Plato's Allegory of the Cave and TONE

[skunkyfunk]

I just recalled some lesson in college - Plato's allegory of the cave.  It just  inspires me to relate this to our quarrels in this forum.

Do you think Plato's concept of truth also applies in the "tonal" realm?  I mean, is there somebody there who really should tell us WHAT IS TRULY GOOD TONE?  Or are we all prisoners in the first place?  Maybe you have a million dollars worth of gear just to find out you don't have good tone at all.

[vaisteen2003]

its all about preference. A good tone for a metal player is totally different from a jaxx players tone and vice versa.

[BAMF]

Skunky, that is so true.

But then again, let's not rob the cave dwellers of their happiness. Let them all  see the light in their own good time

Seriously, methinks we're all cave dwellers in our own caves. Has anyone really seen the light ? Baka the one who says so is also in his own cave. Di ba ?

That's a real big can of worms there.

[Letour]

Please excuse my ignorance but I just took intercourse in college.

What is the allegory of the cave?

[CARABAO]

for me, those guitar virtuosos we idolize have the tone because most of us (well not really) tend to copy or mix our tone close or even exactly to theirs.

anyway, regarding the cave, these virtuosos, coz they've seen, accepted and understood the light, the truth and the beauty of "real tone", have the responsibility of going back to the cave to open the eyes and redirect the "blind" (or deaf for this matter) towards the good and real. why? because "society", as stated and defined by plato, works under a system of sustained harmony and union amongst its members, through EDUCATION. (though in the end, he says that the best kind of education is through mathematics/mathematical means).. wala lang..

[Deacon Blues]

Wow! a philosophical discourse! ...

Very interesting indeed ...

For me, tone, like truth, is really very subjective. As most of us here agree, one man's meat is another man's poison.

I think it's simple enough if we can all accept some universally-recognized parameters in the realm of sound to be able to really 'define' good tone. But see, that's where the problem lies ...

If all of us here were given just a Strat and a Fender Twin to play with, I'm sure each one of us will dial in totally different settings on the amp, and probably the same different settings on the guitar. What might sound 'normal' to one might sound too trebly to another, and so on ...

Worse, this is often compounded by other psychological factors such as the 'hero worship' mentality where we put our musical idols up on a pedestal, scrutinize their gear to the smallest detail, dissect their likes in the hope of nailing their 'sound.'

But see, none of our guitar heroes would even lay claim to 'their' tone as being the 'ultimate,' because perhaps they've matured enough to realize that it's really a pointless case anyway.

Have we heard Vai lambasting other metal players because they use 'inferior' products? No. Have we heard him boasting of some unattainable piece of gear that only he can lay claim to? Heck, the guy still confesses to using a DS-1 and/or a TS-9 to boost his amps. Modded or not, whatever ... point is, I'm sure he can sound like himself given anything.

The problem is, some gearhounds embrace their heroes' tones so much, proclaim it as 'truth' and proceed to follow that same road in the hope of ... well, attaining their own 'truth' ...

From a hero worship perspective, it's perfectly understandable ... i mean, who doesn't want to sound like his guitar hero, right? But then again, when you think about it, is THAT really all there is to guitar-playing? Is it about finding the 'perfect' amp, the 'perfect' set of pickups, the 'perfect' cable ...

What the hell do you do with all that perfection?

In the end, I think it takes a mature guitarist to literally shed all his preconceived notions of what tone is, start from scratch and really find his own voice ...

Best case in point ... I can't help but be reminded of Wayne Krantz - another monster player who I'm sure most of you have heard of.

I wish I could post an article that he did about finding your own musical voice. In that article, he confessed as to how throughout his formative playing years, he's always been an avid Metheny fan. He got to such a point where he sounded so much like him ... It could've ended there, see?

But, somehow, perhaps an inner voice made him realize that there seems to be no wisdom in that quest, for the simple fact that it wasn't him ...

So, from there, he discarded everything ... as in EVERYTHING - his gear, totally reworked his playing approach all over again ...

The end result? What can I say ... but it's a totally fresh approach to guitar playing that most of us probably can't touch ... I think his 'Long To Be Loose' album best exemplifies his style. At that time, he was using nothing but his vintage 73 strat through a Deluxe Reverb.

Talk about a complete turnaround, huh?

But see, even as his style gradually evolved to that point, he didn't go around proclaiming that he's 'finally seen the light,' or something like that ... as of this time, I think his gear has undergone some changes again as he shifted to Suhrs (not sure about that)

So, going back to the philosophical discourse ...

If we can all agree that tone is subjective, then we're fine.

If we can just shed our own prejudices and learn to respect other people's opinions, then we're fine ...

