Unofficial Taylor Guitar Forum - UTGF
Taylor Acoustic & Electric Guitars => Taylor Acoustic & Electric Guitars => Topic started by: tbeltrans on September 16, 2016, 07:56:57 AM
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...that Andy Powers is a bona fide guitar player?
https://www.youtube.com/embed/HGsYMx5lXPc
Somebody over at AGF posted this. It explains a lot. If a builder is also a player, s/he will really understand what it takes to make a guitar feel and sound just right to the player, sort of like actually living by what one claims or "walking the talk". To me, the end result of such a builder will be superior to those who claim "I don't play, I just build them".
Tony
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Thanks for posting. Impressive!
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I knew.
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I knew too.
Taylor is lucky to have Andy. We all get to benefit from his work and I love to hear him play. :)
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I knew. There have been some great luthier/players over the years. The late, great Jimmy D'Aquisto comes to mind. Besides being a lightening-fast, yet tasteful jazz player, Jimmy built some fabulous guitars. No slouch when it came to repair work either. I once had the pleasure of meeting him when he did an excellent re-fret job on my old Gibson Hummingbird years ago.
Having said that, there are many great luthier/builders out there whose guitars are chosen over others, because they fit each player's unique needs - what they want to hear, how the guitar plays or even how it looks. I think that Andy's a great builder, but his build style is not for everyone, just as Bob's build style was not for everyone.
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I agree that any single builder's style is not for everyone, and hope I didn't give the opposite impression. Sometimes I feel as if I would have to write a book length post to clearly cover everything I touch on well enough to be clear. But, then, I see that as being a more common problem than with just me. You can really see it in the "Open Mic" section of AGF. :)
What I am saying is that being a guitar player himself, Andy Powers has first-hand knowledge and sense of what a player's guitar will be. For me personally, I find these Taylors to be much easier to play than most any other acoustic I have played, and this seems to be consistent across all the (especially most recent) Taylors I have played. Even those who choose other guitars over Taylor will say that one thing they like about Taylors is how easy they are on the hands.
Everybody has different priorities when choosing a guitar. For many, according to what I have read over at AGF, sound is paramount. I am sure I could find other makers whose guitars might sound better to my ears than a Taylor, though I am *NOT* saying there is anything wrong with the Taylor sound - I like it a lot. However, I think I would be hard pressed to find a guitar that is as easy on the hands right out of the box as a Taylor. For me, especially as I get older, this is a very important thing, and is quickly becoming my highest priority. Another aspect of Taylor guitars that works in concert with the fretboard/neck shaping is the body shape. With the GA body shape, we don't have to compromise sound with a smaller body size, and yet that body is quite comfortable to hold and play.
These are guitars that are produced in relatively large numbers (compared to small shop boutique instruments), yet they have aspects one might normally expect in a guitar custom built for a specific owner. I have owned enough of these over the years (Collings, SCGC, etc), so I am basing my statements on my own experience and observations. I really believe (and could well be very wrong...) that Andy Powers, as a player, understands this, though I realize he didn't define the standard Taylor body sizes and shapes. He has done a lot to maximize what was already there when he started with Taylor, and made "good" even "better".
As a bit of background, I am a late comer to the Taylor line of guitars. I have long been aware of them, but seemed to end up with some typically more expensive small shop brands. I did own a 1997 Taylor 912c a few months ago, but did not bond with it. I decided to try some of the new Andy Powers era Taylors, despite reading often enough that the mid 90s were supposed to be Taylor's "golden years". I guess I didn't find those Taylors particularly compelling for me personally, either that 912c or others I had tried from time to time. However, the new crop of Taylors are (to me) extremely high quality and much improved even in terms of the playability that Taylor is known for. Clearly, many here who have been Taylor owners for some time will know much about Taylor as a company and the guitars themselves than I do. So it may well be that what is a revelation to me is common knowledge to everybody else here.
Obviously, as with any guitar one size does not fit all, and there are those who would choose the older Taylors over the new models. So I suppose I can say that Taylor is now building the kind of instrument that I would purchase, and therefore have purchased. Maybe it is just that if Andy Taylor was a run-of-the-mill guitar consumer like me, we would likely choose very similar guitars, because what he seems to think a guitar should be, more closely matches what I think a guitar should be than anything I have played in recent history. I like the way he plays, and he seems to do similar things fingerstyle that I do, so if a Taylor is a good fit for him, it likely would be for me too.
