Silverheels - "OLD" friend? You could have said longtime! LOLOL
Cathy, jg and others - I wasn't really seeking to cause a feud between guitarists and other instruments. I was just responding to the "guitar players only" comment of Harry Carey.
If we are forced to be objective AND serious about it (instead of joking and teasing, as I generally prefer), I have no doubt that Gord sounds "pretty good" on guitar, even his piano songs. Just as the guitar songs sound "pretty good" on piano. But I'll bet the piano songs generally sound better on piano and the guitar songs sound better on guitar. Which is probably the reason Gord chose the instruments he did for the respective songs.
And of course, some songs have both guitar and piano. LOL
Each instrument has its plusses and minuses.
A piano cannot slide into or pull a note like a guitar can (tho keyboards can approximate the effect) nor can it duplicate the strumming, picking or plucking sounds.
On the other hand, a guitar is limited to six notes at a time whereas a piano will commonly play seven or eight notes at a time and occasionally more.
Also, technically speaking, a strummed guitar "chord" is not truly a single chord but a succession of notes played so closely together that it sounds like they are simultaneous. Also, on a guitar, one can hear the sound of the fingers picking or sliding on the strings. Thus the guitar chord lacks the purity of a piano or bell chord. Because bells are a percussion instrument, the piano approximates the bell-like sound better than a guitar.
My point is that it is unduly parochial and unnecessary to exclude other instruments from a tribute to Gord as Harry suggested. If (unlike me) one could play as well as Mike Heffernan, one certainly would feel entitled to take part.
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"And the laughter came too easy for life to pass me by."
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