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RE: Guitar choice advice
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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 RE: Guitar choice advice (in reply to Anders Eliasson)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Anders Eliasson
I disagree. A better guitar is a better teacher than a bad guitar. Instruments actually teach you a lot.
Cheap guitars may sound well, but normally they only have very few sounds. They sound one way and nothing else. voice is onedirectional and dynamics are very poor.
I agree with Anders. I had studied a different instrument, eventually with a professional teacher (Principal in the U.S. National Symphony) and eventually with a top quality professional instrument. It was a given in this well developed field that the quality of instrument would have a significant effect on your playing.
When I started the guitar I went to Paracho and bought a semi-decent instrument. It had good volume, played in tune, but was rather coarse and didn't have much tonal range. I learned some of Mario Escudero's concert flamenco pieces.
One day in the early 1960s I walked into one of the largest musical instrument stores in Mexico City. It is in the ground floor of the old Convento de las Vizcaínas, near the Salto del Agua. Hanging on the wall in the used stringed instrument section was a 1930s Santos Hernandez blanca. I asked to play it.
All these years later I still remember the feeling of elation when I started to play that guitar, the first really good guitar I had in my hands. I played Escudero's version of rondeña, which he had learned from his teacher Ramon Montoya. I played it better than I ever had before.
When I handed the guitar back to the handsome middle aged blonde sales woman, and apologized for not being able to afford it (it was several hundred dollars), I noticed she had tears in her eyes. She said, "Gracias, joven. Yo soy de Ronda."
In 1967 my wife gave me a Ramirez 1a blanca, another expensive guitar, costing $650. It's the instrument that taught me how to play. I still have it, and enjoy playing it almost as much as I do my favorite flamenca, a collector's item, now worth 6 or 7 times today's price of the Ramirez in the market. During the 15 years I have had my favorite, it has taught me a few more things.
RNJ
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Apr. 29 2016 19:39:50
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Mark2
Posts: 1871
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
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RE: Guitar choice advice (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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How about some context? The op is essentially a beginner at flamenco. I have no doubt that someone who has played flamenco for years, and picks up a superior guitar and gives Escudero's rondena a go would feel a profound sense of satisfaction. Or that a professional violinist who plays in top orchestras won't truly appreciate the difference between a good and great instrument. But a person who has yet to figure out how to groove por bulerias? Different story IMO. How does that individual even know what he'd prefer in a flamenco guitar other than his own inexperienced(in flamenco) feelings about sound and playability? How is he going to know how it will sound and play doing techniques he cannot yet execute? I found my Ramirez 1a in the want ads about six months after starting flamenco lessons. I showed up to my next lesson and proudly pulled out the guitar. My teacher looked it over, strummed a few chords and congratulated me on a very good buy. It was $700.00 He said he would have bought it himself for 700, but went on to say, "Don't think you have the best in this guitar. It's good, but not the top." I would have had no idea. Like the OP, I already had a pretty solid history of guitar playing in other styles when this happened. I still have the guitar almost thirty five years later. It's beat to hell, and I love it, but it didn't teach me how to play.
Of course I think everyone should acquire the best they can, but a focus on selecting a guitar when you are just beginning, concerned that you will quickly outgrow it-I find it misses the mark. No disrespect to the OP intended.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Richard Jernigan
quote:
ORIGINAL: Anders Eliasson
I disagree. A better guitar is a better teacher than a bad guitar. Instruments actually teach you a lot.
Cheap guitars may sound well, but normally they only have very few sounds. They sound one way and nothing else. voice is onedirectional and dynamics are very poor.
I agree with Anders. I had studied a different instrument, eventually with a professional teacher (Principal in the U.S. National Symphony) and eventually with a top quality professional instrument. It was a given in this well developed field that the quality of instrument would have a significant effect on your playing.
When I started the guitar I went to Paracho and bought a semi-decent instrument. It had good volume, played in tune, but was rather coarse and didn't have much tonal range. I learned some of Mario Escudero's concert flamenco pieces.
One day in the early 1960s I walked into one of the largest musical instrument stores in Mexico City. It is in the ground floor of the old Convento de las Vizcaínas, near the Salto del Agua. Hanging on the wall in the used stringed instrument section was a 1930s Santos Hernandez blanca. I asked to play it.
All these years later I still remember the feeling of elation when I started to play that guitar, the first really good guitar I had in my hands. I played Escudero's version of rondeña, which he had learned from his teacher Ramon Montoya. I played it better than I ever had before.
When I handed the guitar back to the handsome middle aged blonde sales woman, and apologized for not being able to afford it (it was several hundred dollars), I noticed she had tears in her eyes. She said, "Gracias, joven. Yo soy de Ronda."
In 1967 my wife gave me a Ramirez 1a blanca, another expensive guitar, costing $650. It's the instrument that taught me how to play. I still have it, and enjoy playing it almost as much as I do my favorite flamenca, a collector's item, now worth 6 or 7 times today's price of the Ramirez in the market. During the 15 years I have had my favorite, it has taught me a few more things.
RNJ
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Apr. 29 2016 20:28:52
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Guitar choice advice (in reply to Anders Eliasson)
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I have a Cedar Japanese Aria made in 1984, plywood back and sides covered with rosewood veneer. It sounds as good as most Conde's and sounds not unlike a good Conde'. It's is a real guitar. I lowered the saddle and that was it, flamenca negra. The high end Media Lunas have more punch and complexity, there is not contest, but compared to any Valencia factory guitar and any under $2000.00 guitar I have seen these solid top Japanese factory classicals from the late 70, through 80's hold their own. Why? Because the Japanese factories were not messing around and they made quality stuff that lasts, even though it is not hand made.
