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John Williams fingernails

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John Nguyen

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Sep 29, 2015, 3:17:10 PM9/29/15
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His fingernails ramped to the left, so it looks like he played, most of the time, on the right side of the nail. Note at 1:30 and on from the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GY3i8EqYPA

People can fault a lot of JW's playing, but certainly not his techniques - I'm willing to bet.
Cheers,

John

Curmudgeon

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Sep 29, 2015, 4:59:34 PM9/29/15
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That's quite a challenge you've tossed out, John. I'm sure Kent can chime in. I'm of the school that believes you should do whatever works best for you, but that's not how the purists roll.

dsi1

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Sep 29, 2015, 5:39:51 PM9/29/15
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One thing is for certain, you can copy your favorite artist's technique
to a high degree but you ain't never gonna sound like him or her. In a
world of copy cats, another cat won't amount to a hill of beans. Well,
that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Hee hee.

Curmudgeon

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Sep 30, 2015, 8:13:38 AM9/30/15
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You got that right! These "there's no such thing as talent" guys are talking through their hat. Some have it, and some don't. I recall a Segovia master class from long ago in which one participant was having trouble producing the tone Segovia was trying to elicit. The student said it was his guitar, so Segovia picked it up and in one stroke produced exactly the tone he had been describing.

Paul Magnussen

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Sep 30, 2015, 11:52:07 AM9/30/15
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Curmudgeon wrote:

> You got that right! These "there's no such thing as talent" guys are talking through their hat. Some have it, and some don't. I recall a Segovia master class from long ago in which one participant was having trouble producing the tone Segovia was trying to elicit. The student said it was his guitar, so Segovia picked it up and in one stroke produced exactly the tone he had been describing.

Big, fat hands help lot.

Paul Magnussen

dsi1

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Sep 30, 2015, 6:16:26 PM9/30/15
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In the end, our tone will always be our own. Some will be better than
others but trying to copy others is no way to live your life. My teacher
allowed me to find my own sound rather than trying to get me to sound
like himself or his teacher or Segovia. Thanks Jesus! ;)

John E. Golden

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Sep 30, 2015, 6:23:47 PM9/30/15
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On 09/30/2015 08:13 AM, Curmudgeon wrote:
>SNIP
>
> You got that right! These "there's no such thing as talent" guys are talking through their hat.

Some have it, and some don't. I recall a Segovia master class from long
ago in which one participant

was having trouble producing the tone Segovia was trying to elicit.
The student said it was his guitar,

so Segovia picked it up and in one stroke produced exactly the tone he
had been describing.

That was Michael Lorimer in the 1965 Master Class.

Regards,
John E. Golden

Steven Bornfeld

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Sep 30, 2015, 7:58:43 PM9/30/15
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The list of fine guitarists publicly humiliated by Segovia--probably a
pretty long list.

Steve

dsi1

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Sep 30, 2015, 8:14:45 PM9/30/15
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My teacher had some instruction with Segovia. When somebody mentioned
Segovia, he turned his head and made a sour face. It was a puzzling
gesture to me back in 1972 but now it's all starting to make sense. ;)

Steve Freides

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Oct 2, 2015, 9:24:15 AM10/2/15
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I always thought that Segovia, if anything, played more on the left side
of the nail (the side of the fingers closest to the thumb in case
there's any confusion). Something about the slight bend in the wrist
lends itself to that, I think.

-S-


David Raleigh Arnold

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Oct 3, 2015, 7:03:55 PM10/3/15
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Who was your teacher? Regards, Rale

dsi1

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Oct 3, 2015, 9:49:20 PM10/3/15
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I'd rather not say. I have heard that he had Segovia as a teacher and I can believe it because he really disliked the man. However, it was obvious that he had great affection for his other teacher Siegfried Behrend. He invited Herr Behrind to play a concert in Hawaii and they invited me to go drinking with them after the concert but I didn't want to hang around with some tipsy Germans talking all excited-like back in those days. I would now days but they're both dead so...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpoxTm1FJVo

Learnwell

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Oct 24, 2015, 6:32:37 PM10/24/15
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> You got that right! These "there's no such thing as talent" guys are talking through their hat.

There may be such a thing as talent. If so, it is a two week head start in a ten year process that amounts to no more advantage than that. Anyone can have it who works for it, you just don't know the type of work required, and the longitudinal commitment necessary.

Keep playing in your sandbox, or endeavor to find the truth.

Curmudgeon

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Oct 24, 2015, 6:46:23 PM10/24/15
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I'm just a casual hobbyist and pleased to make some pleasant sounds from time to time. I'll leave the truth seeking to those to whom it's important.

Learnwell

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Oct 24, 2015, 6:57:54 PM10/24/15
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I'll leave the truth seeking to those to whom it's important.

That should be important to everyone.

Or, to put it another way, don't run your mouth about that which you don't understand. Telling people that no matter what they do they'll never be able to achieve certain things is horrible if they believe you.

Think about it.

