What are you listening to?
- Thread starter John Kemker
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this girl can wail
smokin' Big Band:
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my latest earworm, what a beautiful melody and chords:
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SMOOOOOTH- on a good stereo
beautiful guitar music RIP
Good tracks. Fanny drummer playing with sticks reversed, they have such a 70's sound.
12 years living in Macon GA, I'm drenched with the ABB's soul, those guys were really something else. Most folks hear Blue Sky and Soulshine and don't realize what a big influence jazz had on them. I read an interview with Duane from '70 or so, and he was talking Bird and Miles instead of typical 60's influences.
I was fortunate to see him once, long ago in ATL at a great venue. He's one of a kind.
The solo by which all others will try to best- Cory Henry
great arrangement and solos:
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I've fallen in love with this:
fun song
smokin drummer
Asian girls are "Getting Down"
seems to be thousands of new pro players coming out every year now:
strangest fretboard on a guitar 
How sure wish I could have been sitting in the middle of that cathedral:
Sooner Boomer
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strangest fretboard on a guitar
"Fanned" fret
stealth6
insert witty tagline here
strangest fretboard on a guitar
They're called fan frets.
I used to build guitars/basses, and have built a few with this fretting.
The idea comes from the fact (physics) that if two strings of different lengths are tuned to the same pitch, the longer one will have a richer timbre (or at least a different one) and the shorter one will be more clear. Different manufacturers (ie: Gibson, Fender, Taylor, etc.) each have slightly different scale lengths which they use based on the overall timbre or "sound" they are looking for. In fanned fret guitars, the lower pitched strings have more "depth" and the higher pitched strings have more "clarity". This is entirely subjective of course, but the differences are noticeable (especially to a trained ear).
To put it another way.....the bass side of the instrument is more optimized for richness/fullness/depth and the treble side is more optimized for clarity/precision/focus, with a smooth transition across the spectrum. This gives the overall instrument a "better sound", richness and clarity in one.
The second reason comes from the anatomy of human arms. You can see this yourself even if you don't play guitar. Imagine you are playing an "air guitar"....now move your fretting hand (left for most folk) up and down the "neck".....watch the angle of your index finger on that hand. Notice how the angle changes.....when you are farther out (toward the "headstock") that finger is pointing out to your left, and when you are closer to the "body" that finger is pointing the other direction. Now look at that fretboard on Charlie's guitar.....see how the angle of the frets pretty much matches what your hand was naturally doing already? Hmmmmmm, interesting no? Some builders (and the originators of this idea, generally credited to Ralph Novak) believe that fan fret guitars are MUCH more naturally ergonomic, and say that "normal" guitars are what's strange and they were only built the way they are because it's a whole lot easier/simpler/cheaper to do it that way. Some players find fan fret instruments easier (meaning more natural and comfortable) to play than "regular" ones. Definitely works for Charlie.
A builder I studied with (Harry Fleishmann) who does a lot of fan fret instruments said it this way..."If God didn't want us to play fan frets, or to masturbate, he wouldn't have put our elbows where he did".
s6
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I always thought that a guitar fretboard is the most non-ergonomic instrument that you can try to play with your wrist all buckled back towards your body and trying to press on a board that way. I would think that you're wrist would be so sore after a two hour gig
stealth6
insert witty tagline here
Yep.....exactly the thing (one of them) that fan fretting is addressing. Like I said, some players absolutely swear by fan fretting for this very reason.
That said, there are downsides. Chief among them is string bending is problematic. Another is that building a guitar with them is definitely trickier, as are repairs and setups. Then, if you are really doing it right, the actual amount of "fan" and where it starts and begins is actually quite specific to each player (every player has different ergonomic needs) and therefore the instrument really needs to be custom built to do it correctly. These last two points generally make for a more expensive instrument. Most players learn, and are therefore more used to, normal fretting which makes fan fretting something new to learn (conversely if they had started out on fan frets, they would almost certainly no way ever want to make the switch to standard ones). And quite honestly, so much great music has been played on "normal" guitars for so long, most folks think "why change it?".
In general, more bass players (who usually don't bend notes/strings, and that have longer scale lengths) than guitar players find fan fretting beneficial.....both for tonal and ergonomic reasons.
By the way, Pat Metheny (who I know you are a big fan of) has one famous guitar that incorporates some of the concepts of this, though not quite as described. Can you think of which one that is?
s6
He's my favorite musician, but I have no idea of which guitar it is
I'm a trumpet player.
