Gayly the troubadour Touched his guitar.
I write from instinct, from inexplicable sparkle. I don't know why I'm writing what I'm writing. Usually, I sit and I let my hands wander on my guitar. And I sing anything. I play anything. And I wait till I come across a pleasing accident. Then I start to develop it. Once you take a piece of musical information, there are certain implications that it automatically contains — the implication of that phrase elongated, contracted, or inverted or in another time signature. So you start with an impulse and go to what your ear likes.
I look at the world and I notice it’s turning. While my guitar gently weeps. With every mistake we must surely be learning, Still my guitar gently weeps.
Oh, leave the gay and festive scenes, The halls of dazzling light.
Recently deceased blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan "comes to" after his death. He sees Jimi Hendrix sitting next to him, tuning his guitar. "Holy cow," he thinks to himself, "this guy is my idol." Over at the microphone, about to sing, are Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, and the bassist is the late Barry Oakley of the Allman Brothers. So Stevie Ray's thinking, "Oh, wow! I've died and gone to rock and roll heaven." Just then, Karen Carpenter walks in, sits down at the drums, and says: "'Close to You'. Hit it, boys!" -- Told by Penn Jillette, of magic/comedy duo Penn and Teller
I played lead guitar in a band called The Federal Duck, which is the kind of name that was popular in the '60s as a result of controlled substances being in widespread use. Back then, there were no restrictions, in terms of talent, on who could make an album, so we made one, and it sounds like a group of people who have been given powerful but unfamiliar instruments as a therapy for a degenerative nerve disease. -- Dave Barry, "The Snake"
Usually, in the studio, on this sort of thing ... you just go out and have a play over it, and see what comes, and it's usually -- mostly -- the first take that's the best one, and you find yourself repeating yourself thereafter. -- David Gilmour, on the famous guitar solo in "Time"
Well, my daddy left home when I was three, And he didn't leave much for Ma and me, Just and old guitar an'a empty bottle of booze. Now I don't blame him 'cause he ran and hid, But the meanest thing that he ever did, Was before he left he went and named me Sue. ... But I made me a vow to the moon and the stars, I'd search the honkey tonks and the bars, And kill the man that give me that awful name. It was Gatlinburg in mid-July, I'd just hit town and my throat was dry, Thought I'd stop and have myself a brew, At an old saloon on a street of mud, Sitting at a table, dealing stud, Sat that dirty (bleep) that named me Sue. ... Now, I knew that snake was my own sweet Dad, From a wornout picture that my Mother had, And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye... -- Johnny Cash, "A Boy Named Sue"
Louie Louie, me gotta go Louie Louie, me gotta go Fine little girl she waits for me Me catch the ship for cross the sea Me sail the ship all alone Three nights and days me sail the sea Me never thinks me make it home Me think of girl constantly (chorus) On the ship I dream she there I smell the rose in her hair Me see Jamaica moon above (chorus, guitar solo) It won't be long, me see my love I take her in my arms and then Me tell her I never leave again -- The real words to The Kingsmen's classic "Louie Louie"
Playing an unamplified electric guitar is like strumming on a picnic table. -- Dave Barry, "The Snake"
Leslie West heads for the sticks, to Providence, Rhode Island and tries to hide behind a beard. No good. There are still too many people and too many stares, always taunting, always smirking. He moves to the outskirts of town. He finds a place to live -- huge mansion, dirt cheap, caretaker included. He plugs in his guitar and plays as loud as he wants, day and night, and there's no one to laugh or boo or even look bored. Nobody's cut the grass in months. What's happened to that caretaker? What neighborhood people there are start to talk, and what kids there are start to get curious. A 13 year-old blond with an angelic face misses supper. Before the summer's end, four more teenagers have disappeared. The senior class president, Barnard-bound come autumn, tells Mom she's going out to a movie one night and stays out. The town's up in arms, but just before the police take action, the kids turn up. They've found a purpose. They go home for their stuff and tell the folks not to worry but they'll be going now. They're in a band. -- Ira Kaplan
I learned to play guitar just to get the girls, and anyone who says they didn't is just lyin'! -- Willie Nelson
He reached the gate of the house and had his hand on the bell, when he suddenly stopped. He felt that he was trembling all over with anger. Suddenly he let go of the bell, turned back with a curse, and walked with rapid steps in the opposite direction. He walked a mile and a half to a tiny, slanting, wooden house, almost a hut, where Marya Kondratyevna, the neighbor who used to come to Fyodor Pavlovitch's kitchen for soup and to whom Smerdyakov had once sung his songs and played on the guitar, was now lodging. She had sold their little house, and was now living here with her mother. Smerdyakov, who was ill--almost dying--had been with them ever since Fyodor Pavlovitch's death. It was to him Ivan was going now, drawn by a sudden and irresistible prompting.