Tony
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I don't know what happened, but I somehow ended completely qouting my previous post, so please ignore this one.
Tony
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In short, Taylors REALLY don't suck.
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In short, Taylors REALLY don't suck.
Well, true, but...?
Tony
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I don't think there's a but. They're just really great guit-boxes.
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It explains a lot. If a builder is also a player, s/he will really understand what it takes to make a guitar feel and sound just right to the player, sort of like actually living by what one claims or "walking the talk". To me, the end result of such a builder will be superior to those who claim "I don't play, I just build them".
Tony
I dunno. George Lowden really isn't a player. Dermot McIlroy is. I think that says...nothing.
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I don't think there's a but. They're just really great guit-boxes.
I agree with that.
Tony
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....
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It's no accident that Powers was selected to guide Taylor Guitars AND is a great guitar player. Being a really good guitarist was one of the items that Bob Taylor wanted for his successor. Around the time that Powers joined the company, I saw him speak. He recounted that Bob Taylor was encouraged to go see him perform, and the rest is history...
Bob called it his “dear god” letter, in which he wrote out a list of qualities such a person would have. As Taylor recounts, it went something like this: “I need a guitar maker who’s a better builder than I am, a pro player, is self taught, has 20 years of experience, is in his 30s, and can make a lifetime commitment.” A wishful list for sure, and one that Bob says he put away for a year or so until a chain of events led him to spending an afternoon with an extraordinarily talented builder and guitarist in the San Diego area named Andy Powers.
Coincidentally, it wasn’t the first time the two had met. Years earlier, at an acoustic concert in San Diego, a then 15-year-old Powers showed Taylor a ukulele he had built. Impressed by its quality, Taylor told Powers to look him up if he ever needed a job. That didn’t happen, but approximately 20 years later Andy was playing at the NAMM Show with Jason Mraz when he had the opportunity to reintroduce himself to Bob and recount the story of their previous meeting.
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Again, I 'm glad to own both older and newer Taylors, after having owned Lowden, Santa Cruz, along with Martin, Gibson, Guild, Ovation, Takamine and Larrivee among others. The variety I now enjoy with my Taylor GAs is due to age, shape, bracing and wood choices. So after all that searching, I am a big Taylor fan who can still appreciate other brands with the quality they offer. But my approach has resulted in the guitar getting out of the way of my performance. No matter which one I pick up, the adjustment is virtually non-existent.
In any case, we are experiencing a Renaissance of guitar building these days with something for everyone. Just look at Bourgeois, Collings and Santa Cruz as fine examples of 21st century craftsmanship. Isn't it great?
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Again, I 'm glad to own both older and newer Taylors, after having owned Lowden, Santa Cruz, along with Martin, Gibson, Guild, Ovation, Takamine and Larrivee among others. The variety I now enjoy with my Taylor GAs is due to age, shape, bracing and wood choices. So after all that searching, I am a big Taylor fan who can still appreciate other brands with the quality they offer. But my approach has resulted in the guitar getting out of the way of my performance. No matter which one I pick up, the adjustment is virtually non-existent.
In any case, we are experiencing a Renaissance of guitar building these days with something for everyone. Just look at Bourgeois, Collings and Santa Cruz as fine examples of 21st century craftsmanship. Isn't it great?
Agreed. Many fine guitars to be had these days. As per my signature, I also have a William Kelday and a couple of original CA Guitars Cargos. From what I read, Ellis Seal, who developed the Cargo, was an engineer who developed the carbon fiber materials for the space shuttle and for the Boeing 757. He is a guitar player who wanted to apply his knowledge to building guitars. As for William Kelday, I don't know much about him, so I can't really say one way or another.
M19's point is taken. I should have worded my post a bit differently. However, as posted by jrporter (thanks for the info, by the way), Bob Taylor was looking for somebody who also played guitar. I assume Taylor had a reason for that. I suspect most of these builders play at least SOME guitar. I have seen some videos featuring George Lowden, and he certainly seems comfortable on the guitar fretboard. Whatever the case, there is a very wide array of fine instruments to choose from these days, something for everybody and we don't all have to bond with the same type of instrument. I personally am amazed by the more recent guitars Taylor is putting on the market. I have always expected top notch from the small shop and individual builders, and they certainly don't disappoint.
