#103 The Guitar Soul
Did you know that instruments have souls? That they can play for the person handling them?
I tested this theory by trying to play a real musician's instrument. It didn't know me well enough and it just didn't play for me, even though a few minutes earlier it played beautifully for the other guy. Since in this experiment, the only common denominator was the instrument, it is obvious that the player has nothing to do with the quality of the performance - only the instrument itself.
Problem is that some people can't follow this simple logic, so I had to prove my point in another way.
On the TV was a show about New Orleans and its music scene. Some great music was coming from those instruments, so I pumped the volume, and took a shot of the guitar while it was listening to the music.
Did your feet ever start dancing on their own while listening to the music you like? The same rule applies to the music instruments as well. Probably even more, because for them music is much bigger part of their life than for your feet.
With a careful setup, I was able to capture those involuntary movements of the guitar strings. They just couldn't keep still when faced with the good old sounds of New Orleans.
To better emphasize the effect, I picked some of those strings just before the shot, and changed the background and a few other details during the post-processing. None of that changed the validity of the music instruments' soul.