Because when it comes to tone, nothing's written in stone ...

[Letour]

I still don't know what the allegory of the cave is. I guess I was absent during my philo class.

Please let me know.

[pallas]

was it about swampy and reverb drenched tone

[nathanmanansala]

was it about swampy and reverb drenched tone

... mated to a subtle wobble of the bigsby, then a 1 step dive and release into the intro to the peter gunn theme (or ghostriders in the sky).

aahhh... tonebone inducing indeed.

duane eddy rawwkks

[deltaslim]

I still don't know what the allegory of the cave is. I guess I was absent during my philo class.

Please let me know.

Yeah, but why fret?  You said you were busy having "intercourse" in college? LOL!  

Please excuse my ignorance but I just took intercourse in college.

Just jerkin ur chain, bro. Peace!

Ang naalala ko lang from college is that our concepts are abstractions of forms in reality. Having said that, i think even if there is a universal reality of what good tone is, we don't ALL have to agree to want it.  That is, other people might prefer to not sound like that.

[BAMF]

Oooh...we're really getting into philosophy huh.

How about this : There is no such thing as objective reality. All reality is subjective because we can only perceive the world through our five senses. And when we interpret that information, only then does the information have a meaning. And the way we interpret that information depends on our paradigm...our "model" of the world.

That's perhaps the reason why when we get our first guitar we're so thrilled. As our model changes or matures, we hear the fret buzz, the tinny sound, the this the that.

Hence all discussions about tone are subjective.

Tell you what, try this conjectural exercise. If there was nobody, as in nobody around to tell you or influence you as to what constitutes a great tone, what would your concept of a great tone be ?

[skunkyfunk]

I still don't know what the allegory of the cave is. I guess I was absent during my philo class.

Please let me know.

Maybe you can try googling it out?

[pallas]

was it about swampy and reverb drenched tone

... mated to a subtle wobble of the bigsby, then a 1 step dive and release into the intro to the peter gunn theme (or ghostriders in the sky).

aahhh... tonebone inducing indeed.

duane eddy rawwkks

yes a bigsby.....cool

[tele-tubby]

Please excuse my ignorance but I just took intercourse in college.

and that is all you need for good tone my friend. parang the chickecn and the egg thing.

good tone ==> you'll get lucky , tyak yun!

get lucky ==> you'll get good tone... hell you'd sound like crap for all you care but still think it sounds good! heheh

 

[Deacon Blues]

BAMF: That's a very good point, there!

If there was nobody around to influence our opinions, it would be very interesting to find out what our 'concepts' about tone would end up being ...

Like most 'realities,' most of our concepts about things are based on CONSENSUS...

Even the way we talk about tone, the words we use, the semantics of it all. It makes you wonder what people mean when they use the words 'woody sound' or 'transparent overdrive,'

In a way, 'transparent overdrive' sounds quite contradictory, don't you think.. why the heck would you want your overdrive to be transparent?

And that's a very good observation also about our eventual nitpicking about our guitars and tone..

And it happens all the time, don't you agree?

I always kid my fellow gearhounds about a 'honeymoon stage' where they can't help but gush or go ga-ga over their latest acquisitions, be it a guitar, an amp, or pedal..

But the reality is ... give or take a week, a month, the 'romance' fizzles as soon as the person realizes that, heck, it's just another guitar, pedal or whatever ... sure it may sound good initially, but even that initial thrill soon peters out ...

Taking BAMF's idea further ...

What does it mean to you if you had a mint Fender Strat in your hands? Do you allow yourself to get caught up in the nostalgia of it? Imagine yourself to be Eric Johnson and all that?

If you had such a guitar and nobody to tell you what it was worth, would you appreciate it for what it is?

Would you suddenly look at it differently if someone suddenly told you about its worth and offered you two thousand dollars for it?

It's all relative, in the end ...

[oasgomez-is-banned]

Skunky,

Let me short circuit your philosophy discourse.

You try to discuss the allegory of the cave and relate it to guitar tone which is meaningless because you yourself have chosen to like an amp you have not heard in person.

Like a lot of people here who can judge and make a decision based on looks, soundclips and price, they fail to realize the most important factor is that they have not heard or tried to play on  the so-called thing in person with their own set of hands.

For example, you heard and played a real Diezel Herbert and yet you still compare it to a soundclip of the Bogner XTC which you really want to buy.  Do you really want to get out of your cave?  Save up and go buy your Bogner XTC. If you dont like it, sell it off.

[Deacon Blues]

Uh-oh ... my spider sense is tingling ...

[meashuggahr]

BAMF: That's a very good point, there!

