I think you misread my early posts. It goes without saying that everything in the chain helps create the sound. But the reason these arguments go on endlessly is because we ignore the overriding factor, which is what the player is trying achieve.

This is why you can say "tone is the hands" or "tone is the gear" and still be right. Like the six blind men and the elephant, they're all right, and they're all wrong.

The search for an exclusive answer is the problem. Your technique, your guitar, your effects, your amp, everything is at the service of the player's intent. It is not exclusive of anything: it controls everything.

Or, to go more hinayana on it: can you pick up that Country Gent and sound like Chet Atkins? I'll guess no. But how did Chet end up playing those Gretsch guitars. Destiny? Nothing else available? Gretsch makes the very very best guitar in the world? None of those are correct... he chose them because they fit his technique to reach a goal... in short, they were chosen "intentionally."

Disappointingly, I recall Chet Atkins saying there was a goodly period when he played Gretsch guitars because he had a promotional deal to do so - and for no other reason at that time. In fact, he said he struggled fruitlessly to get them to make an instrument with the appointments he really wanted...

However: I suspect the real reasons we endlessly discuss in places such as this Forum the various minutiae mentioned in the very first post on this thread are all too explicable - and rather banal...

Cheers - C

Hi BigJay (good morning!).

To be fair to SlapChop (who obviously needs me to help him out - I don't think!), I feel his original post is more subtle than that.

To me it sounds like when he says "intent" he's discussing all those tiny aspects of playing - the precise amount of attack of the picking fingers, the degree of vibrato, the inflection of a passage - that make up the "handwriting" of a musician. All those microscopic characteristics that mean BB King and Eric Clapton (who was so influenced by him) could play a phrase that would be written identically on the page, and yet have you know without a shadow of a doubt which of them you were hearing.

In a way we usually can't identify the equipment people are using after the event.

Something like that, anyhow.

Cheers - C

One thing that has't been focused on much in this thread is the fact that intent begins way before you picked the guitar up for the first time and will undoubtedly continue to be fully unrealized until you finally put it down for the final time. Tone/gear/learning/improving are as much a journey as life itself.

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No no and no

Choose your fiction I'll endorse it

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"Another day in paradise!"

Thanks Doc!!

Let's see if Ceri recognizes that one

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"Another day in paradise!"

Well that's a challenge...

Pooh-Bah [in The Mikado]: "Well, it will be a useful discipline. (aloud) Very good. Choose your fiction, and I'll endorse it! (aside) Ha! ha! Family Pride, how do you like that, my buck?" etc...

Not for a second am I going to pretend I did that without help!

- C

Wow…It has been a while since we have had an overly philosophical thread like this.. As far as intent being a driving factor of tone….OK sure…but lets not forget that intent without /INSPIRATION,TOOLS, and SKILL, is worthless. “Intent” No one intends to go out and sound bad, but it happens. Maybe you are not inspired at a cretin moment and you’re not playing your best. (I’m sure that was never your intent ) perhaps your gear is not functioning properly and your playing sounds like two ally cats knocking boots. (Well I never INTENDED it to sound that way) the bottom line is…….it all begins with skill, IMHO. The more you know the more you can accomplish.
This is a great thread and I believe we are onto something that only needs some fine tuning……Thanks to SlapChop for starting this madness – LOL…..this thread has got us all thinking about where we need to be and how to get there regarding our tone and that is what counts..
And on those days when it’s going bad….crank it up to 11 and rock it out…after all, there is no distinguishing tonal characteristics at 200 decibels…
Rock on everybody..
Bill

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(80’s Hair Metal) = A snapshot in time before Grunge ruined Rock & Roll forever!!!!

Me too (or three). Ditto...

I mean, reading some of these ponderings makes my brain hurt so bad that I may have to pound a #2 lead pencil into it through my eye socket...

I'm just going to plug into my bassman, turn it to ten and wait for the cops to come... goodbye Sir Persiflage! Avenge me... aaavenge meeeee..

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I love the smell of hot vacuum tubes in the morning...

has anyone else noticed a slight retreat in their hairline , way too much head scratching , tone is a variable I would say, its never going to be constant even in the same hall it's going to vary depending on where your standing , humidity, etc + everything that has been said in previous postings , there you go sorted.
All I wanted was a Fender with "Fender" tone and I found it on two knobs,rotary ones for the adjustment off from one to ten , right below the volume and I think thats my all on this subject
I dont know why I bother either ! !

I agree, wow, another theory......................dont we have enough?









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