I’m proud to announce a new member to my family: My custom A Davis Acoustic Guitar.
Art Davis is a life-long luthier, who worked for Taylor Guitars for many years. When he realized he wanted to make a better guitar, he left the company and started out on his own. The result is a few dozen guitars per year, each handmade by Art Davis alone, and unique to the artists’ specifications. I’ve been producing some video materials for his new company, and in trade - my own custom guitar. I’m insanely thrilled, and thought I’d share.
It’s an A-1 model body with cutaway, Brazilian Rosewood Back and Sides, Engleman Spruce Top. Custom 5-Point Star inlays, Rosewood Neck, Brazilian Fretboard. It sounds incredible. It looks incredible. In the shade, it looks like a piano finish. In the sun, it looks like it’s about to catch fire. I have no earthly business owning a guitar of this quality. Considering what he normally would sell this to a regular client for, I simply don’t deserve it. I’m just not that good of a guitar player. But I know that some of you Addison Roadies are insane players, so I thought you’d appreciate this unbelievable instrument.
OK. I’m going to go back to playing it now. Check out the full-res photos on my Flickr set here.
Once again, my post loses all of it’s paragraph formatting. Mike - I might need a Web-Geek lesson. (when I’m done playing my new gee-tar, of course)
Man… that is just beautiful.
Thanks, Chad. I really still can’t get over the fact that it’s mine. Insane. You’ve really got to see it in person. My first impression, regarding the playability, is this: This Guitar LOVES To Be Hammered. Big open chords ring for days. Open G and E tunings are simply deadly - it sounds like it ripping a hole in the air. I suppose that’s what you get when you get to build your “own” guitar. I told Art that I wanted something I could, “kill Bon Jovi tunes” with, and he delivered. At the same time, capo on the 5th fret, flat-picking, or finger-picking - sounds amazing. I want to put it in Corey’s hands to see what it will really do.
Dude… we all know Corey hates guitars. What are you thinking?
Zack, I think it has something to do with using safari to write up your posts.
Well dammit, Mike. You can’t re-code the entire site just so I don’t have to use another browser to show off my junk? What are you, lazy?
And since I regularly trash-talk Taylor’s to Corey, (Calling ‘em glue-boxes, “everybody has a Taylor”, etc) I hope he doesn’t pick up my new ax and throw it into traffic. That’d be bad, m’kay?
Looks awesome, Zack. I love the little subtle touches that make it unique without sticking out.
Kind of like the moral opposite of a Takamine.
Can’t wait to hear some clips… does anyone know a decent producer in your area?
Whadya say, Mike? You wanna set up a mic and see what she sounds like? (Chad’s house is too far away!)
So I re-read your initial post, and I have to take one issue with you.
Yes, there are some shredders who hang out here, and they’re veryveryvery good.
However, you play with feel. Feel cannot be bought with lessons, or bargained for with Deity. You either have it or you don’t. Technical proficiency has it’s place, no doubt, but I’ll take a player who can groove any day.
This is not to say our shredders can’t groove… I’m just making a point. :)
Nah, that’s crap. Not that Zack has feel, but that feel isn’t something you can develop.
Groove, feel, time, all of those things can be worked on and worked out. I would submit to you that Zack’s voracious appetite for listening to good music is largely responsible for his sense of groove and feel. It may not have been his reason for listening, but the result was a more developed sense of time, groove, feel, all of those supposedly mystical genetic qualities.
While I appreciate you both complimenting my playing ability, I feel it is my duty to inform you of something, and maybe dumb-it-down a bit:
Quite simply, I started playing guitar to meet girls. This has been my M.O. up until a few years ago, when said skill secured me a fiance. So technically, I’m finished playing the guitar. Now I suppose I’ll have to re-purpose this skill for another end-use.
Mike, you really think so?
I dunno… I think feel can be refined and improved… but man… I think you either have it or you don’t.
I’m a lousy teacher… so what do I know?
I don’t have “born with” groove. Trading 4’s with a good drummer is a nightmare to me. I’m lost by bar 3 generally. A whole chorus? Forget it.