There are lots of Aria sleepers out there for first guitars, and you can usually get them cheap because they are undervalued at the moment. If they are n pristine condition there are collectors...usually beginners at collecting looking for Japanese treasures, they often over look the Aria...just a tip.
My landlady gave it to me because it was in her garage. It was free, looking over Craigslist and garage sales and local estate sales you might keep your eyes open for Yamahas and Aria classicals from the 70's and 80's with solid tops. There were 10,000's of thousands of them made and they are usually cheap. They make great first flamenco guitars.
The $400.00 Yamaha is still a good deal, IMO.
Solid top Japanese classicals from the 1980's the more beat up the
better, get one for under $100.00 if they are beat up. Maybe I should go around Japan and buy then resell them in the US for 500.00
HAHAH
Get used Aria for under $200.00 - sand the bottom of the saddle 2mm , buy a 4.00 tap plate from Stew Mac and save your money for lessons. Then buy a nice custom guitar from a Foro maker after you've been playing for two years. ;) $1000. for your first guitar is a waste of money IMO, good lessons are a better value on any POS guitar.
I think picking your first teacher is about 100 times more important than your first guitar. I have heard Gitano kids like 8 years old sitting on the curb with crappy nasty guitars and the kids ooze aire. it's not the guitar, it is the self.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Apr. 30 2016 0:40:14
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Guitar choice advice (in reply to Mark2)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Mark2
How about some context? The op is essentially a beginner at flamenco. I have no doubt that someone who has played flamenco for years, and picks up a superior guitar and gives Escudero's rondena a go would feel a profound sense of satisfaction. Or that a professional violinist who plays in top orchestras won't truly appreciate the difference between a good and great instrument. But a person who has yet to figure out how to groove por bulerias? Different story IMO. How does that individual even know what he'd prefer in a flamenco guitar other than his own inexperienced(in flamenco) feelings about sound and playability? How is he going to know how it will sound and play doing techniques he cannot yet execute? I found my Ramirez 1a in the want ads about six months after starting flamenco lessons. I showed up to my next lesson and proudly pulled out the guitar. My teacher looked it over, strummed a few chords and congratulated me on a very good buy. It was $700.00 He said he would have bought it himself for 700, but went on to say, "Don't think you have the best in this guitar. It's good, but not the top." I would have had no idea. Like the OP, I already had a pretty solid history of guitar playing in other styles when this happened. I still have the guitar almost thirty five years later. It's beat to hell, and I love it, but it didn't teach me how to play.
Of course I think everyone should acquire the best they can, but a focus on selecting a guitar when you are just beginning, concerned that you will quickly outgrow it-I find it misses the mark. No disrespect to the OP intended.
I went to Paracho when I was 19 to buy my first guitar. I believe I had been cued to Ramon Zalapa by one or more of Ed Freeman's students. Zalapa sold guitars, paint and office furniture. He said he had a factory employing 10 people to make guitars. I picked out the loudest one of the medium quality instruments in the store, checking to see that it played in tune. I paid 300 pesos ($24) for it. Being a 19-year old twit with no knowledge of guitars, I complimented it. Zalapa smiled, pushed back his straw hat and smiled broadly, showing a gold tooth in his Indian face. "Pues, to'os no salen igual," he said.
With the Zalapa, for the first time I had a guitar to play. When I played the Santos in Mexico City I had been playing on my own, without a teacher for perhaps three years. The Santos was a revelation. I hung out with a couple of Freeman's students who gave me a few tips...very few. With my earlier musical training I was able to figure out how to get through published editions of Escudero's stuff, and I had the LPs. But I had very little idea of good right hand technique or how to get a true flamenco sound. Left hand technique also left a lot to be desired, but youth and strength managed to avoid injury.
When my wife gave me the Ramirez as a wedding present I began to experiment to find out how to produce a flamenco sound, which the Paracho guitar basically could not do. I had four or five guitars shipped to Austin to try at various times. When I played a few notes on the Ramirez, my wife, who went to university on a classical piano scholarship, smiled in approval. That was the only advice I had. Still I had no teacher. The only one within any feasible distance was Freeman in Dallas, and we both recognized that we were not a good personality match as student and teacher. But with the Ramirez capable of a true flamenco sound, I learned to produce it.
It taught me how to play.
RNJ
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Date Apr. 30 2016 2:56:43
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Morante
Posts: 2179
Joined: Nov. 21 2010
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RE: Guitar choice advice (in reply to RobJe)
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" It still bugs me that in Madrid in 1962 if I had been able to raise £60 instead of the £30 that I spent I could have commissioned a new Arcangel Fernandez."
My first Spanish guitar I bought as a poor student when I was on holiday in Torre del Mar for 900 pesetas. It was ¾ size, plywood and pinsabeta (a tree from the sierra de Andalucía, much used in the time of Franco for cheap guitars.
I learned to play “flamenco” on it, but when we formed a Peña and began to receive offers to play, I decided to buy a decent guitar. I phoned Ray Mitchell in London, he phoned Rafael Romero in Madrid and the consensus was that the best cheap guitar was the Estudio model de Conde.
Still relatively poor, I organized summer holiday in Madrid and presented myself in Calle Gravina, where I was attended by Faustino. He offered me half a dozen guitars which I rejected for poor workmanship, eventually accepting the only decent one, which cost 15,000 pesetas, all that I could afford. At this point, Faustino brought out a media luna, signed by himself, which was another world.
But it cost 35,000 pesetas and I did not have the money. Así es la vida.
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Date May 2 2016 17:18:43
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