If you have a price range, go down to your local music shop that has a large acoustic section and play everything that looks like it has a nice price tag. The Seagulls look like a pretty beginner line, and if they're a GC proprietary brand... I don't know, if you don't find one that plays like sex immediately, try something else out. You seem to have played enough to have developed your own feel/taste for guitars, so getting suggestions for some to buy, especially acoustics, is a bit harder than it would be for a beginner. There's also nothing really wrong with a guitar that isn't full solid wood if it plays well. If you're making enough of an investment, you're going to have to put in a bit of time so that you aren't regretting it in the future. DS suggested some starting points, so take a look at those, but play everything you can get your hands on at your price point.
Thanks Ssycko. I have briefly played a Seagull before in a store and almost bought one a couple years ago. They aren't truly exclusive to GC as many small shops also carry them. A few in my area do and a couple actually have lefty models in store. It might be they are the only large chain to carry them. I've had a lot of people tell me for years to get one as it's hand made with good materials and has a great tone for being only $400 or so dollars. Nothing compared to high end acoustics, but I've been told that it stacks up very well against the $800-$1000 Martins and Taylors. My problem is that I'm left handed. I have learned over the years to be able to play a few chords and strum a bit on instruments that are flipped upside down and essentially backwards for me. I will of course buy a true lefty version and won't just restring a righty, but there will never be a store stocked with enough leftys for me to try out. I'm sure GC will have one or two acoustics in their room, but they'll probably be a Fender and an Ibanez, etc. It's hard for me to randomly stumble across not only a lefty, but of a model I really want. One of the main reasons I posted was to get an idea of the best way to sell my current stuff. That was answered amazingly. The acoustic question was to get a couple personal opinions which are nice to add to my current knowledge and will help sway me if two instruments feel good. I really like the Seagull. I just figured that since I can go a little higher with my budget, a few Taylors and Martins opened up. I'm going to just go to a few stores after I've sold my stuff and pretty much play the Seagull and any Taylors and Martins with a tag below $1000 that I know they make a lefty model of. Thanks for the responses and information. Thank you very much
First off, double_stop, those were fantastic responses. In addition to being helpful for mad, I'm betting several folks appreciate this for current and future reference. So, in that same line of reasoning, can you comment on the Breedlove Atlas series, as an alternate to those two in that price range? I am nowhere near the musician that most of the people that comment here are, but I was looking for an acoustic in this range as well a few years ago. I thought I was leaning towards the Martin, but after playing them, settled on the Breedlove Atlas D25 SM. (I think they make a lefty in the Retro line.) I bought mine in 2008, and they have since changed the tuners to silver instead of gold, and are using the LR Baggs electronics instead of Fishman. But, I liked the warmer tone of the Breedlove over the brighter Martin, and the neck contouring seemed better suited for my hand.
I agree. double_stop provided some amazing info not just in regards to selling used gear but acoustic recommendations. He went further in PM. I'm not familiar with Breedlove, but just spent a few minutes at their website. Beautiful looking instrument. Near me it seems GC, Sam Ash and a small local shop carry them. There are only two models in my range that would work for lefties. The Retro D/SMe you mentioned and a slightly cheaper Passport Plus C250/SB3. I'm going to add them to my list of guitars to check out. I'm not sure if I am interested in an acoustic/electric as the odds of me plugging in are very remote at this point, but if the price is right and the instruments feel and sound good I'm open to pretty much anything. As a little side note here, since I have all my old gear out to be polished and sold, I brought my little 19 month girl over by my amp and plugged my bass in. I played a couple low funky walking bass lines and she just started dancing along. Just a silly little moment, but it made me realize that getting an acoustic and really learning guitar while she grows up is necessary. I played classical trumpet for 12 years long ago before bass guitar and my little brother grew up playing piano and singing along with a handful of other instruments. Music, playing and listening, sure as hell will be an integral part of my little girls life. If she wants to, which hopefully we'll foster the desire.