John Nguyen

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Oct 24, 2015, 10:27:17 PM10/24/15
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On Saturday, October 24, 2015 at 6:57:54 PM UTC-4, Learnwell wrote:
> I'll leave the truth seeking to those to whom it's important.
>
> That should be important to everyone.
>
> Or, to put it another way, don't run your mouth about that which you don't understand.

Funny! :-)
Message has been deleted

Curmudgeon

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Oct 25, 2015, 8:52:26 AM10/25/15
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On Saturday, October 24, 2015 at 6:57:54 PM UTC-4, Learnwell wrote:
Let me clarify my comment. I'll leave the truth seeking about guitar pedagogy to those to whom it's important.

Learnwell

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Oct 25, 2015, 10:00:00 AM10/25/15
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> Let me clarify my comment. I'll leave the truth seeking about guitar pedagogy to those to whom it's important.

Then you might consider not making such definitive statements about complex issues.

Curmudgeon

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Oct 25, 2015, 2:32:30 PM10/25/15
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On Sunday, October 25, 2015 at 10:00:00 AM UTC-4, Learnwell wrote:
> > Let me clarify my comment. I'll leave the truth seeking about guitar pedagogy to those to whom it's important.
>
> Then you might consider not making such definitive statements about complex issues.

You might consider lightening up a bit. This marks the end of my participation in this thread.

dsi1

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Oct 25, 2015, 5:52:35 PM10/25/15
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The eternally cheerful meets the terminally arrogant: the outcome will not be a good one. That's the breaks. :)

DCaswellUK

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Oct 25, 2015, 7:15:44 PM10/25/15
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This discussion has travelled a long way from John Williams and his nails! What might be more interesting to discuss is that he plays with just nail, rather than nail and flesh which is probably what most people do these days? Anyone else using just nail? A problem for flesh players is that humidity can make the fingers sticky, making playing anything rapid really difficult. Presumably this is not an issue for an all nail player..Does anyone have a solution to the sticky finger problem??

A side issue to this is that the Smallmann guitar he uses, along with other lattice braced top guitars, are much less prone to problems with humidity..they seem to play the same regardless of climate.

A final thought is JW's use of lightly polished strings: what are people's experience of these? Is the loss of 'ring' worth the significant reduction in squeak?

Regards,

David C

dsi1

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Oct 25, 2015, 8:29:59 PM10/25/15
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On Sunday, October 25, 2015 at 1:15:44 PM UTC-10, DCaswellUK wrote:
> On Sunday, October 25, 2015 at 9:52:35 PM UTC, dsi1 wrote:
> > On Sunday, October 25, 2015 at 8:32:30 AM UTC-10, Curmudgeon wrote:
> > > On Sunday, October 25, 2015 at 10:00:00 AM UTC-4, Learnwell wrote:
> > > > > Let me clarify my comment. I'll leave the truth seeking about guitar pedagogy to those to whom it's important.
> > > >
> > > > Then you might consider not making such definitive statements about complex issues.
> > >
> > > You might consider lightening up a bit. This marks the end of my participation in this thread.
> >
> > The eternally cheerful meets the terminally arrogant: the outcome will not be a good one. That's the breaks. :)
>
> This discussion has travelled a long way from John Williams and his nails! What might be more interesting to discuss is that he plays with just nail, rather than nail and flesh which is probably what most people do these days? Anyone else using just nail? A problem for flesh players is that humidity can make the fingers sticky, making playing anything rapid really difficult. Presumably this is not an issue for an all nail player..Does anyone have a solution to the sticky finger problem??

I'm playing with short nails. They start off as no nails and I'm too lazy to trim them. With short nails I can still get a nail sound but your mileage may vary.

I think nails are very suitable for baroque music where consistency of sound is important and you can just forget about doing a good tremolo if you have no nails.

I try to stay away from baroque pieces myself. If you're working on a tremolo piece, nail shaping is going to be critical if you want to nail down a good trem.

>
> A side issue to this is that the Smallmann guitar he uses, along with other lattice braced top guitars, are much less prone to problems with humidity..they seem to play the same regardless of climate.

This island in the middle of nowhere has a consistently high humidity and no great temperature swings. It's very kind to guitars. OTOH, my suspicion is that the high humidity causes problems on flat-top, solid-wood, construction guitars. All my solid top guitar have a problem with the bridge deforming the top. The laminated tops on Smallmans should create a very stable mounting point for the bridge. OTOH, I don't think synthetic glue joints on wooden tops have much of a chance of being married for very long. I'm betting that in my lifetime we'll see this type of construction fail. OTOH, guitars don't have to last forever.

>
> A final thought is JW's use of lightly polished strings: what are people's experience of these? Is the loss of 'ring' worth the significant reduction in squeak?

I have no experience with those. Mostly I pretty much stick with EXP bass strings. I like their long-lasting bright sound. OTOH, Fender used to run their electric wound strings through a die to flatten out the surface - I loved those things for their smooth feel.


>
> Regards,
>
> David C
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