Post by johnnyqb on Feb 2, 2008 22:11:14 GMT -6
This isn't a review yet, because I have only had the guitar for two days, but this guitar is a whole new experience for me. Rich telling me his idea about fiddles, and the thin skin of this one over the chambers, has opened up this idea, this way of describing it. It is as if, to my ears, teles until now had some kind of muffler on them. I am very sensitive to tone, perhaps because my playing is so basic and simple. The tone is the medium in which I can explore whatever magic is out there for me. The tone leads me places, suggests things, makes me work. Other guitars (especially other Rice guitars) have done this to me, but this one.... this one..... There is this plucky, hollow wooden tone that can come out of a semi-hollow tele, at least in one's dreams. I would call it cavernous, but it should be a cavern of wood and not of rock. Somehow, if you get the right walls of the wooden cavern, you will get this tone, that is similar to a fiddle tone. Now, I never said or even thought, I want a guitar to sound like a fiddle. But that is not the point. The point is, that if you hear a guitar that has the wooden cavern walls that make you think of a violin, then you say, wow, that is the beauty of a violin's tone. And I truly do love and listen often to string quartets and other string works of Brahams, Beethoven, Mozart; but I always felt there was something different about that tone and guitar tone. This Piney is the first experience I have ever had, where I sense the relation, that I am playing this premium instrument, that is, in some way, like playing a violin. The body is breathing, and vibrating, and bringing out this plucky, deep tone, that is enticing me into its secrets, like nothing I have played. Seriously, I am playing this guitar, and looking at, and shaking my head, like, my God, so THIS is a telecaster. This ain't no nocaster, or '52--those only hint at this thing that I am getting here. This has 52 pickups in it, and three barrel saddles, but it is so far beyond the 52s I have played that they can't be compared. Some guitars, I think, it looks so pretty, too bad about the neck, or, it sounds so good, too bad it is so ugly (shallow, yes, but...). This one, though, is like a good woman, one that blows you away, where you think, those eyes, those lips, that hair, those legs, that ass, that voice, that humor, that laugh, it is all one and the same manifestation of a beautiful person. You marry that one, if you are lucky (I was, and am). This guitar is like that. I think, this body, the grain. The grain? I have never really even seen grain before, I now realize. The neck? It has a changing radius and neck carve up the board, from 7.25 to 9.5 and V to C, and it could not be more perfect. The tuners (it does not go out of tune, even though I am putting it in the case when I am not using it--like you would do with a violin), just perfect.
I have a taste here of something perfect, and I mean this most sincerely. I laid down a simple blues progression and solo'ed over it for about a half hour tonight, and the guitar tone heavens opened before me. I couldn't believe it. Some day, I will write a review of this guitar (hehe). I will be interested to see how this ages. Will its perfection last? Stay tuned......
I have a taste here of something perfect, and I mean this most sincerely. I laid down a simple blues progression and solo'ed over it for about a half hour tonight, and the guitar tone heavens opened before me. I couldn't believe it. Some day, I will write a review of this guitar (hehe). I will be interested to see how this ages. Will its perfection last? Stay tuned......
... lol 
There is something very cool with that guitar.. I hope to capture it again.