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Pauline Leland
`Olu`olu
USA
783 Posts |
 Posted - 03/12/2002 : 3:35:15 PM
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One think I love about slack key is that there is no style of guitar required to play it. And it's not limited to either steel or nylon strings. My favorite is nylon, to play and to listen to, though I also recently bought a steel string. But for slack key, I use a nylon strung guitar.
What are you folks using?
Pauline
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Admin
Pupule
USA
4551 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2002 : 3:51:36 PM
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So true. I think Leonard Kwan was known to have played a Gibson electric if I'm not mistaken. I just bought a copy of his Dancing Cat CD and hope to get it in the mail soon.
I play a steel string (well, a couple steel strings), but listening to Ozzie Kotani or Keola Beamer often leaves me desiring a nylon string. The nylon can be so delicate but allows you to really accentuate notes when you need to.
Andy |
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Fran Guidry
Ha`aha`a
USA
1574 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2002 : 10:11:36 PM
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I have a couple of Leonard albums and his book, and he's pictured playing a Gibson L7, I think, with the old single coil Dearmond pickup. Keola has mentioned the 60 cycle hum that came through on those recordings, but I can't hear it because my turntable is dead. Seeing the picture has caused me to pick up a couple of old Gibson archtops, though.
I usually use steel string, but occasionally I pull out "our first guitar" which is an old plywood Aria.
And one night just to be perverse I put my Telecaster in taropatch and plugged in to my Princeton Reverb. Sounded pretty darned good, actually.
Fran
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Pauline Leland
`Olu`olu
USA
783 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2002 : 11:09:08 PM
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Electric!?!? That hadn't occurred to me somehow, maybe because it sounds like outdoor music and you'd need an extension cord to take an electric outside. 
Hmm...
Pauline |
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kihoalu
Aloha
USA
14 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2002 : 01:48:23 AM
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Actually, I've seen Dennis Kamakahi tune down his Fender Strat and play slack key through a G3. Kind of wierd. I prefer when he plays acoustic.
I find that I will play my slack key on a steel string or a nylon string depending on my mood!
Kepa
Come visit us at HawaiiMusicians.com |
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Bruddah Chrispy
Lokahi
USA
164 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2002 : 10:25:16 AM
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Let's get even more specific: Which strings do you use? I've always used medium weight Gibson SP, but last weekend I was at the guitar store to get some new ones and damned if there weren't two different kinds! Wow, laulau, I really don't need this many choices in my life! So I asked the dude behind the counter and he said that the Bronze Phosphur had a much brighter sound than whatever the other kind was. Oh. Okay. I like a bright sound, I'll take those.
I put them on Sunday night.
Slight departure here: Isn't it great to put new strings on? I take the time to clean the guitar up with some guitar polish and just treat her right. And the sound of new strings! The chimes just leap out. Sigh.
Anyways. I put these new Bronze Phosphur strings on and wow(!) da guy was right. The sound is incredibly bright. Almost too bright on the bass strings. I'm having to adjust my attack so that the bass doesn't drown out da melody.
Don't know why I'm babbling about all this. Too much coffee. What was the original question? Oh yeah.
I use steel strings.
Aloha a hui hou,
Chris P. |
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2002 : 2:40:10 PM
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Sarah has about 4 steel string flattops by several luthiers and I have 4, too. 3 of Sarah's are OM sized and one is 0 sized, erroneously called a parlor guitar. 3 of mine are OM sized and one is 00 sized. I also have a "classical" that was made especially for what I wanted it to sound like playing slack key. Sarah and I share one other steel string that we both love. About strings: most of our flat tops sound best with John Pearse Phosphor Bronze lights, but the one we share, a Blanchard, sounds best with GHS PB lights. The Pearses sound too bright on it and we like round fat trebles which that guitar gets with the GHS strings. The "classical" wears D'addario Pro Arte extra hard tensions nylons, but I will switch to extra hard tension Pro Arte composites (kevlar) next time around. Every guitar likes a different kind of string and we have experimented extensively to find ones that our guitars sound best with. We do not like a bright twangy sound; ki ho`alu is supposed to be nahenahe and we do everything we can to make it that way. None of our guitars will ever have electronics. When Sarah plays her occasional coffee house gigs with a friend of ours, both her guitar and her voice are mic'ed with good mics and the venues are small enough that there is a lot of direct sound. We paid lots of money to get glorious sounding guitars and we want them to sound as natural as possible. So, we want to minimize any transducers in the sound path, and those that there must be, must be of high quality, i.e., produce the guitar's natural sound as closely as possible. Besides, we are not pros and never will be, so there really isn't any rationale for electronics for us.
...Reid
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Pauline Leland
`Olu`olu
USA
783 Posts |
Posted - 03/14/2002 : 12:36:19 AM
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Reid,
Have you found the D'Addario extra hard tension sound better slacked? I have Savarez NT, I think that's a medium, medium light tension on right now. I've never heard any recommendations on string tensions for altered tuning on nylon.
On steel, I've read a lot of people say they go medium tension for altered tunings (not slack key), and you're using lights.
It's all so confusing.
