Well, yes and no, Ed.  Given a specific guitar, and with failing ears, I’d
usually just be guessing.  But when I have listened to several of them at a
time, the different characteristics do come out.

 

For example, when my old boss Russell Cleveland still owned the famous
“Cleveland Collection,” he’d occasionally put a dozen guitars by famous makers
into his SUV and go out to his cabin.  There, three or four known concert
players would sample them.  I would never play in their presence, but listening
to the same guitar in different hands made the point that the player makes a big
difference, but that the guitar also makes a big difference.  They could all
tell the difference between spruce and cedar, and discussed it at length.
Different bracing also mattered, as did the specifications of the sound hole.


To my ear, spruce and cedar tops on high quality instruments by the same maker
are different, with the spruce being brighter and more direct and the cedar
being more mellow.  There is no question that different guitars have very
different tones and timbres.  It just jumps out at your in a setting like that.
Or, at my house where I have two, one a Ramierz, and the other a 50 year old
Ariana – an early Japanese nylon string guitar.  The Ariana has a very sweet and
mellow voice, but is weak in the trebles.  The Ramirez is bright throughout,
although cedar-mellow, and with strong trebles and a longer sustain.  Is I have
owned both for decades, I could tell you blindfolded, within a few bars, which
was being played.

 

Strings certainly matter.  You get a big change in any guitar when worn strings
are replaced, and I’ve sorted through at least a dozen makers and specifications
looking for… better.  What I get is usually…different, not necessarily better.

 

Joe

 

Joseph Sullivan

President

JSA

(972) 463-1125

 

 

 

From: Steve Jones [mailto:stjones@k...] 
Sent: Monday, October 16, 2017 7:33 AM
To: Ed Minch 
Cc: joe@j...; OldTools List 
Subject: Re: [OldTools] Guitars, music boxes, Osage Orange

 

Heretic! Torches! Pitchforks!

 

--

Steve in Kokomo

"If I ain't bleedin', I ain't workin'."

 

On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 7:17 AM, Ed Minch mailto:ruby1638@a...">mailto:ruby1638@a...> > wrote:

My ears ain’t too good, but I sure can't pick out different woods, and no one
else has proved they can either.

-