one pickup, and nope they cannot sound horrible. I think Van Hallen had hacked one of his first guitars. He removed one of the pickups and left only a humbucker, so when he switched the pickup to the position with no-pickup the guitar was muted, and... well, he utilised that as a song feature ;) +MATIA ☎ 10:17, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

You're right, and Tom Morello has a similar trick Triki-wiki 05:05, 28 April 2006 (UTC)Triki-wiki

How about something like "At this photo of a Squier Stratocaster, the typical features of an electric guitar can be seen: pickups, pickup switch, tremolo bar, and knobs for volume and tone." +MATIA ☎ 10:42, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Guitar/synthesizer

I wrote a separate article for Guitar/synthesizer and plan to link from this article. Please check it out. In this article, I question the appropriateness of saying that one type of guitar synthesis is "the emulation of guitar played on other instruments such as the keyboard synthesiser using guitar-like sounds". To me, that's synthesis (or sampling, more likely), not guitar/synthesis. I was planning to remove this comment when I link, but thought I'd get some opinions first. --Trweiss 23:22, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Running the .vbd chord file

What do you need to run that particular file? Tried looking around for ways to run a .vbd extension though no resolve.

This is the file/link I'm alluding to: A completely free and interactive chord dictionary with 387,420,489 chords for guitar.

I totally endorse the removal of Dylan

Some proposed changes

This is a great article with a lot of useful information, but I can't help but think that there's a little too much information, and that it could be presented better. Some things that come to mind:-

1. Only giving a brief overview of the parts of the guitar here, and creating a separate "guitar construction" article which contains more in-depth information;

I think it should be even more that 1 article: one article per guitar part. Some of these articles already exist, though they're bad equality. Some articles exist, but they cover all applicable instruments, not only guitar. I propose stripping down construction part to a list of parts and making links to full guitar part articles. Whenever there is an article that is applicable to other instruments, do a separate "guitar" part in that article and link to something like Bridge#guitar. --GreyCat 22:55, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I would argue in favour of having them in a single, separate article. Could we write enough about each part to warrant a different article for each? I'm just worried about creating a load of stubs. Perhaps we could compromise by moving them into just one article for now, and then if the article length warrants it in the future, moving them into separate articles? At least we are agreed they take up too much space here. MartinRobinson 18:14, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Let's see. At least some parts of a guitar really deserve a separate article, and sometimes even not a single article. I've already started headstock article and, honestly, I've just scratched the surface. We have an encyclopaedia, anyway - it's not just a dictionary with 1-paragraph descriptions. Each guitar parts yield lots of interesting stuff: construction specifics, available variants, history of its appearance and modifications, advantages/disadvantages, how does it affect the sound, playability? Before I ordered my custom shop guitar, I spent about half a year researching things around, learning what's the best headstock angle to order, what are the pickups, how they function, what is the good compromise between price and quality, neck and body construction nuances, etc. Anyway, I believe we can start switching to one-article per part scheme and have a brief overview in the main article that will cover the parts that we wouldn't have to say about much. --GreyCat 01:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

2. A section beneath the history section detailing how the guitar is played (i.e standard tuning, forming chords with the left hand, using a pick or finger in the right hand, etc);

I don't see much to describe in such a section: guitar playing is basically as playing lute or other similar stringed instrument. However, rock guitar culture involves much more interesting things beside playing, i.e. tricks like "hanging guitar about the level of ones knees", "pulling the guitar upward using a knee on a monitor speaker while soloing", "headbanging on rhythm", "playing a guitar with a tongue", etc %) This one's should be in such an article, or may be in electric guitar.
Perhaps you're right about the intro, but reading over it again, I would submit that a guitar is played with the right hand, and not with the left (as the article states). It is the right hand that strikes the strings and creates the sound, therefore, that is the hand that plays it. Details, details....lol MartinRobinson 18:14, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

3. Creating a "guitar tunings" article and moving the other tunings there. This could then be expanded to include songs on which the altered tunings are used;

I've already created a category called Category:Guitar tunings for tuning articles. We should prettify this category and make links there. So far, it contains many similar articles that need to be merged. --GreyCat 22:55, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, cool...we can put that on our "to do" list. MartinRobinson 18:14, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

4. General re-ordering of and balancing of information. For instance, one has to scroll to almost the middle of the article before finding out what the guitar is normally tuned to (as I outlined above, I feel this should be much earlier in the article), and some sections are too long when their importance is considered. For example, the longest section on a guitar part is on guitar inlays, which are to my mind, the least important part of a guitar as they are a mostly cosmetic feature.

This article needs to be rewritten mostly, and I believe we should start with designing a new structure. Any thoughts? I have some, but I'd like to hear your first %) --GreyCat 22:55, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I had a look at the Saxophone page which was a featured article, and I'd suggest it might make a good template to work from. I would suggest:-
1. Deciding what sections and headings we are going to use
2. Deciding on their order
3. Moving the bulk of the guitar parts section to its own article
4. Filling in the blanks
Care to share your ideas? :-) MartinRobinson 18:14, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Sure ;) Saxophone article is nice, though I believe, we are dealing with much more complex thing. I guess it's clear that guitar is one of the most popular modern instruments, if not the most popular, that gave birth to huge guitar culture. Typically, saxophone players doesn't really care about electric amplification, about tone transformations and final result - it's a job of sound engineer, after all.
Here is approximate plan of article as I see it, based loosely on Saxophone:
1. History
2. Guitar varieties (bass, electric-acoustic, 4-5-6-7-8-12 strings, exotic Chapman sticks, etc)
3. Guitar parts/construction
4. Guitar applications / role played in music (classic guitar, basic background acoustic guitar, folk guitar, rhythm/lead guitar in pop/rock, virtuoso guitar, exotic guitar uses like MIDI controller) - various roles lead to various playing styles, various music notation (notescores / chords / tabs), various output - acoustic waves, electric signals, MIDI signals
5. Guitar culture - classic posture, classic repertoire, brief overview of guitar in various popular styles (symphonic-jazz-blues-rock-metal-pop), guitar slang, various guitar cliche moves, world records related to guitar, various magazines and media related to guitars, etc
6. Overview of "what to read next" - pointers to lots of categories and other resources --GreyCat 01:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


These are my initial ideas upon reading the article. Any thoughts? MartinRobinson 18:42, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I have a problem with the See also section. While it is good, it takes up about 30% of the article and I think it needs major re-organization.
For example I think that here we should only list guitarists that changed the way guitars are build or evolved the technique (Aguado and Van Hallen are two names). This article doesn't need another long list of guitarists (see Guitarist and List of guitarists (Blues, Jazz, Rock, Metal). List everyone at List of guitarists (Blues, Jazz, Rock, Metal) along with their bands etc, list a selection of the contemporary guitarists at Guitarist, and carefully select some guitarists from Guitarists to be mentioned here.
The Guitar#Guitar_effects and Guitar#Guitar_technique also should be re-written, but I'm not sure in what way. +MATIA ☎ 00:07, 11 December 2005 (UTC)