estebanana -> RE: surface (Jan. 22 2017 19:26:55)
|
quote:
French Polish everytime.. the best finish for guitars. I hate orange guitars.. ___ Yeah another one for my team! I'll tell all why I dislike orange guitars. I began in a violin shop and the varnishes on violins are colored, and often very beautiful. Some are orange-ish and quite awful, some have oranges in them and are sublime. I have nothing against orange, until it gets put on a guitar. I've always felt that the reason orange became fashionable is because it was done in mimicry of the old Italian and German etc. varnish work on violins. And the purpose was to lend the guitar an air of legitimacy by making a reference to the golden ages of violin making. In fact the finishes that go on guitars are nothing like those finishes on violins. They are different in texture, maleability, self healing, hardness, color, depth, dichroism and many other qualities. To simply mimic them with a surface treatment, and in modern times a synthetic surface film like dried plastic never satisfied me. There is a vast difference between older pine resin varnishes and modern plastic finishes, and I just can't get with it after my primary experience with varnishes and finishes being my grandfather spraying nuanced layers of colored lacquer on the furniture he made, and the Italian and French, German violins I handled when began sweeping the floor of the violin shop when I was about sixteen. My orientation to finishes is rooted in this early forming of my sense for texture, color, and suitability for a finish to be matched to the function of an object. Now I could be wrong about the intention of the development of orange finishes on guitars as a reference to old violins, but to me that is how I call it and I'm not going to change that sensibility. I am aware that my aesthetic is informed by an unusual circumstance, but see that is who we are as makers of objects and guitars and art and writers of songs, or anything that we make is informed by our experiences, no matter how subjective. And I put that out there to deflect in advance the argument that my experience is 'elitist' and that I reject the popular notion of how a guitar is supposed to look as surface because I am a snob. Yes, I am a snob, but that's not the point. One persons snobbery is another persons personal aesthetic sensibility, and you can't really fake that. When I hear a guitarist speak about how in depth they want to create an analysis of, for example, the Paco John MacLaughlin DiMiola concert, I think OK that is not something I can readily understand because my mind does not fundamentally work like that and I am not trained to really look at that in depth. But a guitar player may find this knowledge essential and of a primary nature in their development. They may hear people tell them "that stuff is so tedious etc. " but that guitar player has a need to break that down, and it is encoded in that persons personal sense of aesthetic. The same is true of how I conceptualize the whole guitar and the craft /art understanding of guitar making. There are some makers who work on a model that is like a contractor, they take orders and carry out every edict the buyer wants. And that is fine, if that suits your personality. There are other makers who have aesthetic baselines they want to mostly maintain within reason of what the market will allow. And that is legit as well. Some makers want to shape their practice of building with some sense of cohesion between the instruments they make. The cohesive elements can vary from maker to maker. Certain makers are satisfied with keeping the same headstock design and everything else can toggle around that one aspect of individuality. Other makers want to have a larger baseline of personal inclusions in the work. In my work I value the shellac finish over all, it's just my personal mark. Like many others who look at it this way, it's not unusual....- que Tom Jones song here- and it's not so much I hate orange finishes as I just reject it as a personal choice because of my background. The problem comes in at the point where the orange finish is a popular design or aesthetic point that for some lookers and players becomes non negotiable. The orange for some people becomes a baseline criteria for judging what a flamenco guitar is. Historically speaking, if one takes a long view of flamenco and Spanish school building, this is not true. Orange is a recent fashion trend and while it is accepted by many as a baseline, many builders feel it is a criteria that does not apply to their work. I fall into that category of makers. Nothing more, nothing less. The hazing and teasing, the accusations and hating, all that to me is just flamenco talk. It's strong opinion for the sake of bluster and comical fist pounding on the bar. What would we be as flamenco people if we did not perpetuate our strongly held irrational opinions with which we bludgeon each other? We would be classical pansies that's what we would be. And we are not futzy classical pansies. My personal story on why I don't choose orange is valid for me, and perhaps after hearing it for others as well. It's flamenco baby, and as long as we keep our irrational opinions in compas, we are free to build and play as we like.
|
|
|
|