Top Class guitars

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Top Class guitars

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Morante

Posts: 2179
Joined: Nov. 21 2010

Top Class guitars

Why does everybody want a great guitar of one of the great guitarros?

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Feb. 28 2021 22:46:55

RobF

Posts: 1611
Joined: Aug. 24 2017

RE: Top Class guitars (in reply to Morante)

Sometimes I’ve wondered if it isn’t due to a mild form of synesthesia, where a person conflates the pleasure they receive from either playing music, or more likely, listening to it, with the object used to produce it.

Perhaps they hope that such an instrument will help them sound better and, in some cases, they may be right. Or they might have the collector’s gene. In other cases, it might boil down to wanting to be the coolest kid in school, by possessing an object to be envied. Or maybe they’ve been seduced by the marketing of high end dealers. Mainly, I think it’s because it’s the same guitar as used by one of their idols.

Sure as shooting, eight times out of ten, it’s got nothing to do with the actual guitar.

I think Slash recorded a lot of the early Guns n’ Roses stuff using a Les Paul copy. To meet the demand from people wanting a guitar just like his, Gibson made a copy of the copy.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Feb. 28 2021 23:23:51

Ricardo

Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Top Class guitars (in reply to Morante)

Because they feel and sound much better than cheapo no name guitars. Of course there will be exceptions of over rated and underrated guitars. I just used my old 1973 sobrinos de esteso on the Paco tutorial and I love that sound of a guitar and knowing that it is older than me I feel a connection to the old world of flamenco that I missed out on.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Feb. 28 2021 23:40:12

Piwin

Posts: 3559
Joined: Feb. 9 2016

RE: Top Class guitars (in reply to Morante)

Can't say that I do.

I have a student Bernal that I bought for about 400 euros when I first started. Then some years later I bought a second-hand Hermanos Borja for about 2k and it has been perfect for what I need. Sounds flamenco, projects well and plays nicely. I always just assumed that pros have more things to take into account, like how a guitar performs in certain stage environments, or subtleties in sound and playability that I just don't pick up on at this point. But that kind of thing would be wasted on me. Maybe one day (doubtful, but you never know

), but for now there'd be no point.

To be honest, the few times I have played a big name guitar publicly, on loan from friends or whatever, I felt very self-conscious about it. Kind of like if I was going jogging for the second time in my life and I was already wearing the nicest most-expensive pair of running shoes on the market. Not judging people who do that, but it's just not for me. Since I get self-conscious like that it just gets in the way of me enjoying to play.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Feb. 28 2021 23:59:57

RobF

Posts: 1611
Joined: Aug. 24 2017

RE: Top Class guitars (in reply to Morante)

In some ways it’s a bit of a loaded question as you do say great guitars by great guitarerros. So, of course wanting a great guitar makes sense. It’s just that a great guitar is a great guitar. And great guitarerros become known when they consistently make good guitars. Maybe all the other stuff to do with the cachet of a desirable instrument really is a form of Synesthesia.

There’s a guitar shoot-out online where a couple of very accomplished guitarists were blindfolded and given a number of guitars to assess. One of the guitars was actually the personal instrument of one of the evaluators, unbeknownst to him. He has gone on record saying the instrument is the finest of its type he’s ever played and that it would take a very princely sum indeed to pry it from his hands. Probably this was a pretty cruel thing of them to do. At any rate, he did like his guitar very much when he evaluated it and ranked it as being the equal of another, which he also highly praised. So, it was a good guitar. The other tester’s face was interesting to watch. Upon hearing it being played, and when hearing his friend’s assessment, he looked surprised and said he recognized the sound of the guitar. Upon playing it himself, he identified it as his friend’s. I should add the guitar’s owner had not identified it as his own.

Interesting.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 1 2021 0:00:35

Morante

Posts: 2179
Joined: Nov. 21 2010

RE: Top Class guitars (in reply to RobF)

When I founded the Peña Flamena de Irlanda del Norte with my friend John Flanigan, I had no decent guitar to play. Gracias a Rafael Romero, I bought a Conde barata de Porzuela (I had no money). The guitarra was OK for a while, when it started to come apart.

