Re: yet more questions

[Lev Polinsky <polinsky@husc.harvard.edu>]

On Thu, 25 Jan 1996, MR THOMAS G FARRELL JR wrote:
> -- [ From: Thomas G. Farrell Jr. * EMC.Ver #2.10P ] --
> NP:  Who, "Water"
> Extremus@aol.com,
> 	Ready for a little scandalous rumor-mongering?
> 	I'm by no means an expert on guitar playing, but a good friend of mine,
> who played guitar professionally for many years, suspects, having
> watched Townshend closely, that in the last years of the Who, Pete's
> hand didn't actually come close to the strings when he did his windmill
> schtick, and that the sound Pete created when he did the windmill came
> from his LEFT hand, and the guitar's sustain.  In other words, Pete was
> faking the windmill, and using a little controlled feedback to make it
> sound like he was hitting the strings when doing that windmill schtick.
> Pete's windmill was a ruse.
> 	If this is true, perhaps Pete started faking the windmill sound
> because he kept injuring his hand when he actually HIT the strings. 
> Btw, ever notice that despite the violent speed of that windmill, Pete
> seldom broke strings?  I mean, at least in the videos and photographs
> I've seen he doesn't.  I'd have thought that Pete's windmill would have
> broken strings constantly....
> 	Every good wish--Tom Farrell

I've tried it a few times, playing around; it's not easy to hit the 
guitar; also, I'm not sure it's all that easy to keep a pick in your 
fingers when you're coming down on the strings with a windmill.

I think that probably _some_ of Pete's windmills were for show (well, 
actually, all of them were for show, but only some were fake); I'd guess 
that the ones where he goes a full circle are probably false but the ones 
where he comes down and right back up, they're real.  At least they look 
real.

Another point to back up your friend's theory, though, is that I 
distinctly remember PT looking at the fretting hand as he does 
windmills--and the fretting on the final chords of WGFA can't be all that 
difficult or unfamiliar.

Now, the jumps, those are real.  And the music's for real.

--LP.

P.S.  Actually, about the jumps:  like NBAers and high jumpers, Pete has 
benefited a lot from photographers shooting from below.  Even an average 
leap can look huge from ground level.