Mojo

[Freeman Keller]

We've all heard something about guitars and mojo. This old guitar oozes mojo. Or this guitar captures the mojo of (insert bygone era of your choice). Or I took my guitar down to the Crossroads to get some mojo. Or.......

 

So, what is mojo?

Can a guitar have mojo?

How does a guitar get mojo?

Do old guitars have mojo?

Does an old guitar have mojo just because its old?

Does every old guitar have mojo?

Can a new guitar have mojo?

Do cheap guitars have mojo?

Do expensive guitars have mojo?

Do really expensive guitars have mojo?

Do hand made guitars have mojo?

Can a machine made guitar have mojo?

Does collecting a guitar give it mojo?

Can a replica of a guitar with mojo have mojo?

Does repairing a guitar give it mojo (or take it away)?

Does mod'ing a guitar give it mojo?

Does relic'ing a guitar give it mojo?

 

Can a blues guitar have mojo?

Can a jazz guitar have mojo?

Can a rock guitar have mojo?

Can a metal guitar have mojo?

 

Does David Rawlings Epiphone have mojo?

Does Clapton's Blackie have mojo?

Does Bill Monroe's mandolin have mojo? Did it loose mojo when it was destroyed with a fireplace poker? Did it get it back when it was painstakenly repaired?

Does Segovia's Hauser have mojo?

Does Willie's Trigger have mojo?

Does Mbengs guitar have mojo?

 

Does your guitar have mojo?

 

[bluesmann]

Where's joe Moe?

[Grant Harding]

It used to mean "Top up my coffee."

[t_e_l_e]

i know jimi hendrix flying v in the london's hard rock cafe does have mojo, but when i was able to hold it in my hands and noodle some unplugged riffs i couldn't feel it, maybe it can be just revealed when plugged in a 100w marshall fullstack turned to 11...

[onelife]

Wood is alive and old guitars sound better because the wood has forgotten that it used to be a tree.

[bluesmann]

Its claimed complements of beauty, love etc. helps plants to grow better. better than being pis-ed on I guess. They say the same about water. blessed be my water!

 

[catscurlyear]

i know jimi hendrix flying v in the london's hard rock cafe does have mojo' date=' but when i was able to hold it in my hands and noodle some unplugged riffs i couldn't feel it, maybe it can be just revealed when plugged in a 100w marshall fullstack turned to 11... [/quote']Ha Ha ,i`ve been down there and held that guitar and got some pics ,the only mojo i felt was the thrill of holding it .if that guitar belonged to me and i put it up for sale then i would feel the power of it`s mojo but realy that would be just jimi`s mojo .

don`t know if this tale is true , a guy who i know, knows this quite well known jazz fusion guitarist from the early 70`s who lived quite local and apparantly he acquired one of jimi`s tremelo arms from one of jimi`s smashed up strats ,thats all just the arm ,this jazz fusion guitarist was friends with gary moore and apparantly gary moore offered money for the arm ."mojo"

 

 

[t_e_l_e]

Ha Ha ,i`ve been down there and held that guitar and got some pics ,the only mojo i felt was the thrill of holding it .if that guitar belonged to me and i put it up for sale then i would feel the power of it`s mojo but realy that would be just jimi`s mojo .

don`t know if this tale is true , a guy who i know, knows this quite well known jazz fusion guitarist from the early 70`s who lived quite local and apparantly he acquired one of jimi`s tremelo arms from one of jimi`s smashed up strats ,thats all just the arm ,this jazz fusion guitarist was friends with gary moore and apparantly gary moore offered money for the arm ."mojo"

 

 

i also have pics and a short video of me noodling on it

[WRGKMC]

mo·jo¹

ˈmōjō/

noun US

 

a power that may seem magical and that allows someone to be very effective, successful, etc.

The word originally means a charm or a spell. But now its more commonly said meaning sex appeal or talent

 

noun: mojo; plural noun: mojos

• a magic charm, talisman, or spell.
  "someone must have their mojo working over at the record company"
  
  • magic power. [TABLE=class: vk_tbl vk_gy]
    [TR]
    [TD=class: lr_dct_nyms_ttl] synonyms:
    [/TD]
    [TD] magic, voodoo, hoodoo, wizardry, sorcery; More charm, lucky charm, amulet, talisman, churinga
    "get your mojo working"
    [/TD]
    [/TR]
    [/TABLE]
    

Origin

early 20th century: probably of African origin; compare with Gullah moco ‘witchcraft.’

