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Guitar talk: acoustic, bass, classical, twelve string? You name it! Pt III

Seeker_UK

Feelin' nearly faded as my jeans
Hound Dog Taylor is a) great (obviously), and b) has the best guitar ever. I’ve got this album on vinyl which shows it rather better. I think its a 1960s Teisco, Kawai or something like that.

The guitar on that album cover is a Kawai S-170
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But he also had a Kawai Kingston SD-40
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Try not looking at all at your instrument but instead close your eyes and listen to the music you are making.

I’m not too bad at this as I very regularly noodle about whilst watching the TV, especially on the classical acoustic. I certainly don’t need to look at the ‘cowboy end’ of the fretboard unless I’ve just learned a new chord or whatever though I often come unstuck making a four or more fret jump to a barre chord. I don’t really do ‘lead’ or single-note at all which no doubt makes it easier. Part of my issue there is I used to primarily play bass, so I used to be dialled in for that scale length. My basslines were always pretty simple/minimal but I needed to be able to play blind or close to it as we often played dingy clubs with flashing lights etc, and inevitably the lights would all go out just as the change that was easiest to screw up arrived. I pretty much got it down to muscle memory, though bizarrely can’t remember how to play much of it now! I approach everything differently now as I’m not trying to learn anything, not trying to play anything ‘known’, just noodling around randomly to get lost in it. I do like randomly grabbing shapes just to see where they lead. I actually like making ‘mistakes’, finding the discordant as it can be interesting.

The guitar on that album cover is a Kawai S-170

Close, but not quite! Check out the top of the guitar body on my Discogs link. It has a series of organ-style rocker-switches, as every guitar should. It’s definitely a Teisco/Kawai (same company) of some kind though.
 
Close, but not quite! Check out the top of the guitar body on my Discogs link. It has a series of organ-style rocker-switches, as every guitar should. It’s definitely a Teisco/Kawai (same company) of some kind though.

My bad. It's the S180 - the 4 pick-up version.

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What's the appendage sticking out of the tailpiece between the G and B strings on that guitar ?

Thought it might be a sawn-off tremolo arm, but it's an odd place to have one mounted.
 
What's the appendage sticking out of the tailpiece between the G and B strings on that guitar ?

Thought it might be a sawn-off tremolo arm, but it's an odd place to have one mounted.

It is a trem:
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Odd place? Why yes sir, it's a cheap Jap guitar from the 60s, so why not?

Looks like you move the arm parallel to the face of the guitar body which is unusual.
 
I looked at the trem on my Jazzmaster with a certain amount of suspicion when I first got it cos it looks funny (i.e. not like a strat!). But it works really well and allows one to do a lovely fine warble in the surf style.
 
A friend of mine was once asked by her precocious daughter "What is the opposite of a Minotaur?". If one is every asked "What is the opposite of a Telecaster?" by a small child this would be a good answer.
 
More playing and some chat from the awesome Kirk Fletcher this time on Chicago Blues and famous exponents thereof.

 
These. Want.

I’m suffering a considerable degree of option paralysis though despite there only being two choices. I just wish the dem videos had some slightly more expensive chords. I know a Fuzzface circuit is pretty safe and doesn’t totally fart-out if you throw a 6 string jazz/emo chord at it, but what about the Black Hat Sound?
 


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