I don't plug in to play live, but occasionally do for "fiddling" like goofing around with effects, or recording for songwriting. Keep in mind, I'm no good at either, but enjoy it for fun. That said, I appreciate the electronics for the built-in tuner more than anything.
Fuck you Breedlove! Seriously. FUCK! YOU! You first off made only two models for left handed people. The one was priced perfectly. $600. Sam Ash was even selling it for $460. I was told it was because it was discontinued. Well, they just updated their line in the last day or so and there is now only one left handed model in their entire line of guitars. It lists for $1265 with a street price of around $949. Rant/ I just called an talked to a guy there and there is no hope for anything cheaper coming down the pipe. I got to play on and hear the righty version of the model that was available in lefty and LOVE LOVE LOVED it. It was very high at the top of my list. I might be willing to save up longer and maybe get their new model, but it's at the very high end of my budget and I wanted to stay lower to get my wife a guitar also. Fuck em. I know not many lefties are sold but they can't even make one higher end and one lower end model to stay in their line. I really really liked them too and was so expecting their latest line to have a similar priced lefty model. Taylor, Martin and everybody else makes many many more lefty models. If I'm going to spend $950, I'm going to get an American made Taylor. Very good chance I just go with the Seagull S6 now. Basic entry level quality acoustic that makes it lefty and righty and has for a while. Man, I'm really bummed about this. I'm still a few weeks or so from having the budget and the only Breedlove in that lefty model available anywhere on the interwebs is through Amazon at $600 and they only have 1 available. No chance it's around when I'm ready to purchase. Word to any lefty people thinking of picking up guitar. Don't! It's just as frustrating now as it was 15 years ago when I first got into it and I'm sure it'll be frustrating 15 years from now. There is not enough of us to be worthy of having options. /Rant
This is an unfortunate truth. When I started to play, I initially was going to learn lefty. I was convinced (well, rather my parents were) by a guy at a music shop because of exactly the problem mad is having right now: There just isn't any selection. If you're looking to start learning guitar, and you're left handed, start with righty's anyway. It doesn't make a huge difference which hand is your dominant at the start (it might even speed up fretting strength progress), but once you start learning it's hard to go back. Also, there should be more of this in this thread: I just can't contribute as much as some other guys to those discussions, I don't have enough schoolin'. Boo.
Hey guys, this is double_stop. I had to switch over to a new name, just wanted to let you know I'm still here and will be posting.
Hey guys. This is double_stop. Had to switch my screen name due to some privacy concerns. Just wanted to let you know that I'm still here and will still be posting and offering up info.
This is for ssycko: If you don't understand it, at least you feel the proper emotions. Also, my store just took in an Ovation double-neck (12-string and 6-string acoustic/electric). Who wants to buy it and serenade us with some "Wanted Dead or Alive"?
That was cute. I wish they would have used the lowercase numerals for minor chords though, I guess the little guy was in place of that. One thing though- when they had the V de V chords- what the hell were those? I know it's in French but I wasn't sure what exactly they were trying to say there.
Yeah, the lower-case minor would've been better. Also, I'm not exactly sure how accurate it is. There's some spots where I thought I heard....something, but I'm not sure it was what was written. "V de V" is "V of V." It sucks that my "Uptown Girl" analyzation is gone now, but it's basically the last half of the "two-five" thing. A "two major" chord, when it's leading to the five, can be considered the "five of five," because that's what it's leading the song toward. Just like there's a spot where it says "V de IV" which is a "one major" chord (usually a I7) that leads to the four. Sorry to switch in and out of roman numerals, but it makes more sense when spoken than it does written on a message board. I love the Neopolitan chord section though.
