guitar tone rant

there’s always talk about the ultimate tone, and the best tone, and the end-all-to-be-all tone, but that’s not what LIFE is about, is it? as far as i know, life is about doing the most with what you’ve got, playing the hand you’ve been dealt.

this carries over into guitar playing as well… when it boils down to it, the tone rarely makes or breaks the music for me. instead, i listen to hear how well the player EXPLOITS his tone. the true player, the honest player, utilizes every last bit of possibility–even as he is constrained by the very gear that supports him. like the genius of a well-written Shakespearean sonnet lies in the 14 lines of abab cdcd efef gg rhyme scheme, the ingenuity of the guitar player transcends the confining nature of his equipment and conveys a sense of effortless expression.

it stems from a basic familiarity and homogeny between man and machine, and herein lies the point–the tone, taken as an absolute, has precious little bearing on the final outcome. the tone can only be as good as the player, which is why we hear countless tales of folks plugging into the rigs of exalted heroes only to sound like ass. the tone can only be USED by a player, and if the player be made of “the good stuff,” then the tone will simultaneously limit his possibilities and set him free. the player will struggle to elicit new sounds, new forms of expression, making up words in a new language heretofore unheard. this struggle which ensues–this defiance against the imposed necessity–is where it’s at… the fucking balls, the essence of human existence, played out in a battle between a man and his guitar.

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1 Comments

1. George Alexander, March 4, 2010:

   Excellent thought. You can take it a step further, too: If a guitar player is constrained by equipment, it forces him/her to use what they got to express themselves, and sometimes (maybe most times) constraints are good for creativity (Kind of Blue, Piet Mondrian, Muddy Waters, et al, et al et al). Blues guys in the fifties, Hendrix in the sixties… people just used what they had and made it work; the geniuses didn’t just make it work, they made it express genius! The constraints of the tool are part and parcel of the art, you can’t separate them.

   So yeah, it’s kinda funny to see guitars players spend so much time and energy on the minutia of tone. Kind of like a woman with a magnifying glass and a mirror – you can tweak, but ya got what ya got. Having said that, I also love the idea of the unattainable ideal, and the search for the “holy grail”. I saw Richard Thompson trying out amps in a store once, and he said he was looking for the Holy Grail, so clearly it won’t necessarily hurt your guitar playing!