"When she had finished, she gave the guitar to Agatha, who at first declined it. She played a simple air, and her voice accompanied it in sweet accents, but unlike the wondrous strain of the stranger. The old man appeared enraptured and said some words which Agatha endeavoured to explain to Safie, and by which he appeared to wish to express that she bestowed on him the greatest delight by her music.
There was no one in the summer-house. Alyosha sat down and began to wait. He looked round the summer-house, which somehow struck him as a great deal more ancient than before. Though the day was just as fine as yesterday, it seemed a wretched little place this time. There was a circle on the table, left no doubt from the glass of brandy having been spilt the day before. Foolish and irrelevant ideas strayed about his mind, as they always do in a time of tedious waiting. He wondered, for instance, why he had sat down precisely in the same place as before, why not in the other seat. At last he felt very depressed--depressed by suspense and uncertainty. But he had not sat there more than a quarter of an hour, when he suddenly heard the thrum of a guitar somewhere quite close. People were sitting, or had only just sat down, somewhere in the bushes not more than twenty paces away. Alyosha suddenly recollected that on coming out of the summer-house the day before, he had caught a glimpse of an old green low garden-seat among the bushes on the left, by the fence. The people must be sitting on it now. Who were they?
Then something unexpected happened. Alyosha suddenly sneezed. They were silent. Alyosha got up and walked towards them. He found Smerdyakov dressed up and wearing polished boots, his hair pomaded, and perhaps curled. The guitar lay on the garden-seat. His companion was the daughter of the house, wearing a light-blue dress with a train two yards long. She was young and would not have been bad-looking, but that her face was so round and terribly freckled.
"Certainly you give a most commonplace air to your explanation, but it is not the less true that you--Ah, but what do I hear?" and Morcerf inclined his head towards the door, through which sounds seemed to issue resembling those of a guitar.
"Anisya, go and see if the strings of my guitar are all right. I haven't touched it for a long time. That's it--come on! I've given it up."
"Uncle" sang as peasants sing, with full and naive conviction that the whole meaning of a song lies in the words and that the tune comes of itself, and that apart from the words there is no tune, which exists only to give measure to the words. As a result of this the unconsidered tune, like the song of a bird, was extraordinarily good. Natasha was in ecstasies over "Uncle's" singing. She resolved to give up learning the harp and to play only the guitar. She asked "Uncle" for his guitar and at once found the chords of the song.
Without looking at anyone, "Uncle" blew the dust off it and, tapping the case with his bony fingers, tuned the guitar and settled himself in his armchair. He took the guitar a little above the fingerboard, arching his left elbow with a somewhat theatrical gesture, and, with a wink at Anisya Fedorovna, struck a single chord, pure and sonorous, and then quietly, smoothly, and confidently began playing in very slow time, not My Lady, but the well-known song: Came a maiden down the street. The tune, played with precision and in exact time, began to thrill in the hearts of Nicholas and Natasha, arousing in them the same kind of sober mirth as radiated from Anisya Fedorovna's whole being. Anisya Fedorovna flushed, and drawing her kerchief over her face went laughing out of the room. "Uncle" continued to play correctly, carefully, with energetic firmness, looking with a changed and inspired expression at the spot where Anisya Fedorovna had just stood. Something seemed to be laughing a little on one side of his face under his gray mustaches, especially as the song grew brisker and the time quicker and when, here and there, as he ran his fingers over the strings, something seemed to snap.