You know what, I thought of a good way of explaining two-fives, as well as some examples of deceptive resolution. Sorry if I'm preaching to the choir, but I love this shit, so I'm gonna do it anyway. I give you Mr. Blue Sky. The "two-fives" are in the verse, which goes like so (for clarity, each measure is seperated by a comma, underlined chords occur in a single measure, hyphens denote minor chords, and I'm going to explain it as if it's written in double time) I, I, I, VII- III, VI-, II, VII-, III, IV, V, I, V Now, the "two-fives" start at the first VII- chord. The VII- leads into the III, which can be seen as the dominant major chord that draws you toward the VI- chord. In other words, the VII-, III, to VI- is a "two-five of six, to six minor." Then, after the VI- chord, you have a II, a major chord. That VI- to II is actually a motion that leads toward the V chord (a two-five of five*). But it doesn't lead to the V - that's deceptive resolution. *Why is it called "two-five of five" and not just a "six minor followed by a two-five?" Because if it were a standard two-five in the diatonic scale of the song, the II chord would be a minor chord. Now, after the "two-five of five" with deceptive resolution, we have another VII- to III. This is another "two-five of six." But it doesn't lead to the VI- chord. This is another deceptive resolution, and when paired with the "two-five of five" ahead of it, creates what can be called contiguous two-fives. What all this does is created an anxious, yet ultimately uplifting feeling (in my opinion). The resolution in the fifth measure with the VI- creates a kind of sadness, but you actually feel the way the chords "climb" out of this sadness and finally resolve to the I chord, then the V chord just turns you around for a repeat. EDIT: If you want to play this on your instrument and hear it, these are the actual chords to the verse. F, F, F, Em A, Dm, G, Em, A, Bb, C, F, C
Okay, I gotcha on the V of V's- I was pretty sure that's what they were saying, but just wanted to double check. I guess the part that's a little different than what I'm used to in your analysis is just breaking down the V of V to the ii-V of V. Do you typically see more of the longer (ii-V) progression, or the shorter (just V-V)? Also- It'd be cool if you gave me a song to deconstruct like this. I listen to a lot of stuff, but not everything, so maybe something you know of that has kind of weird modulations (like the past two songs that this thread has discussed) that mayhaps I haven't heard before would be cool. One more thing: Why not just use lowercase roman numerals for minor?
I'll look around for a song and get into it when I have the time. And the whole lowercase/uppercase thing has been ingrained in my head since college: "modern" music (jazz, rock, etc.) gets all uppercase with the hyphens denoting minor, whereas "traditional harmony" (classical) uses lowercase. I feel like I have to follow those rules. If it makes it easier to explain in this thread, I can switch it up. In contemporary harmony, when we'd analyze it, two-fives would have a bracket beneath, and then if it led to the expected resolution, you'd draw an arcing arrow connecting them. Trad Harm was only the chords, no other symbols except the numbers to denote inversions (as far as I remember) EDIT: Also, remember that these "two-fives" and "five of fives" are all figured out after the fact. On some level, the songwriter knows he's doing that - but all this analysis is done by others after hearing it. But after a while you start to know where it's going or what they're gonna do. You hear a Dm move to a G, and you know the next chord is going to be C. It sounds pleasant. Or the G goes somewhere else, and you're pleasantly surprised. It's gotten to the point where I'll be listening to a country song with my girlfriend, and turn to her and say "I bet the next half of this chorus has a five of six instead of going to the five." And she'll look at me with a loving smile and say "I have no fucking idea what that is."
