Re: The road less traveled (was Re: Hardware shopping for Les Paul)

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Charles Zwicky <cazwicky@earthlink.net> 
wrote:
> never use wax on a guitar again!!!) and restored it to it's original 1979
> splendor.
> It now presents it self to me as a Zen Koan or a mystery.. when I play 
> it I
> find myself exploring the idiosyncrasies of this instrument... and a 
> funny
> thing is happening... I am hearing MYSELF emerge from the instrument, 
> rather
> than the instrument...


Exactly that keeps happening to me too! I too started rebuilding stuff
around -79. First I unfretted a cheap Ibanez guitar, but pretty soon I
was swapping guitar PU's, necks and bridges to explore new sounds.
When I got into the tenor sax a few years later I destroyed three
expensive mouth-pieces before I managed to optimize the tone chamber
to give the tone I wanted. And it is funny that when you are a
beginner you don't always recognize the true sound of yourself in
instruments - although you band mates may hear this. By age and
experience you get to know what your sound is but it seems that in
most cases the actual player him/her-self is the last one to find out!
:-)  Today I'm not sure I would use the expression "hearing myself"
more... it is more like a certain expression that "wants to get out"
through you. I'm getting that feeling now from all kind of gear, even
software algorithms.

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se
www.perboysen.com
www.looproom.com internet music hub