 

noun: mojo

• a Cuban sauce or marinade containing garlic, olive oil, and sour oranges.
  

Origin

probably from Spanish mojo ‘wet’ from mojar ‘make wet.’

 

[billybilly]

"a magic charm" seems to fit. As I wrote earlier, its almost undefinable but something you can feel. If you overthink it, you might just kill the mojo, inadvertently disconnecting from it.

 

Some athletes, baseball players for example, have bats that have mojo, they can feel it, but its immeasurable.

[WRGKMC]

Sexy or talented works too.

[mikesr1963]

 

So, what is mojo? A bag containing magical/power items for a person in the voodoo religion. It's slang for libido and morphine.

Can a guitar have mojo? A guitar would be a players mojo. It can be a guitar or any guitar they touch.

How does a guitar get mojo?If you can answer this then it wouldn't be mojo. Some things people can't know.

Do old guitars have mojo? No and yes.

Does an old guitar have mojo just because its old? No, not at all.

Does every old guitar have mojo? ​Absolutely not.

Can a new guitar have mojo? Yes it can. The wood before it is formed is a living thing and can have/receive mojo.

Do cheap guitars have mojo? Yes it can. The wood before it is formed is a living thing and can have/receive mojo.

Do expensive guitars have mojo? Yes it can. The wood before it is formed is a living thing and can have/receive mojo.

Do really expensive guitars have mojo? Yes it can. The wood before forming is a living thing and can have/receive mojo.

Do hand made guitars have mojo?Yes it can. The wood before forming is a living thing and can have/receive mojo.

Can a machine made guitar have mojo?Yes it can. The wood before forming is a living thing and can have/receive mojo.

Does collecting a guitar give it mojo?NO.

Can a replica of a guitar with mojo have mojo?Yes it can. The wood before forming is a living thing and can have/receive mojo.

Does repairing a guitar give it mojo (or take it away)?Neither.

Does mod'ing a guitar give it mojo? NO.

Does relic'ing a guitar give it mojo? NO. In fact this is the one thing that can kill/curse the mojo in the wood. No relic guitar has mojo of any kind because it's fake. On that same line if you play a relic guitar you can reduce or lose mojo that has found its way in you.

 

Can a blues guitar have mojo?Yes it can. The wood before forming is a living thing and can have/receive mojo.

Can a jazz guitar have mojo?Yes it can. The wood before forming is a living thing and can have/receive mojo.

Can a rock guitar have mojo?Yes it can. The wood before forming is a living thing and can have/receive mojo.

Can a metal guitar have mojo?Yes it can. The wood before forming is a living thing and can have/receive mojo.

 

Does David Rawlings Epiphone have mojo?Yes it can. The wood before forming is a living thing and can have/receive mojo.

Does Clapton's Blackie have mojo?Yes it can. The wood before forming is a living thing and can have/receive mojo.

Does Bill Monroe's mandolin have mojo? Did it loose mojo when it was destroyed with a fireplace poker? Did it get it back when it was painstakenly repaired? See answers above.

Does Segovia's Hauser have mojo? Yes it can. The wood before forming is a living thing and can have/receive mojo.

Does Willie's Trigger have mojo? Yes it can. The wood before forming is a living thing and can have/receive mojo.

Does Mbengs guitar have mojo? Yes it can. The wood before forming is a living thing and can have/receive mojo.

 

Does your guitar have mojo? Of the dozen or so I have a couple with mojo.

[badpenguin]

I rarely see it as "mojo". I see it as..."this has good bones", or "this has put food on the table" and some guitars just ooooze that.

[Phil O'Keefe]

If you prefer Freeman, replace the word "mojo" with "je ne se quoi." It's that special something that makes some guitars stand out from others - even others of the same year and model.

 

Go down to a dealer (or the Fender factory) and play twenty Strats of the same model. Odds are that one of them will play / sound better than the others... even though they are supposedly all the same, and were all made at the same time.

[onelife]

I did some recording with a guy who had a '94 Les Pauls Studio with the typical nitro finish. I've played a lot of LPs over the years and this guitar didn't really stand out. A couple of years later I was at a basement jam where the same guitar fell forward onto a concrete floor. It sounded like a breaking baseball bat and everyone was shocked and stopped playing. It was the typical Gibson shock induced headstock break.

 

I went to the guy's house one day and he told me that he had repaired the guitar and in the process decided to completely remove the nitro finish. I picked up the guitar and it was like magic. It spoke to me in a way that only a few guitars have.

