Members Yhz Posted September 25, 2006 Members Posted September 25, 2006 Hi Everybody , I was Wondering to myself if lets say thoerticly you play 24 hours a day will the guitar sounds in 5 years better then a 30 year old guitar which you play once or twice a week ? Does the guitar sound better in time AFTER it "opens up" ? Thx, Cheers .
Members thirdstone Posted September 25, 2006 Members Posted September 25, 2006 The guitar may 'open up' sooner but you may not notice.
Members Dave Keir Posted September 25, 2006 Members Posted September 25, 2006 Maybe. Dunno. Play it hard or soft? Does it live in a place where the temperature / humidity varies muchly? In 30 years, it won't matter much to me anyhoo...
Members WaveRay Posted September 25, 2006 Members Posted September 25, 2006 Originally posted by Yhz Hi Everybody , I was Wondering to myself if lets say thoerticly you play 24 hours a day will the guitar sounds in 5 years better then a 30 year old guitar which you play once or twice a week ? Does the guitar sound better in time AFTER it "opens up" ? Thx, Cheers . Good questions. Does a guitar "open up" continously over it's life or just "open up" to a point and stay there? I never thought about that portion of it. I've read discussions here about how long till it opens up and what may accelerate it. But, does it ever stop?
Members Yhz Posted September 25, 2006 Author Members Posted September 25, 2006 Maybe. Dunno. Play it hard or soft? Does it live in a place where the temperature / humidity varies muchly? In 30 years, it won't matter much to me anyhoo... Dave, I personally have mainly Medium Strings (0.13-0.56)And I play Hard with fingerpicks or flatpick mainly, I live in a place with a LOT of Humidity 75% most of the year. Btw - I have a Martin D-1 and i make it work hard . Does a guitar "open up" continously over it's life or just "open up" to a point and stay there? I never thought about that portion of it. I've read discussions here about how long till it opens up and what may accelerate it. But, does it ever stop? WaveRay, the thing that makes me the most curious is to know Which one of the 2 Things (Time or Playing) will eventually will take a more important role in making a good sounding guitar sound even better... When the guitar is new its still like "parted" you have the top, the back & Sides all in one but when it gets older it MERGES toghter being more like one peace of wood...
Members JasmineTea Posted September 25, 2006 Members Posted September 25, 2006 I think with regular play it'll open up inside a year/ two years. But I don't think you can substitute anything for 30 years, played or unplayed. IMO, opening up is caused by the parts of the guitar relaxing in the form they've been glued to. I think when a guitar is new there's still some stress left in the wood. I think something changes in the residual sap too, I imagine it dries, maybe crystalizes.
Members t60 fan Posted September 25, 2006 Members Posted September 25, 2006 It'll sound better because you'll be a killer player with 24/7 x five year's practice.
Members Hudman Posted September 25, 2006 Members Posted September 25, 2006 Vibration makes a guitar open up. A guitar doesn't open up from sitting unplayed for years. Guitars are not like wine.
Members Yhz Posted September 25, 2006 Author Members Posted September 25, 2006 I Agree Hudman . and thats also true t60 . anyway i think since i bought my guitar it got much better BECOUSE i played it not becouse its 3 years old...(Martin D-1).
Members t60 fan Posted September 25, 2006 Members Posted September 25, 2006 Originally posted by t60 fan It'll sound better because you'll be a killer player with 24/7 x five year's practice. ...however, you'll be really tired... Hmmm...
Members nylon rock Posted September 25, 2006 Members Posted September 25, 2006 I think the 30 year old guitar played 2x a week will sound better than the 5 year old guitar played 12x a week. Why? Take this to extremes... Consider a 2 year old guitar played 30x a week Or a 1 year old guitar played 60x a week. Or a 15 year old guitar played 4x a week Time will be the stronger determinant for similar number of times played. But for your question, you said 24/7 hours a week. I think something will be broken after 43,680 hours of play in five years...probably your hand.
Members Freeman Keller Posted September 25, 2006 Members Posted September 25, 2006 Has been discussed a lot including an analysis of what goes on in the cell structure of the wood as it ages, whether you can force a guitar to "open up" by putting it in front of a loud speaker and playing certain music (or white noise), and in fact, does a guitar really "open up" at all. There was a link to some dude that has a big vibrating table that shakes the hell out of his guitars (at some carefully calculated resonate frequency or something) that is supposed to make them improve. My ancedote on all of this is that I recorded my 000 at zero age, one month, and as soon as I restring it one of these day, at 6 months. I'll do it again in a year. Only way I know to quantify this is to compare the recordings. I think I am hearing it change, but it could just be me.
Members Yhz Posted September 25, 2006 Author Members Posted September 25, 2006 Thanks for all the nice replays.... i guess we can never know....and to tell you the truth every guitar is a different case...i think....anyway intersting subject.
Members Freeman Keller Posted September 25, 2006 Members Posted September 25, 2006 Yhz, as a relative newcome to HC (and welcome, by the way) we have a wonderful little feature that helps avoid the same topics over and over. I typed "opening up" into the Search function, limited it to titles only in the Acoustic forum and got 5 thread hits, including this one http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1370733&highlight=opening+up
Members Yhz Posted September 26, 2006 Author Members Posted September 26, 2006 Thanks a lot Freeman Keller .
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