And my 'bird can sing...but why?

[Michael Martin]

Just wanted to relate something that was really cool. Was playing my Hummingbird last night--a pretty hard-strummy piece that I'm working on--and I heard what sounded like a distant accompaniment playing this chimy ringing drone along with me. What it turned out to be was my own guitar, generating these beautiful overtones that I had never noticed before. They are pretty subtle, but unmistakable.

I don't think it's the guitar "opening up"--it's over 30 years old. I wasn't playing it differently than I usually do, although I did notice the effect was strongest on certain open chords at certain capo positions. It wasn't new strings, because these have been on it for 2 or 3 weeks and I play this guitar every day.

But two things are different: the strings (GHS vintage bronze) are a bit heavier guage than I normally use; also, the top E of this set broke as I was installing it, so I went down to the music store and bought a single replacement string. It was a D'Addario 12, "for acoustic or electric". Pretty generic string, I would think.

So, is it the strings? Or just dark magic?