A man's voice suddenly began singing in a sugary falsetto, accompanying himself on the guitar:
"Oh, if only he would come quicker! I am so afraid it will never be! And, worst of all, I am growing old--that's the thing! There won't then be in me what there is now. But perhaps he'll come today, will come immediately. Perhaps he has come and is sitting in the drawing room. Perhaps he came yesterday and I have forgotten it." She rose, put down the guitar, and went to the drawing room.
Having as it were reviewed her kingdom, tested her power, and made sure that everyone was submissive, but that all the same it was dull, Natasha betook herself to the ballroom, picked up her guitar, sat down in a dark corner behind a bookcase, and began to run her fingers over the strings in the bass, picking out a passage she recalled from an opera she had heard in Petersburg with Prince Andrew. What she drew from the guitar would have had no meaning for other listeners, but in her imagination a whole series of reminiscences arose from those sounds. She sat behind the bookcase with her eyes fixed on a streak of light escaping from the pantry door and listened to herself and pondered. She was in a mood for brooding on the past.
"One day, when the sun shone on the red leaves that strewed the ground and diffused cheerfulness, although it denied warmth, Safie, Agatha, and Felix departed on a long country walk, and the old man, at his own desire, was left alone in the cottage. When his children had departed, he took up his guitar and played several mournful but sweet airs, more sweet and mournful than I had ever heard him play before. At first his countenance was illuminated with pleasure, but as he continued, thoughtfulness and sadness succeeded; at length, laying aside the instrument, he sat absorbed in reflection.
What a doleful night! How anxious, how dismal, how long! There was an inhospitable smell in the room, of cold soot and hot dust; and, as I looked up into the corners of the tester over my head, I thought what a number of blue-bottle flies from the butchers', and earwigs from the market, and grubs from the country, must be holding on up there, lying by for next summer. This led me to speculate whether any of them ever tumbled down, and then I fancied that I felt light falls on my face,--a disagreeable turn of thought, suggesting other and more objectionable approaches up my back. When I had lain awake a little while, those extraordinary voices with which silence teems began to make themselves audible. The closet whispered, the fireplace sighed, the little washing-stand ticked, and one guitar-string played occasionally in the chest of drawers. At about the same time, the eyes on the wall acquired a new expression, and in every one of those staring rounds I saw written, DON'T GO HOME.
"It was on one of these days, when my cottagers periodically rested from labour--the old man played on his guitar, and the children listened to him--that I observed the countenance of Felix was melancholy beyond expression; he sighed frequently, and once his father paused in his music, and I conjectured by his manner that he inquired the cause of his son's sorrow. Felix replied in a cheerful accent, and the old man was recommencing his music when someone tapped at the door.
Anisya Fedorovna, with her light step, willingly went to fulfill her errand and brought back the guitar.
"Like a fool, I went round to him just for a minute, on the way to see Mitya, for he is ill, too, my Pole," Grushenka began again with nervous haste. "I was laughing, telling Mitya about it. 'Fancy,' I said, 'my Pole had the happy thought to sing his old songs to me to the guitar. He thought I would be touched and marry him!' Mitya leapt up swearing.... So, there, I'll send them the pies! Fenya, is it that little girl they've sent? Here, give her three roubles and pack a dozen pies up in a paper and tell her to take them. And you, Alyosha, be sure to tell Mitya that I did send them the pies."
"The next morning Felix went out to his work, and after the usual occupations of Agatha were finished, the Arabian sat at the feet of the old man, and taking his guitar, played some airs so entrancingly beautiful that they at once drew tears of sorrow and delight from my eyes. She sang, and her voice flowed in a rich cadence, swelling or dying away like a nightingale of the woods.