But, I know what groove feels like when I hear it, and I can make it happen in a track. Playing live with said groove has gotten better over the years, but I know my limits.
Aw hell, I got loads of “feel”. Its the basic music theory I lack. 6 or 7 beers ’round the fire pit, and you’d think I was a pro. Its when you request a progression in G minor that I wander off in search of some whiskey.
Who are we kidding, wandering off in search of whiskey is totally a pro move.
Feel is pretty funny. I think it’s very easy for us growing up in America to try to polorize it as “feel vs. technique.” That way, we can have an arguement, and of course, win said arguement.
I’m starting to think feel flows out of technique. And make no mistake, endlessly repeating the same 3 chords or opening lick of a tune (It was Interstate Love Song by STP I think back in high school) is a valid technique. I know guys who can play that riff flawlessly. And though I like to privately make fun of them, the sick thing is, they can really play the hell out of those first four bars. My downstairs neighbor practices the same song (his own horrid original material) every day for about 3 hours. It’s pretty bad, but last week I realized, “Holy crap, he needs to tune his damn guitar but he’s playing that out of tune piece of shit really cleanly!”
So having great feel can maybe be defined as playing a certain element of music brilliantly. It’s not that a player lacks technique in general, just that this player has chosen to master a different element of technique. Music theory is a technique. Melody reharmonization is a technique. So is soloing over changes, trading fours, playing an acoustic guitar passionately enough to get laid, or being able to play the tapping part of Eruption by Eddie Van Halen while chugging two Miller Lites. But it’s all music.
I really think the issue gets clouded by so-called technicians who play coldly or without soul. The truth about these players is they’re not really great-they just play a certain skill set better than the rest of us. However, because there is so much to learn and prove before you die, they don’t spend the time really meditating on and marinating in the technical element; they just get it barely to the point of proficiency and move on to the next thing. But when we hear it on a record, we tap into our own insecurities and fears of mortality and draw the conclusion, “Wow, that guy plays so much better than me. I must not be good enough if I can’t play that line like he does.” But who knows how many times it took to get that line right? Think abaout it; when was the last time you saw an act live that moved you that featured “technique?” Or, when was the last time you heard an artist that you love sound good playing anything other than the specific (often narrow) technique they have mastered? How would the Edge sound sitting in with Andrea Bocelli? For that matter, how did Chick Corea sound with the Foo Fighters a couple of years back?
So, just because one player’s scope of mastery may be smaller than another’s, it is in no way less valid for being so. We are all great; we are all masters. And, the mastery of feel evolves only through repition of a certain technique, until it comes out by itself, uninfluenced or commanded by consciousness. No, you can’t teach feel; it teaches itself once technique has been fully digested.
Oh, and congrats on the new baby, Zack! She has your Rosewood Neck!!
Dude, seriously Rosy, how many times have you read that friggen book?
Another 35-40 more times and I’ll start to get the hang of it.
It’s kind of cool. I like playing music again, for the first time in 12 years. Plus I can now listen to music and admit that I like something about it, rather than listen just so I can hear some mistake.
It’s nice for a change. Maybe not forever, but definitely for a little while longer.
Zack, I think this is the most poetic you’ve ever waxed. I’m so very happy for you.
You guys…I’m lucky to hang around with clever blokes like you.
mmmmmm… Brazilian RW and Englemann Spruce are pretty much the holy grail of acoustic tone for me right now. Huge-but-tight low end, and a sparkle on top that fills the air with juju.
It’s a real beauty, Zack. I will oblige and play it for you, but I’ve heard you play and I’m not sure there’s any assurance of magic in these hands.
…as opposed to YOUR hands, I mean.
Everybody do me a favor and substitute ‘guitar’ for ‘woman’ wherever you think it’s pertinent. Magic hands…
Grrr…
I was trying to be benevolent and, uh, cool. And funny. Not bitchy. I SWEAR.
0-4. Crap.
no I got it. I’m just trying to respond without getting embarassingly foul. must resist… the urge to.. use the word “wet”
damnit.
LM…A..whatever the hell it is. I just snorted cold pizza.
Corey - you said “magic hands”. After that, I didn’t hear much else, you sexy man.