 

A few months later he called me and asked if I wanted to buy the guitar. I said yes and he brought it to one of my gigs so I could play it. When the gig was over he said to me "I like the sound of that guitar so much when you play it that I am just going to give it to you."

 

As it turned out, it is the best guitar I have ever had and it was a gift. It works so well for me that it is as if I just imagine the sound I want and it comes out of the guitar - like mojo.

 

What is it that changed?

Was it the removal of the finish?

Was it the breaking of the headstock or the reaction everyone had at the moment of the break?

Was it the loving effort that went into the repair?

Was it because the guitar was a gift based solely on a musical performance?

 

… or is it all in my head?

 

 

[WRGKMC]

 

As it turned out, it is the best guitar I have ever had and it was a gift. It works so well for me that it is as if I just imagine the sound I want and it comes out of the guitar - like mojo.

 

What is it that changed?

Was it the removal of the finish?

Was it the breaking of the headstock or the reaction everyone had at the moment of the break?

Was it the loving effort that went into the repair?

Was it because the guitar was a gift based solely on a musical performance?

 

… or is it all in my head?

 

 

Don't know without having seen it. Maybe the nut was replaced during the repair?

 

I'd be more inclined to say it was just the way it was set up after the break was repaired. You'd think a guy who is good enough to do a neck repair could also do a good setup. So many great guitars come from the factory run off an assembly line and very little time is spent tweaking them in to sound their best.

 

Back when I used to do guitar repairs for several guitar shops in town, a good 80% of them consisted of getting the instruments back into specs after an inexperienced guitarist started whacking them so far out they sounded like crap. I'd set them, up and they thought I'd given them a brand new guitar when all I did was straighten out all their screw-ups.

 

I also told them what I did and why I did it, what they should and shouldn't do with it next time. Many of those instruments kept their mojo for many years as did their appreciation of the person who gave them the mojo.

 

I'd have to say the real mojo element is a custom setup specifically tailored for the instrument.

If it isn't set up right I don't care if you have $500 pickups, the best wood ever grown or the finest had rubbed finish cause none of that is going to matter. A bad setup will make it feel awful to play and sound like sour grapes.

 

There are certain tweaks that may make the instrument easier to play like lowering the action or flattening the neck but so often, it comes at a cost of loosing tone and feel.

 

When you get an instrument setup just right (an instrument free of flaws or in need of major maintenance) it can be like night and day for both tone and playability.

 

Of course getting used to an instrument that has been custom tweaked can actually cause a loss of mojo for some players. Someone with tin ears or a bad amp rig may not recognize good tone. To them an instrument well balanced between tone and playability may feel tougher to play and working a little harder is a loss of mojo for them. Their perception of a well balance setup is skewed and they may never get the best mojo from the instrument if they fail to identify what those extreme setting limit.

 

A good set up can take time and effort for some to adapt their playing skills, but long term it often makes you excel at playing and appreciate what the instrument can actually do. Your mojo for the instrument actually increase as you play it more instead of decreasing as you get board with it.

 

I always like and instrument that takes a little extra effort to get the most form it. Not struggle or have it wear you down. It may be the strings are a tad higher or pickups a tad lower so you have to dig in more to get tone but it gets you focused and juices flowing as it challenges you to play even better,

[stormin1155]

Mojo that can be explained isn't real mojo.

[Emory]

Maybe guitar had a "near death experience" that changed it forever.

[Etienne Rambert]

That is exactly what I was going to say. Je ne sais quoi,

a quality that cannot be described or named easily.

[Out of the Past]

Wood is alive and old guitars sound better because the wood has forgotten that it used to be a tree.

 

 

the axe forgets, the tree remembers

-some russian guy

 

mojo is that thing the french call "i dont know what"

but like pron you know it when you see it

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

I'm in for the Cuban sauce

[1001gear]

mo·jo1/ˈmōjō/

noun

 

a magic charm, talisman, or spell.

 

mo·jo2/ˈmōˌhō/

noun

 

a Cuban sauce or marinade containing garlic, olive oil, and sour oranges.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojoa

 

ju·ju1/ˈjo͞ojo͞o/

noun

 

a style of music popular among the Yoruba in Nigeria and characterized by the use of guitars and variable-pitch drums.

 

ju·ju2/ˈjo͞ojo͞o/

noun

 

a charm or fetish, especially of a type used by some West African peoples.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juju

 

 

[Phil O'Keefe]