This. So much of this. I know this has been said a few times, and alluded to even more in this thread, but it's so important, it bears repeating, for any musicians looking for a take-home point from all this theory talk. Of course, I'll do it in the form of a personal anecdote, because, frankly, I like talking about myself. Now I'm a pretty typically "left-brained" individual (math major ftw), and I remember when I initially started learning music theory. I figured that the theory would give a pretty straight "this is what you do and what sounds good" rule. I thought this for quite a long time. Embarrassingly long, to be perfectly honest. I played "math music" for a long time, even while I was seriously studying music, I didn't catch on to what a lot of the *actual* musicians around me were doing; listening and feeling. Anyhow, after a while, I slowly cottoned on to the fact that the theory doesn't really teach you what sounds good. It basically tells you the stuff "this stuff definitely doesn't sound bad", and as said before, it really just helps in figuring out "what is he doing that I like?" so you can abstract it. It's a pretty horrible process for actually choosing what to play; your inner ear is much better suited to the task, and your job is really just to learn to listen to it. That digression aside, the last part of what NatCH said is a spectacularly useful point for any musician aspiring to be a professional to keep in mind. One *great* thing about music theory (not to have this turn into one of those "screw theory, man, just listen to your ear" things) is that it will let you play in a whole bunch of styles passably well, without actually knowing or listening to those styles. For instance, most country music *does* do the V of VI progression. Every. Single. Fucking. Time. You can also figure out how to play in the style of your favourite players, but you tend to have to look a little deeper than than the chord progressions (since, really, we all just play over a I-VI-IV-V half the time anyhow), so what you want to look at are the intervals your player tends to use melodically, his scale choice given a certain chord, what intervals he'll (or she, but I mean, come on, girls don't play guitar) tend to target over which parts of the progression, and what rhythmic patterns they like to use. For instance, if I wanted to sound more like Mayer (don't judge me), I'd play in sixths a *lot* more (the guy loves 6ths resolving to 5ths, which actually dates back as being the most hyped up melodic gesture to, like, the 1600's, but somehow forgotten by guitar players along the way, I'd imagine because the pentatonic scale doesn't have many 6ths), go dorian (target the natural 6th) over my IV chords in a blues, target the 9ths over my I- chords and play a lot of repeating 3 against 2 two patterns. Also play most of my chords in first inversion on the 5th string, but, really, he stole that from Hendrix (and every guitarist ever, really, I guess). Anyhow, that's just an example, but it's the kind of stuff I'd start looking at I were trying to emulate someone. Theory just kind of tells you what the relevant structures are, so you can look at them, it's up to you to figure out what to do with them, but it's a good starting point. Incidentally, if we're going to set up a notational convention for this thread, I've got to vote for upper case numerals, followed by the quality sign; it's more versatile for modern music which modulates a lot more, and has more ambiguous tonal centres, IMO. Incidentally, after a disastrous 2 year long relationship in which I played nearly no guitar, I'm getting back into the swing of regular practicing, and I think it might be fun if we posted cool/fun/useful exercise and practice tips (for any instrument, really), since it's always fun to learn new things. To that end, one of the things I've been focussing on recently is just getting sweet tone. It's always amazed me that most guitarists don't do this, and it shows. Nearly every other type of musician does this, but as guitarists (I'd imagine due to the electric nature of the instrument, since we can play with the tone so much, and compensate for bad tone with gear to a large degree), we don't. So, the (incredibly tedious) exercise I've been doing is the one that I stole from my trumpet player friends: Set the metronome for something slow (60-70 bpm tends to do it for me) and play your scales. In whole notes. Pay attention to every sound, no vibrato, find the sweet spot in the fret and the proper finger angle and pressure that gives you great tone, and focus on hitting it every time. Obviously, this is best done with all the distortion and gain stripped away. I've found it's helped me get my highs sounding much less tinny since I've started doing this. Also a fun one to improve your composition/improvising abilities, and to this day one of the best tips my college guitar teacher ever taught me: Keep a lick journal, and write a new lick every day. Vary what you want out of your licks; 2 bars, 4 bars, 8 bars, 16 bars. What chord progression is it over? Choose an interval or two, write the lick only in those intervals. Choose some notes to connect. Choose a theme/melodic gesture to do variations on. Choose a style. Choose a rhythmic pattern. Choose two points on the next to connect. You get the picture; impose some restrictions and make it the "theme for the week" (I'm currently doing 2 bar II-V licks in 6ths and Xths, where X is the day of the week). That kind of thing. Improves your understanding of your instrument by leaps and bounds, makes you quicker at thinking up cool ideas to improvise with, and helps you discover new licks and your own sound like nothing I else I have ever tried. I cannot say enough good things about doing this. Anyhow, I hope this post wasn't too overindulgent, and hopefully some people can take some useful stuff away from it. Also, post your practice stuff, as I love fresh practice ideas I can steal. EDIT: Oh, ssycko, as for a tune with cool modulations, you may want to check out the chord progression to 'Mood Indigo' by Ellington. Granted it's jazz, and that may not be the style you want to play in, but it has (the first use of, as far as I know), the super cool II7-IIm7 gesture, which is just great to steal and incorporate everywhere. Lots of goodness in that tune.