"You don't mean you would run away?" But Smerdyakov did not deign to reply. After a moment's silence the guitar tinkled again, and he sang again in the same falsetto:
So Mary Jane took us up, and she showed them their rooms, which was plain but nice. She said she'd have her frocks and a lot of other traps took out of her room if they was in Uncle Harvey's way, but he said they warn't. The frocks was hung along the wall, and before them was a curtain made out of calico that hung down to the floor. There was an old hair trunk in one corner, and a guitar-box in another, and all sorts of little knickknacks and jimcracks around, like girls brisken up a room with. The king said it was all the more homely and more pleasanter for these fixings, and so don't disturb them. The duke's room was pretty small, but plenty good enough, and so was my cubby.
"When one reflects that that scoundrel was so vile as to turn carbonaro! Why did you leave my house? To go and become a Republican! Pssst! In the first place, the people want none of your republic, they have common sense, they know well that there always have been kings, and that there always will be; they know well that the people are only the people, after all, they make sport of it, of your republic--do you understand, idiot? Is it not a horrible caprice? To fall in love with Pere Duchesne, to make sheep's-eyes at the guillotine, to sing romances, and play on the guitar under the balcony of '93--it's enough to make one spit on all these young fellows, such fools are they! They are all alike. Not one escapes. It suffices for them to breathe the air which blows through the street to lose their senses. The nineteenth century is poison. The first scamp that happens along lets his beard grow like a goat's, thinks himself a real scoundrel, and abandons his old relatives. He's a Republican, he's a romantic. What does that mean, romantic? Do me the favor to tell me what it is. All possible follies. A year ago, they ran to Hernani. Now, I just ask you, Hernani! antitheses! abominations which are not even written in French! And then, they have cannons in the courtyard of the Louvre. Such are the rascalities of this age!"
One of the earliest representations (fig. 4) of a guitar in Western Europe occurs in a Passionale from Zwifalten A.D. 1180, now in the Royal Library at Stuttgart.[15] St Pelagia seated on an ass holds a rotta, or cithara in transition, while one of the men-servants leading her ass holds her guitar. Both instruments have three strings and the characteristic guitar outline with incurvations, the rotta differing in having no neck. Mersenne[16] writing early in the 17th century describes and figures two Spanish guitars, one with four, the other with five strings; the former had a cittern head, the latter the straight head bent back at an obtuse angle from the neck, as in the modern instrument; he gives the Italian, French and Spanish tablatures which would seem to show that the guitar already enjoyed a certain vogue in France and Italy as well as in Spain. Mersenne states that the proportions of the guitar demand that the length of the neck from shoulder to nut shall be equal to the length of the body from the centre of the rose to the tail end. From this time until the middle of the 19th century the guitar enjoyed great popularity on the continent, and became the fashionable instrument in England after the Peninsular War, mainly through the virtuosity of Ferdinand Sor, who also wrote compositions for it. This popularity of the guitar was due less to its merits as a solo instrument than to the ease with which it could be mastered sufficiently to accompany the voice. The advent of the Spanish guitar in England led to the wane in the popularity of the cittern, also known at that time in contradistinction as the English or wire-strung guitar, although the two instruments differed in many particulars. As further evidence of the great popularity of the guitar all over Europe may be instanced the extraordinary number of books extant on the instrument, giving instructions how to play the guitar and read the tablature.[17] (K. S.) Entry: FIG
