Guitarists, can you explain this move to me?

[WordMan]

@sleestak

My 2 cents: I suspect that moving the guitar body away from your body allows more feedback because the surface area that the sound can get to on the guitar is quite a bit larger. More sound to body == more vibrations getting to the pups which == feedback.

Hmm. Okay. I can see it. I haven’t experienced it, but get the idea.

Here is a clip to **Eric Skye, ** inveterate guitar waggler, playing So What off Kind of Blue. Just too damn good - he can waggle whenever he wants.

Eric Skye -So What -Solo Fingerstyle Acoustic Guitar

Note: he’s playing a Santa Cruz Eric Skye model (coincidence? I think not!). They are wonderful. That design - a 00 Martin-sized small body, with 12 frets, not 14, clear of the body, is my perfect design for all the ways I play. My old Martin 00 is something that Santa Cruz was going after when they produced the ES model.

[si_blakely]

@WordMan

As for your electric - okay, do you think you get more feedback because you are holding the guitar away from your body, or because the act of holding it away from your body positions the guitar to feed back better?

Oh, it is about positioning the guitar better for control of the feedback - tilting away reduces the feedback percentage to prevent runaway feedback. Twisting or stepping away probably has the same effect, but I like the tilt.

[pulykamell]

@WordMan

Here is a clip to **Eric Skye, ** inveterate guitar waggler, playing So What off Kind of Blue. Just too damn good - he can waggle whenever he wants.

I don’t know much about guitar wagglery, but there it definitely manifests itself acoustically as he moves closer and farther to his mic. There’s a tremolo wobble to the sound, but I even hear the pitch change a few times, so maybe the waggle is also introducing a slight bend on the fretted string. (At 0:20 especially, the note he hits at the end of the phrase goes noticeably flat during the wobble.)

[Saintly_Loser]

@WordMan

While I would love to report “yes,” I have never been the sensitive singer/songwriter type*, or the virtuoso acoustic dude who ends his composition with a warbly flourish.

I was more the type who would play the raucous gig and realize I was being eyed by a gal at the bar who was as likely to either pass out, or toss me over her shoulder, Honky Tonk style in between sets.

*like this guy: Dan Hill, Sometimes When We Touch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jPMXzxvdL8 I have seen him play it on guitar. I can totally see him warblifying his guitar at the end and hooking up with some crunchy-type gal. More power to 'em, but not my thing.

Oh, God. That is the worst song ever written, at least that’s ever been recorded and disseminated to the public. I can’t believe that it ever got him laid. Not even with the crunchiest girl you could imagine.

I’m old – I remember when this monstrosity was an actual hit in heavy rotation on the radio. I vaguely remember being in a band in high school and performing this song with truly obscene lyrics that we made up. We played our version at a high school dance at a Catholic girls’ school. We were not asked back.

[WordMan]

@Saintly_Loser

Oh, God. That is the worst song ever written, at least that’s ever been recorded and disseminated to the public. I can’t believe that it ever got him laid. Not even with the crunchiest girl you could imagine.

I’m old – I remember when this monstrosity was an actual hit in heavy rotation on the radio. I vaguely remember being in a band in high school and performing this song with truly obscene lyrics that we made up. We played our version at a high school dance at a Catholic girls’ school. We were not asked back.

I know, right?! It’s better than a good Punk track for making me wanna smash something. I remember seeing him as a kid on…Mike Douglas? Merv Griffin? And even then thinking “blechhh!” Which for a kid in the 70’s was the same as “what an awful, crunchy-sensitive douchebag!!!”

ETA: puly - oh yeah, Skye knows his waggling. I hear that one you point out 18 seconds in. It’s vibremolo!!

[Superdude]

@WordMan

::ahem:: just realized we hadn’t from the OP in a bit. Superdude, are you getting what you were looking for?

In a manner of speaking. I’m enjoying the back-and-forth while trying to define it.

I suck walnuts at guitar. I don’t have the patience to teach myself to play. But I’m digging the convo.

[Clothahump]

@Enter_the_Flagon

Another possibility is that his guitar wasn’t hanging comfortably and he’s just adjusting it - by lifting the guitar to take all the weight off the strap, so that friction doesn’t pull the strap off either end of the guitar.

Nowadays we have better ways of attaching a guitar strap than the narrow button you see in this video, which was always one step away from disaster.

This. That was a placement adjustment, nothing more.

[WordMan]

@Clothahump

This. That was a placement adjustment, nothing more.

With style!

I choose to think of it as a groove move, but everybody’s mileage varies.

Superdude glad you’re enjoying the fruits of your OP. Get a few guitar geeks together, toss in a question open to various interpretations, and watch the silliness occur!

I looked up a thread on The Les Paul Forum about the guitar. A dealer from Cincy posted this about it almost exactly 10 years ago:

[QUOTE=Mike’s Music]
just checked out the video, Very cool! To my surprise that same guitar was offered to me a few years ago from a guy named Bill Bartlett who is a local famous player and a real nice guy .He played in a band called the Lemon Pipers who had the hit Green Tambourine. I don’t remember him mentioning to me he was in this band . I am pretty sure thats him in this video and I’m sure its the same guitar. It’s a 52 that has been converted , I think, if I remember correctly. It got broke so he made the headstock and stripped the whole guitar .I also believe it had a ebony board at the time put on and new inlays ,abalone I believe. He sold me his Marshall cabs and some other things and I have a pic of that guitar from the 70’s in front of a huge Pot Plant somewhere!
[/QUOTE]