If there was nobody around to influence our opinions, it would be very interesting to find out what our 'concepts' about tone would end up being ...

Like most 'realities,' most of our concepts about things are based on CONSENSUS...

Even the way we talk about tone, the words we use, the semantics of it all. It makes you wonder what people mean when they use the words 'woody sound' or 'transparent overdrive,'

In a way, 'transparent overdrive' sounds quite contradictory, don't you think.. why the heck would you want your overdrive to be transparent?

And that's a very good observation also about our eventual nitpicking about our guitars and tone..

And it happens all the time, don't you agree?

I always kid my fellow gearhounds about a 'honeymoon stage' where they can't help but gush or go ga-ga over their latest acquisitions, be it a guitar, an amp, or pedal..

But the reality is ... give or take a week, a month, the 'romance' fizzles as soon as the person realizes that, heck, it's just another guitar, pedal or whatever ... sure it may sound good initially, but even that initial thrill soon peters out ...

Taking BAMF's idea further ...

What does it mean to you if you had a mint Fender Strat in your hands? Do you allow yourself to get caught up in the nostalgia of it? Imagine yourself to be Eric Johnson and all that?

If you had such a guitar and nobody to tell you what it was worth, would you appreciate it for what it is?

Would you suddenly look at it differently if someone suddenly told you about its worth and offered you two thousand dollars for it?

It's all relative, in the end ...

   

hwarra...thinkers!


"in emptyness, forms are born. when one becomes empty of the assumption, influences, and judgements he has acquired over the years, he comes close to his original nature and is capable of concieving original ideas and reacting freshly."

in music, tone follows talent.
often it comes out last in the chain...but always, music ends in the ears.

[skunkyfunk]

Skunky,

Let me short circuit your philosophy discourse.

You try to discuss the allegory of the cave and relate it to guitar tone which is meaningless because you yourself have chosen to like an amp you have not heard in person.

Like a lot of people here who can judge and make a decision based on looks, soundclips and price, they fail to realize the most important factor is that they have not heard or tried to play on  the so-called thing in person with their own set of hands.

For example, you heard and played a real Diezel Herbert and yet you still compare it to a soundclip of the Bogner XTC which you really want to buy.  Do you really want to get out of your cave?  Save up and go buy your Bogner XTC. If you dont like it, sell it off.

When I buy gear, the first thing I assume is I SHALL BE RECORDING IT.  So that explains why I am dependent on sound clips to begin with.  If you check my previous posts in your Diezel Herbert thread, I very well stated there that soundclips may misrepresent how an amp sounds in real life.  Hearing a sound source in the control room is way different the way you hear it in the live room.

If someone on the other side of the world asks you if your wife is pretty, what will you do?  Would you go on yakking to describe her looks?  Or would you rather send a pic?  IMO, as pictures to real objects, sound recordings are there to give you an idea of how a musical instrument sounds, no more no less.  Can a sound clip tell you how much gain you were using?  TO SOME EXTENT. But the difference betweeen Gain 5 and gain 5.5 is almost undetectable in a soundclip, but to the player in the studio, the 0.5 increase in gain is significant.  

For Christ's sake, I listen to almost every rock and metal album's guitar tones, and it always makes me wonder what they used in the studio.  But whenever I hear something magical, how could it have sounded if I were there in the studio?  World-class record producer, Eddie Kramer, once said a few years back, they dug up a few old live Jimi recordings and they found DI'd guitar tracks instead of the actual mic'd amp sounds, so they had to reamp everything to Jimi's actual setup.  Mind you, when they were reamping and retracking everything, THEY COULD FEEL JIMI'S SPIRIT! They thought it was Jimi back to life!  So are you saying that those DI'd Jimi guitar tracks are meaningless?  

And yes, I am saving up for an XTC which is a measly 3% of what you own at the moment.

[skunkyfunk]

I still don't know what the allegory of the cave is. I guess I was absent during my philo class.

Please let me know.

Maybe you can try googling it out?

Here you go man...

[sonnyrayvaughn]

skunky and oas...stop arguing with each other, youre one and the same! hehehe

on a serious note, both of you raised very valid points naman...kaya why argue... different strokes for different folks...

[oasgomez-is-banned]

Skunky,

The allegory of the cave should not even apply because we are talking about sound.  There should be no concept of sound until one tries the unit and hears it.  There is no one person to tell what it should be but yourself.  However, one has to always admit that there is always something better or different and NOT stop the tonequest.  Why?  Kasi enjoy.

So, there is no philosophy of sound because philosophy applies to the intangible abstract concept.

[markflo]

So, there is no philosophy of sound because philosophy applies to the intangible abstract concept.

i hate to say it, but i agree...