Re: Stepping on silence, mojo and vintage gear

[Kevin <kevin@TheNettles.com>]

At 05:06 AM 12/20/2006, you wrote:
>Since I review gear as part of my work, and since I own a good 
>number of instruments (and play them all), I can say that mojo is 
>absolutely what it's all about,...I think it can sometimes be 
>understood in very practical terms...

Another practical way that mojo can exist is in simple mechanics, 
even apart from the resonant frequencies of the guitar.  For example, 
the frets and the neck may be set in one guitar with such exquisite 
perfection that the action can be set very low without buzzing.  The 
frets may be perfectly rounded.  Such perfection means that the 
acoustic guitar plays like butter.  The bracing in the guitar may be 
of exactly the right dimensions and glued perfectly. The perfection 
may be fleeting--only a couple of guitars of that model in the whole 
world may have that perfection.  A player unschooled in luthiery 
knows what he holds but doesn't have the language or concepts to 
describe it.  All he can say is that the instrument has great 
mojo.  A clerk in a music shop once showed me this with two high-end 
guitars--identical model, wood, date of manufacture, finish, 
everything.  But one sounded good and the other...fantastic.

Cheers,
Kevin
www.TheNettles.com