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Back in the day...


Idunno

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When there were discussions about the sound quality of the sound box itself the debates ensued over pages. Certain brands were bashed then trashed and others were brought to the fore and analeyed ad nauseum. Samples were offered, strings were touted, and everything from headstock angle to strap button material were preyed upon as items that contributed to sonic enhancements or detractions. It was a time of hot debates, profiling and lines drawn in the sand.

 

But, there was never any discussion about playing skills being the living culprit between what could be made to sound good, mediocre or poor. Take this thought across all like forums web-wide and you will still see it starkly missing from any discussion. It is as subjective as any discussion about material and construction.

 

So, the question -

 

Can acoustic guitar discussion boards meet the topic head on and honestly if the aspect of playing skill is avoided?

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"analeyed" .......now that's funny! There sure was a lot of that going on. I know you meant "analyzed" (at least I think so) but I kind of agree with the other.

 

Certainly, to be on-topic, I could take a high dollar Martin guitar (et.al.), and make it sound like I was playing a $35.00 Silvertone, such are my skills as a musician. I'm that GOOD, heck yeah, LOL!

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. . . . So, the question -

 

Can acoustic guitar discussion boards meet the topic head on and honestly if the aspect of playing skill is avoided?

 

No. And "back in the day" playing skill and playing techniques were pretty much the only things that were discussed - all the other stuff: wood, saddle, nut, etc, etc, nonsense was hardly ever mentioned.

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I was always a bit too sensitive about my lack of acoustic guitar skills to even elude to the negative consequences of such on the sound of my instrument. It was always, the other way around... "old strings" or "bad frets" etc. In them days there wasn't too much actual posting of music that I can recall. Mostly links to other pages in a poster's sig. Anyway, as long as you didn't post anything, you could pretend you were Tommy Emmanuel, LOL. When the VOM1T came along, it got interesting. I miss them days.

 

(This is a bit off-topic and I apologize for that) but there is another obvious from "back in the day" in comparison to the present. It used to be necessary to BUMP a post if you wanted it to stay on the front page, for whatever reason. In all honesty, when is the last time some of you actually saw the need to BUMP a thread?

 

This place used to be a lot of fun, but it is SO slow these days. The joking around and the banter was a blast, even the OT stuff about the worst kind of cheap beer. I kind of miss that. Too many trolls started showing up who were looking to stir flame wars and that really took a toll. You couldn't post anything without being afraid that some A$$#0!e would leap on their opinion of your stupidity and try to make you feel like a moron. Drove a lot of good people away.

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This place used to be a lot of fun, but it is SO slow these days. The joking around and the banter was a blast, even the OT stuff about the worst kind of cheap beer. I kind of miss that. Too many trolls started showing up who were looking to stir flame wars and that really took a toll. You couldn't post anything without being afraid that some A$$#0!e would leap on their opinion of your stupidity and try to make you feel like a moron. Drove a lot of good people away.

 

 

The trolls were nothing compared to poor decision making on the part of the site's management. They're still killing traffic, imo. The fact that I can't edit behind myself in this s/w is keeping me from engaging with the site more. There are too many other sites that actually work for me to want to bother. I'm also fiercely opposed to having my choice of choice words edited out by default. I continue to, and plan on continuing to talk about the magic of making music, but for me, it's just not happening under this regime.

 

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How often do I swear anyway? I just don't think censorship is a gracious way to treat guests. Which is really my main gripe: they're bad hosts. IMO, these guys, either through negligence or ineptitude, completely (and permanently, I think) trashed several of my favorite web communities. So {censored} 'em.

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QUOTE=FretFiend.;n31144159]Could it be that unlike wood, bracing, strings, bridge pin material, etc., etc., "playing skill" is just too subjective to be "analeyed"?

Can you say that a guitar sounds bad because of poor "playing skill"?

 

FWIW, I have this old Martin D-28. If it wasn't for that old guitar, I would probably have given up trying to play some years ago. I've often said that that thing sounds good even with me playing it. By necessity, "playing skill" plays a minor part in my experience with guitars. If you're really good, maybe it means more.

 

Good skills bring more to the player who has them yet their opinion of a guitar can benefit no one else. If you can play to my preception of an enviable skill level, how can your opinion of a particular make/model benefit me if I can't make it do what you can? And so it goes. The loser in this scenario is the guitar itself in the mere sense that someone gives an opinion of it when they might not have the savviness to make such a judgement call. Do I need a ratings company telling me something they may not really be capable of disclosing? Conversely, with qualifications (infinitum) to make such call outs to the public domain I'm still of the opinion that I'll come to my own opinion about such things. Others may not be so industrious and look for others to make that distinction for them. A member thread here illustrates that perfectly yet the result was completely independent of the input, as it should be and typically ends up being.

 

All that gibberish aside, we still engage in the practice of passing judgement over brands/models, with the savviness of the average string bending joe, and call it a good deed done. Does not compute.

 

FF, if you played to play music then the D28 would be a non-issue to that end. If you wanted to play to make music solely on that guitar then we have a hybrid reason for making music. I'm sure that many players are like you (romantics) and engage the guitars first, music second. This forum and others have exhibited that kind of interest for many years now so, yea, it's a given that the guitar leads the music rather than the other way around. To me that's a tail wagging the dog approach but I'm not a romantic about the tools.

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The trolls were nothing compared to poor decision making on the part of the site's management. They're still killing traffic, imo. The fact that I can't edit behind myself in this s/w is keeping me from engaging with the site more. There are too many other sites that actually work for me to want to bother. I'm also fiercely opposed to having my choice of choice words edited out by default. I continue to, and plan on continuing to talk about the magic of making music, but for me, it's just not happening under this regime.

 

You are absolutely right. The truth is that stuff was always too technical for my brain and a bit out of reach. I could complain about it but for what.... the reason I left had nothing to do with management. It was jerk-offs who needed to prove their worth, by attempting to make fun of other posters. A sad place to be, in my opinion. That, is the sole reason I quit posting.

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You can edit abaft of your poop deck, sir. Simply scroll to raise the screen a notch and smack that mouse button where you want it. I was all powder and flint over it myself until I stumbled upon the method.

 

I also left under my own steam at a certain point because of similar conduct going unhinged and intolerable. Gonna say I was part of the problem because it takes one to know one, as they say, so I left to eat berries on the lee shore while the loyalists took to their wooden ships.

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