I saved up some money and decided to make a tour of Andalucía, starting in Almería and ending in Cádiz and visiting all the good guitarrreros between.

I started in Almería, pensando de visitar Jaen, Granada, Córdada, Sevilla. But with Gerundino I had a fine evening, drinking mal vino and talking about flamenco and al pesar de decir que solo vende guitarras a profesionales, he ended up selling me a guitar.

This guitar I played for a while in the Peña de Irlanda. When I decided to live in Cádiz, I was surprised to find that it was one of the best guitarras in town.

Now that my gran amigo cantaor se ha muerto and I have had to operar a finger, I have stopped playing. I lend my guitar to a few tocaores who love it.

A guitar buena has a vida suya. But to tocar a un cantaor en un bar, no hace falta una guitarra buena. In a bar de la Viña, I acompañé a Rancapino por malagueñas y por seguriya with a guitar de playa. So if you are not a professional, you do not need a great guitar. And if you are a professial you need at least two: a Conde and and whatever you like

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 1 2021 2:31:20

Escribano

Posts: 6415
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy

RE: Top Class guitars (in reply to Morante)

My student Bernal is good enough for me

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 1 2021 9:27:41

Escribano

Posts: 6415
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy

RE: Top Class guitars (in reply to RobF)

quote:

I think Slash recorded a lot of the early Guns n’ Roses stuff using a Les Paul copy.

He even labelled it as a Gibson.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 1 2021 9:28:25

Echi

Posts: 1132
Joined: Jan. 11 2013

RE: Top Class guitars (in reply to Morante)

It's not a matter of need but of enjoyment.
As you said, many tocaores enjoy playing your guitar.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 1 2021 19:04:09

AndresK

Posts: 309
Joined: Jan. 4 2019
From: Patras, Greece

RE: Top Class guitars (in reply to Morante)

Just for the record. Jeronimo Maya had some condes and esteso, blancas and negras, for him, his father (blanca), and of course his late brother Leo de Aurora. Very nice guitars as I remember. He said that he felt Paco's stage guitar was very hard to play for his taste, but he admitted that Paco is (back when he lived) a "lion" on stage. And this coming from a guy that is very tall and has huge , strong hands, but said he could not play easily on Paco's guitar.

Jero made even cheap guitars sound flamenco in front of me. Not as great as his esteso maybe, but amazing still. My point as many have already said, you can find a great luthier made guitar in a better price than Felipe Conde 7500 euros guitar and get extraordinary sound out of it. But if you have the money and willing to spend on a conde or Reyes, why not? Just be happy and enjoy your guitar (just be sure it is a flamenco guitar).

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 7 2021 19:40:14

Richard Jernigan

Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA

RE: Top Class guitars (in reply to AndresK)

"Great guitar" is the operative phrase here. I was tremendously fortunate in being given the 1967 Ramirez 1a blanca when it was new. In recent years people quite knowledgeable about guitars have preferred it to the 1982 Arcangel Fernandez blanca.

As is well known, the instruments of Jose Ramirez III were not made entirely by individual luthiers. In the artisan workshop various parts were made by different people. The master craftsman who did the final assembly and whose initials or number were stamped on the heel did determine the final thickness of the soundboard, a very important parameter.

You could buy one like it for maybe $4,500 in Spain, no more than $6,500 in the USA. It might or might not be as good. I've played other great Ramirezes from the late 1960s, and others not quite as good.

Though I play the Arcangel more often and like it better, I think the Ramirez is a great guitar.

RNJ

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 7 2021 20:16:00

ernandez R

Posts: 737
Joined: Mar. 25 2019
From: Alaska USA

RE: Top Class guitars (in reply to AndresK)

Keep in mind the flamenco guitar as we know it was the “cheap” guitar: no machine tuners and cypress.

HR

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should have some meat on the bones,
can be raw or well done,
as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.

www.instagram.com/threeriversguitars

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 7 2021 20:37:00