Pauline |
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marzullo
`Olu`olu
USA
923 Posts |
Posted - 03/14/2002 : 8:42:36 PM
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hi,
i mostly play a larrivee parlor and a breedlove CW/R both sound great slacked down - the breedlove is amazingly responsive with the low string all the way down to C - but the parlor gets a bit sloppy when tuned down lower than D. i use elixirs on both, medium gague on the breed' and lights on the larrivee. i like the way they sound and the way you can slide into a note.
on my 12 string (a taylor) i use GHS which have a great sound and its loud enough to keep the cats away. when pickin' on the tenor uke i use hilos because i like the way they look, but i played a friend's ko'olau with their own strings and was mightily impressed (could've been the uke or the strings, of course).
it's funny, but it always seems to me to take a few days for new strings to settle in: the tone is too rough and brassy for a short time. after a few days the guitar starts sounding richer.
keith
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 03/17/2002 : 4:37:09 PM
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Aloha `oe Pauline,
I went through a great deal of experimentation and playing, with the assistance of a friend who is a fine guitarist (and who haunts big guitar stores on both coasts - like Mando Bros, Buffalo Bros, Gryphon Strings, etc. :-), before deciding on what a "classical" guitar should play like and sound like. Three key points were: the luthier (and how he makes the guitar, of course), the scale length and the strings. I fastened on a luthier named Paul McGill, a somewhat lengthened scale length of 660mm, and extra hard tension strings, with a boost from composites for the ever-troublesome 3rd string. "Tension is your friend", as Paul says (at least in a nylon string guitar; maybe not in real life). Pro Arte composites will work in Taro Patch down to a scale length of 650mm. Below that, the strings, especially those of lower tension, flop around too much and the 1st and 6th can easily be pulled right off the fretboard. And the tone and loudness suffer. My McGill can easily play Leonard's C and Namakelua/Double slack/G Major 7th with no loss of tone or string controllability or buzzing and the basses and mids still "roar" as my friend says - it is a *very* loud guitar. A minor help is that the frets were ground by a computer controlled machine called a Plek. There was an article about it In Acoustic Guitar a while ago and the only one in the U.S. is in Nashville, where Paul is. So it is nearly impossible to make it buzz in any slacked tuning, even though the action is quite low.
On steel string guitars, there is no reason to go to mediums. If you have a buzzing problem, have the action adjusted. Buzzing almost always occurs on the basses and medium basses don't increase in tension enough to help the situation much. Mediums merely allow you to put more energy into the guitar by slightly upping the tension (mostly in the treble strings) and allowing you to pluck harder. I am against whomping a fingerstyle guitar (and I sound bad enough with a light touch :-) and some luthiers (such as James Goodall) strictly prohibit the use of anything but lights for many top woods and bracing designs. If you want more volume from an unamped guitar, my solution is to buy a guitar that is naturally sensitive and built for what I want it to do. It is true, however, that different string brands give different results on different guitars and it is worthwhile to experiment a lot and then go with that brand. As I said earlier, we get the best tone *immediately*, with no break-in period, the loudest tones and the longest life from John Pearse PB Lights - except for the one Blanchard that prefers GHS. All our guitars, including the small ones are very loud (and sweet), as Andy (AKA Admin) can attest.
...Reid
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Pauline Leland
`Olu`olu
USA
783 Posts |
Posted - 03/17/2002 : 7:58:12 PM
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Thanks, I was curious.
Paul McGill? I'd never heard the name 2 weeks ago; now you're the third person who has bought, or at least ordered from him.
Pauline |
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 03/19/2002 : 12:51:53 PM
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Hi Pauline,
Paul has been around a long time. He first learned his trade repairing vintage (and very expensive) guitars in George Gruhn's Nashville shop. He was a very close friend of Chet Atkins. He has been building classicals, resonators and a hollow bodied electric/nylon for about 25 years. He builds a Muriel Anderson signature model that you can see Muriel hold in every magazine picture ad that she is in. The guitars he builds have a very innovative, patented, internal structure (that I won't describe) that puts most all the precious nylon string energy into the top, instead of dissipating it throughout the guitar body and neck. This makes for a very loud and responsive instrument with very complex overtones and long sustain.
...Reid
You can see his stuff at http://www.mcgillguitars.com/
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Pauline Leland
`Olu`olu
USA
783 Posts |
Posted - 03/19/2002 : 1:54:13 PM
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Thanks for the link Reid. I think I had him mixed up with another builder.  I searched for his name and only found a very old reference. Your link reminds me his was the first optical illusion cutaway I ever saw. He's a little short on verbiage on his link.
Off topic, but I'm having fun with text colors and other features here!
Pauline |
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slackkey
Lokahi
USA
280 Posts |
Posted - 04/04/2002 : 04:57:59 AM
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Aloha Pauline! Eh Wasssssup Kepa!
I am a "Backyard Style Hawaiian Slack Key Guitarists" from the Island of Maui, Hawaii. I play with both steel strings and nylon strings. Majority of the time tho, I play with my 0-21 Martin Guitar (steel strings).
The reason for that is because I like how the bright sound of the steel strings resonates from the soundboard of my Martin. The nylon strunged guitar is my beach guitar, and the one I use if I am on my deck during the early mornings or late evenings while the neighborhood's asleep.
Steel strings and nylon strings are both great on guitars, and make playing slack key sound really sweet.But it really depends on an indivisual's preferance. A Hui Hou!
slackkey (Bill)
P.S. You can find me at HawaiiMusicians.com
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Pauline Leland
`Olu`olu
USA
783 Posts |
Posted - 04/04/2002 : 6:03:17 PM
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Hi Slackkey Bill,
What name do you use on www.HawaiiMusicians.com? I didn't see any members named slackkey.
Pauline
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slackkey
Lokahi
USA
280 Posts |
Posted - 04/04/2002 : 8:45:42 PM
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Aloha Pauline!
Look for Billy Pellazar, and you're there! A Hui Hou!
slackkey (Bill)
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