KISSAR, or GYTARAH BARBARYEH, the ancient Nubian lyre, still in use in Egypt and Abyssinia. It consists of a body having instead of the traditional tortoiseshell back a shallow, round bowl of wood, covered with a sound-board of sheepskin, in which are three small round sound-holes. The arms, set through the sound-board at points distant about the third of the diameter from the circumference, have the familiar fan shape. Five gut strings, knotted round the bar and raised from the sound-board by means of a bridge tailpiece similar to that in use on the modern guitar, are plucked by means of a plectrum by the right hand for the melody, while the left hand sometimes twangs some of the strings as a soft drone accompaniment. Entry: KISSAR
We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out. -- Decca Recording Company, turning down the Beatles, 1962
GÓNGORA Y ARGOTE, LUIS DE (1561-1627), Spanish lyric poet, was born at Cordova on the 11th of July 1561. His father, Francisco de Argote, was _corregidor_ of that city; the poet early adopted the surname of his mother, Leonora de Góngora, who was descended from an ancient family. At the age of fifteen he entered as a student of civil and canon law at the university of Salamanca; but he obtained no academic distinctions and was content with an ordinary pass degree. He was already known as a poet in 1585 when Cervantes praised him in the _Galatea_; in this same year he took minor orders, and shortly afterwards was nominated to a canonry at Cordova. About 1605-1606 he was ordained priest, and thenceforth resided principally at Valladolid and Madrid, where, as a contemporary remarks, he "noted and stabbed at everything with his satirical pen." His circle of admirers was now greatly enlarged; but the acknowledgment accorded to his singular genius was both slight and tardy. Ultimately indeed, through the influence of the duke of Sandoval, he obtained an appointment as honorary chaplain to Philip III., but even this slight honour he was not permitted long to enjoy. In 1626 a severe illness, which seriously impaired his memory, compelled his retirement to Cordova, where he died on the 24th of May 1627. An edition of his poems was published almost immediately after his death by Juan Lopez de Vicuña; the frequently reprinted edition by Hozes did not appear till 1633. The collection consists of numerous sonnets, odes, ballads, songs for the guitar, and of certain larger poems, such as the _Soledades_ and the _Polifemo_. Too many of them exhibit that tortuous elaboration of style (_estilo culto_) with which the name of Góngora is inseparably associated; but though Góngora has been justly censured for affected Latinisms, unnatural transpositions, strained metaphors and frequent obscurity, it must be admitted that he was a man of rare genius,--a fact cordially acknowledged by those of his contemporaries who were most capable of judging. It was only in the hands of those who imitated Góngora's style without inheriting his genius that _culteranismo_ became absurd. Besides his lyrical poems Góngora is the author of a play entitled _Las Firmezas de Isabel_ and of two incomplete dramas, the _Comedia venatoria_ and _El Doctor Carlino_. The only satisfactory edition of his works is that published by R. Foulché-Delbose in the _Bibliotheca Hispanica_. Entry: GÓNGORA
JAMESON, ANNA BROWNELL (1794-1860), British writer, was born in Dublin on the 17th of May 1794. Her father, Denis Brownell Murphy (d. 1842), a miniature and enamel painter, removed to England in 1798 with his family, and eventually settled at Hanwell, near London. At sixteen years of age Anna became governess in the family of the marquis of Winchester. In 1821 she was engaged to Robert Jameson. The engagement was broken off, and Anna Murphy accompanied a young pupil to Italy, writing in a fictitious character a narrative of what she saw and did. This diary she gave to a bookseller on condition of receiving a guitar if he secured any profits. Colburn ultimately published it as _The Diary of an Ennuyée_ (1826), which attracted much attention. The author was governess to the children of Mr Littleton, afterwards Lord Hatherton, from 1821 to 1825, when she married Robert Jameson. The marriage proved unhappy; when, in 1829, Jameson was appointed puisne judge in the island of Dominica the couple separated without regret, and Mrs Jameson visited the Continent again with her father. Entry: JAMESON
