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  #16  
Old 11-13-2014, 07:56 AM
JCook1 JCook1 is offline
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As has already been mentioned, a lot of "folk" performers play on nylon strings. It's a beautiful sound, not to be limited to classical music. Jerry Reed (though not really a "folk" performer, buy certainly finger style) and Duck Baker, as mentioned, are great guitarists who play nylon. For a great sound of nylon strung finger style playing check out the late Bola Sete, a Brazilian guitarist who was brilliant on nylon, playing native Brazilian music and a mix of folk, jazz, and samba. Beautiful music. And don't forget flamenco. Nylon strings have a completely different sound to steel, and so may not be perfectly suitable for blues, for example, yet I've heard blues played on nylon strings and it works just fine. String bending is a bit less effective on nylon, but it can be done. I play steel, but sometimes I wish I had a nylon strung guitar also. It's a whole new guitar world with it's own techniques.

Jack
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  #17  
Old 11-13-2014, 08:10 AM
ukejon ukejon is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry Pattis View Post
I am playing most of my repertoire on a concert quality classical guitar, (not a crossover) as I experiment back and forth between some very nice instruments I have on-hand right now...

Fun, fun, fun...including the stuff in DADGAD. I guess I can't do my bottleneck slide pieces, but so what...I'll leave that to Toby...!

Larry, what guitar are you using? Scale and nut width?

As for folk and nylon.....absolutely love it.
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  #18  
Old 11-13-2014, 11:07 AM
billgennaro billgennaro is offline
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Like others have said, there is nothing wrong with using a nylon guitar for folk. Personally, I don't enjoy it as much when accompanied by singing. I really love classical guitars for instrumental work but I just prefer steel strings for '60s type folk music (in general).
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  #19  
Old 11-13-2014, 11:13 AM
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rlgph rlgph is offline
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What we think of playing folk music on a nylon string guitar is of neglible importance to what you think of it. Since you have a classical guitar and apparently enjoy playing it, i assume you've tred some folk tunes on it. What did/do you think?
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  #20  
Old 11-13-2014, 11:39 AM
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I play a lot of folk music, mostly Lightfoot and some bluegrass. I see no reason why a classical guitar wouldn't work. Just have fun and enjoy the music you make.

Todd
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  #21  
Old 11-13-2014, 11:57 AM
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Larry Pattis Larry Pattis is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry Pattis View Post
I am playing most of my repertoire on a concert quality classical guitar, (not a crossover) as I experiment back and forth between some very nice instruments I have on-hand right now...

Fun, fun, fun...including the stuff in DADGAD. I guess I can't do my bottleneck slide pieces, but so what...I'll leave that to Toby...!

Quote:
Originally Posted by ukejon View Post
Larry, what guitar are you using? Scale and nut width?

As for folk and nylon.....absolutely love it.

I have an amazing local friend, Anders Sterner, who is a true renaissance-man...classical guitar-builder, classical (and other music) guitarist, engineer, auto-mechanic...just a truly superb all-around guy (link to Anders' website in my Sig. File, below).

He just completed a 604mm scale cutaway concert-quality classical guitar for me. Standard flat-fingerboard, 52mm width nut. Aside from the scale and cutaway it is a straight-ahead Classical guitar...and I am loving it.

Frankly, I am simply *amazed* at how strong and pure (and beautiful) Anders has done with the tone/sound with the short scale.

Hard tension Savarez Alliance (w/carbon trebles) are the strings, so far...we will be doing some experiments shortly with swapping-out either full string-sets or individual strings with unusual sizes...
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  #22  
Old 11-13-2014, 01:34 PM
Puddleglum Puddleglum is offline
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If you're interested in nylon string with vocals, I recommend Burl Ives, in particular his box set Wayfaring Stranger. It's great stuff.
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  #23  
Old 11-13-2014, 01:53 PM
jeepnstein jeepnstein is offline
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Classical guitars are really interesting sounding. I think they work especially well with some of the older fiddle tunes and other music that was popular before steel strings were widely accepted. And they just give a different flavor to what you're cooking some times.

There are rarely any right or wrong answers in art. Do what you love and if others love it too then that's a bonus.
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  #24  
Old 11-13-2014, 06:16 PM
NewGuitarist NewGuitarist is offline
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Thanks to everyone who posted. I really appreciate your encouraging words.

Im not a good player to tell the truth, but I can tell you I love the sound I get from my classical when I try some folk fingerstyle on it. I do love its sweet singing tone if you know what I mean..

And just for the record, though it's a different type of instrument when compared to the steel string acoustic, I do play my classical like a regular acoustic. I mean no previous classical training here (footstool, rest stroke...etc.) or anything. just the classical guitar, me and some casual fingerpicking technique of mine
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  #25  
Old 11-13-2014, 06:50 PM
songz songz is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pitar View Post
Nylon is cool. I have a cross-over nylon string guitar with steel string guitar build specs made by Yamaha (NTX-1200R) that gives me the best of both. I play it quite a bit. I also play a traditional classical. Most times I'm on a steel string guitar, though. I prefer the steel string sound.

Paul Simon also used a nylon classical style guitar for much of his work.
A lot of the classical guitar work on Simon and Garfunkel's albums was
actually played by Fred Carter Jr. including "The Boxer".

Ron
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