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Re: frisell and guitar necks



Quick thoughts: a set of strings exerts about 100-120 pounds of tension on 
a
neck - largely parallel to the neck, to be sure, but that's a lot of
poundage. Adding a little wobble to the pitch with your hand on the neck is
like changing string gauge for a second - an additional shift of maybe 10 
or
15 pounds. It's also like pulling up on a tremolo bar. Not a huge
difference. Also, I've noticed that my own guitars and basses tend to
drop/rise as much as 25 cents when a major change in humidity occurs. Also,
I've done guitar repairs for many years and I've never seen a single
instrument with damage from this technique. Also, I've been doing it to my
own guitars for almost thirty years, including the occasional 
Belew-inspired
pull-back, causing the strings to "fret out" and squeal, with no apparent
damage. Also, just moving a guitar from horizontal/table position to
vertical/playing position can generate a pitch shift of 5 cents or so. So 
my
belief system embraces the guitar neck as a flexible item. Mild neck
wrenching probably should'nt  critical. But I am, after all, The Coyote.
Douglas Baldwin, coyote-at-large
coyotelk@optonline.net


> Lorenzo German recommended that technique to me when I was contemplating
> whether or not to get the piezo pickups for my Klein and therefore lose
the
> tremolo. I didn't ask him what it did to the longevity of the guitar.
>
> Mark
>