MANET, ÉDOUARD (1832-1883), French painter, regarded as the most important master of Impressionism (q.v.), was born in Paris on the 23rd of January 1832. After spending some time under the tuition of the Abbé Poiloup, he entered the Collège Rollin, where his passion for drawing led him to neglect all his other lessons. His studies finished in 1848, he was placed on board the ship _Guadeloupe_, voyaging to Rio de Janeiro. On his return he first studied in Couture's studio (1851), where his independence often infuriated his master. For six years he was an intermittent visitor to the studio, constantly taking leave to travel, and going first to Cassel, Dresden, Vienna and Munich, and afterwards to Florence, Rome and Venice, where he made some stay. Some important drawings date from this period, and one picture, "A Nymph Surprised." Then, after imitating Couture, more or less, in "The Absinthe-drinker" (1866), and Courbet in "The Old Musician," he devoted himself almost exclusively to the study of the Spanish masters in the Louvre. A group was already gathering round him--Whistler, Legros, and Fantin-Latour haunted his studio in the Rue Guyot. His "Spaniard playing the Guitar," in the Salon of 1861, excited much animadversion. Delacroix alone defended Manet, but, this notwithstanding, his "Fifer of the Guard" and "Breakfast on the Grass" were refused by the jury. Then the "Exhibition of the Rejected" was opened, and round Manet a group was formed, including Bracquemond, Legros, Jongkind, Whistler, Harpignies and Fantin-Latour, the writers Zola, Duranty and Duret, and Astruc the sculptor. In 1863, when an amateur, M. Martinet, lent an exhibition-room to Manet, the painter exhibited fourteen pictures; and then, in 1864, contributed again to the Salon "The Angels at the Tomb" and "A Bullfight." Of this picture he afterwards kept nothing but the toreador in the foreground, and it is now known as "The Dead Man." In 1865 he sent to the Salon "Christ reviled by the Soldiers" and the famous "Olympia," which was hailed with mockery and laughter. It represents a nude woman reclining on a couch, behind which is seen the head of a negress who carries a bunch of flowers. A black cat at her feet emphasizes the whiteness of the sheet on which the woman lies. This work (now in the Louvre) was presented to the Luxembourg by a subscription started by Claude Monet (1890). It was hung in 1897 among the Caillebotte collection, which included the "Balcony," and a study of a female head called "Angelina." This production, of a highly independent individuality, secured Manet's exclusion from the Salon of 1866, so that he determined to exhibit his pictures in a place apart during the Great Exhibition of 1867. In a large gallery in the Avenue de l'Alma, half of which was occupied by Courbet, he hung no fewer than fifty paintings. Only one important picture was absent, "The Execution of the Emperor Maximilian"; its exhibition was prohibited by the authorities. From that time, in spite of the fierce hostility of some adversaries, Manet's energy and that of his supporters began to gain the day. His "Young Girl" (Salon of 1868) was justly appreciated, as well as the portrait of Lola; but the "Balcony" and the "Breakfast" (1869) were as severely handled as the "Olympia" had been. In 1870 he exhibited "The Music Lesson" and a portrait of Mlle E. Gonzales. Not long before the Franco-Prussian War, Manet, finding himself in the country with a friend, for the first time discovered the true value of open air to the effects of painting in his picture "The Garden," which gave rise to the "open air" or _plein air_ school. After fighting as a gunner, he returned to his family in the Pyrenees, where he painted "The Battle of the _Kearsarge_ and the _Alabama_." His "Bon Bock" (1873) created a _furore_. But in 1875, as in 1869, there was a fresh outburst of abuse, this time of the "Railroad," "Polichinelle," and "Argenteuil," and the jury excluded the artist, who for the second time arranged an exhibition in his studio. In 1877 his "Hamlet" was admitted to the Salon, but "Nana" was rejected. The following works were exhibited at the Salon of 1881: "In the Conservatory," "In a Boat," and the portraits of Rochefort and Proust; and the Cross of the Legion of Honour was conferred on the painter on the 31st of December in that year. Manet died in Paris on the 20th of April 1883. He left, besides his pictures, a number of pastels and engravings. He illustrated _Les Chats_ by Champfleury, and Edgar Allan Poe's _The Raven_. Entry: MANET