Tony
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andy is a self taught luthier and a pro player, which is why,
among countless other reasons, bob pursued him to come to Taylor -
they have a common bond and friendship with musician jason mraz
that being said, i don't believe that a luthier must be a pro level player
in order to build guitars that players desire to purchase & play for the
simple reason that probably 95%, or more, of people that play guitar
are not at the pro level, but can still appreciate tone, playability & quality -
for those, an instrument that suits their style of play can make them
sound better & inspire them to spend more playing & exploring what
that instrument has to offer, creating an expansion of their musical palette
now, if a luthier builds an instrument that requires a pro level player's abilities
to get every last bit of nuance & tone the instrument has to offer, then for the
other 95% or so, that same guitar may not be 'all that & a bag of chips', which can
be a rather difficult spot to be in, if there are 150,000-175,000 guitars made a year
does a pro player automatically make a better luthier?
imho, not necessarily
a luthier does need to have the ability to fine tune the instrument during the
building process, in order to produce the tone they envision for that guitar,
but they do not need to be able to sell out stadiums & world wide tours
i'm thinking along the line of a car analogy -
ford builds hundreds of thousands of 6 cylinder automatic mustang coupes for
rental fleets each year, but they also build the mustang GT and shelby GT350/R
there are aftermarket tuners (hennessey, roush, saleen & steeda) that take a
435hp mustang GT and upgrade the engine, driveline, suspension & brakes,
while increasing the power level to the 750-780hp range (with a supercharger) -
avis, budget, enterprise, hertz & national don't normally rent a steeda Q750
the average driver can get into trouble with a 300hp 6 cylinder vehicle, but
if the power level is doubled & then increased another 25% or so, only those
that the ability bordering on a pro race driver can only begin to explore the
limits of that vehicle, which has been tweaked to within an inch of it's life
imho, bob is being extremely modest about his playing abilities
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYKdzfOG0M8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYKdzfOG0M8)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v1Lycygn8M (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v1Lycygn8M)
ymmv
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michaelw: I get what you're saying and don't really disagree, but a cooking analogy might be more apt since cars are built on assembly lines, not by a single person. I know that Taylors aren't built by a single person, but that is what Andy Powers (and many other builders) did prior to his coming to Taylor. Not sure if this is true; but I assume that when he is developing or reworking a new design, Andy would do the build himself. Those same cars aren't test driven by the builders whereas chefs both prepare and test their foods. It would make sense that a good chef would have an exacting palate, but I recall a vegetarian contestant on Masterchef preparing but not tasting meat dishes. According to the judges, her dishes were exquisite despite not having sampled them. One could only wonder if that same dish might have been improved upon by a chef who actually tasted it versus one with the technical skills and/or memory necessary to combine the correct ingredients in the correct proportions and hope for the best. The same might be questioned of a guitar builder who has the technical building skills but hasn't the requisite playing skills to coax every nuance out of a stack of wood...
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To me, it does not make sense that any given pro player would make a good luthier, or even a luthier at all. A person can certainly be interested in playing guitar, while having absolutely no interest in woodworking.
However, it does seem logical to me that a luthier or a guitar repair person would at least have SOME passing familiarity with playing guitar so that s/he has some idea of what the end goal of the build process is to be. I don't think I ever said that the luthier has to be a pro level player. Even the ability to play around with some basic chords, and be able to do so fingerstyle, if that is the type of instrument being built. To me, this seems logical, but may seem totally out in the weeds to somebody else here.
We can examine this idea to no end, but I am not sure what that actually gets us. Maybe I should have set up some sort of poll (assuming this site supports that) and people could agree or not that this seems logical. In the end, does it really matter? To me, it makes perfect sense that Andy Powers plays guitar, whether pro level or not has nothing to do with it in my mind. His guitars seem extremely playable right out of the box, so to speak. I think that one possible explanation is that both he and Bob Taylor (based on information provided in this thread), get it - the combinations of little things that make a guitar playable for the player.
Maybe this does not make any sense to some others here, will it seems to, to others here. A person could make an argument either way, but why? Does it REALLY matter in the end? Since I am not Andy Powers and I don't know him, this is completely conjecture on my part. I am expressing a belief, not a fact here. Nobody has any more or less truth in this unless s/he personally knows Andy Powers. I have a lot of respect for the work he is doing at Taylor, and maybe I should leave it at that.
By the way...thanks jrporter for your insights.
Thanks,
Tony
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OP: yes, I knew. In 2013 I had the pleasure of seeing him perform in a house concert. A tip of the ol' hat (or cap in this case) to Mr Powers; Taylor's in good luthierie hands.