Bit of a long shot, but has anyone got any experience with attaching a pickup to a cello? or even more specifically a midi pickup? I recently got a cello, which in a mixture of arrogance and determination am teaching myself how to play it (I used to play way back in primary school so all of the basics are coming back to me slowly, plus it's helping a fuckton with sight reading and theory). as much as I love the natural sound of the cello, I'm really fascinated by seeing exactly what I can get out of the the instrument after running it through a few effects and generally improving my versatility as a musician. And has anyone played around with the new guitar rig & pedal yet? I use guitar rig 3 whenever I'm in the studio and love the balls off it but haven't had chance to play around with the pedal that much.
Fishman is the way to go for pickups, in my opinion. Check out the Fishman C-100 As far as midi capability...that's a little dodgy. Try the company Sonuus. They make the G2M (Guitar to MIDI), and I think there's one called the i2M which is more for other instruments.
I am terrible with gear, and cannot meaningfully contribute in any way to the above discussion. But know what I did find? An awesome tune with a shining example of pivot chord usage: I'm at school right now, and don't have access to my guitar, but near as I can tell this is the chord progression (I wrote the analysis with the opening section in E minor, due to the open strings, but it sounds a little flat to me, so maybe he's tuned down? Or my ear is just playing tricks on me?): E-: I-7 I have wandered far and wide bVI III/3 All the way from Paris to Mexico bVII 'Til I was gone and didn't know C+: V IV V I In the end the thing that keeps me walking IV V E-: I-7 bVI Is your shine, your shine in the morning, your shine in the distance, III/3 bVII Your shine inside the laughter and the ghosts And so forth (I'll leave it to NatCH to correct me if I'm wrong; I don't have the most stellar ears around). Anyhow, other than being a beautiful song, I think the way Lanois transitions between E- and Cmaj is a pretty neat example of a pivot modulation, seeing as it occurs on a tonic chord, which is kind of non-standard, and it's much more jarring (to my ear) than it being used on chords with more tension. E minor and C major aren't actually that distantly related, when you think about it, but rather than easing you into the new key, he goes directly from the G chord (V in C maj, III in E minor) to the F, which is probably the *least* accessible chord in E minor (I vaguely recall something from my composition class about bII major chords being popular near the beginning of the romantic period, but I don't think we're really down with them all that much these days). But then, niftily, the modulation *back* into E minor is the most subtle kind of pivot he could have chosen; just from the relative major to the minor, essentially. So, yeah, I think this tune's a pretty cool study in how much tension you can get out of pivot modulations. Cool.
It is a cool song, but I hear it in a different way. I'm one of those guys that hears things different once they resolve. For example, when I heard it, my thought process was "okay, Eminor...nope, we're in C. This song is in C." I don't really hear it as a modulation after that, I just hear it as a verse starting on the VI- chord. E-: I have (VI-)wandered far and (I)wide All the (IV)way from Paris (I)to Mexico(IV) 'Til I was (I)gone and didn't (V)know (III-)In the (II-)end the (III-)thing that (IV)keeps me walking Is (I)your shine,(bVII) your (VI-)shine in the (IV)morning, your (I)shine in the (IV)distance, Your (I)shine inside the (III-)laughter and the (V)ghosts Now, I'm going to admit that I don't know that much about pivot modulations. I think I learned about them, and subsequently failed to do it correctly. But since I automatically hear the C chord in the first line as the IV, then to me the song is already in G, and I don't really hear a modulation, I just hear other chords. Different strokes for different folks.