This is a guitarist's forum for guitarists only it seems. I started a thread to see if there was anyone interested in music other than that which revolves around the guitar, within 24 hours the thread got swamped by guitarists and then promptly died. I'm just saying, that's all!
You have a point.....and I'm a guitarist! In fact, the damm things seem more popular now than when I first picked one up over thirty, gulp, years ago. I none too sure it is healthy, for music. Bear in mind the electric guitar was cutting edge musical technology in the late 40's through to the late sixties, I stare in amazement at Fender and Gibson being bloody lazy and introducing more 'retro' guitars, 'fake distress and all', and not enough new models or even something different. Synth music is also in the doldrums, the technology moves on, but the dreary music; dance, trance and that hipitty hop shit is past it's sell by date. I believe we all need the kids today to start making their own music.....original music. We need a burst of dynamic and original thought from our youth, instead of them playing tired, recycled punk, rock, and blues. Blues is what old farts like me play, fer heavens sakes, and that mainly 'coz I've lived through a lot of shit in my time, and I can put feel into my playing which takes years, unlike technique which can be mastered - and is - by kids within a year or two! As Janis Joplin once said, 'to sing it real, you've had to have lived it'. How can some whelp of sing/play great blues? Even more important, why would he even want to? He should be wanting to do his own music, not sing waht his dad....and grandad do! As Eric Bibb says, people forget that blues was modern, contemporary at the time, late 20's early thirties. We need something new. Now.
Can't say I agree with you about House, Trance and Hip-hop. It's constantly evolving and coming along leaps and bounds every year it seems. But as I'm always saying, and this is true of all sorts of music, you'll never find good ambassadors for the genre if you stick to what's forced upon you through the commercial end, listening to the radio, watching top of the pops or MTV, etc. If you want to get into the genre, see what makes it tick and here the best examples of using it to its full potential you've got to go and look for it, do a bit of research and dig deep to come up with the good stuff. Also, you may think this is a bit of a controvertial thing to say but I think Eric Bibb is far too young to be the sort of blues singer he is. His voice just hasn't quite broken into it yet. Still, I suppose there's no harm in getting all the hardwork out of the way developing his artistic style until he gets there. Beats sitting on his arse doing bugger all all day waiting for his 70th birthday. As far as the guitar is concerned, it seems everyone's picking one up and starting to play it. And that's great in a way, lots of people are learning music in some form or another. Unfortunately they're all just teaching themselves to play the songs they like and taking a lot of short cuts. They're not learning much about music theory, some can't even read (and whether or not you think you need to be reading to do what you're doing, believe me you really need it if you're ever going to do anything truly amazing because you need to be able to write, to orchestrate and to truly understand the way the music that not just you but everyone else plays works), and they're also closing their minds to all the genres other than the ones that they play, so they'll never see how classical music evolved into, just to give one example, church music and work songs and blues and jazz and rhythm'n'blues and rock'n'roll and rock and indie and metal. It's very limited. It's all about the guitar. When people talk about bands they're thinking of guitars and a bass and a kit and maybe a keyboard if you're lucky. When they talk about writing songs they're thinking of lyrics and chords and nothing else. Not even the arrangement, not discussing how to turn a lead sheet into an amazing sounding pop or rock track. Nobody EVER seems to talk about composing jazz or classical works. Certainly nothing on a big scale. And whenever anyone wants to go into the unknown territory they seem to be unable to look any further than the exact opposite extreme whilst still in the same frame of mind - ie the very modern and popular and easily accessible music. So they talk about what they calle "Techno" or "Dance" music. When they say Techno they don't usually mean Techno, they usually mean and sort of music that is largely based on synthesised sounds. Ditto Dance although Dance music is a very old term that just means unsophisticated music that you can Dance to without thinking too much about it. Glenn Miller is Dance music. It's mindnumblingly dull and uncomplicated music that you never would bother analysing very closely but is perfectly suitable for dancing. And using that definition I'd say commercial RnB or "crunk" as I believe it's aptly named these days or shitty hard-house or boy-band scheidt or ridiculously overplayed retro rock tunes like the incredibly irritating "summer of 69" or "brown-eyed girl" or other old cheese like abba which has been played so much that people don't think of it as music any more but as a series of soundbytes, is far better suited to the name Dance music than the new exciting and incredibly sophisticatedly produced House and Trance tunes. But people who've just picked up the guitar and learned their favourite rock tunes are never going to be able to do what is absolutely necessary to understand these alien genres of music, which is to learn to evaluate them by their own standards, not by the standards of the music they know best.
While I mostly agree, I also have to point out that music evolves by building foundations. All subsequent foundations are built upon the prior. It's like a pyramid with Point/Counterpoint at the bottom, Baroque above that ...etc... leading us to blues (I'm talking real blues defined in the 30s & 40s with the advent of swing rhythms and atonality). I don't think there's been a major fundamental evolution since then. So, my point is, yah, we need something new, but not at the expense of all the centuries that have led us to this point. So I truly admire the musicians who are following the flight path, not trying to take shortcuts for the sake of originality. Yeah, SaxMachine, you're 100% right about people skipping over the important stuff. I guess that's why we're getting stagnant. The guitar itself is an amazing instrument. (I'm not a guitarist, so you can trust my objective opinion). SaxMachine, give it a whirl. I believe all musicians should learn either the guitar or the keyboard, simply because those are the only two instruments that offer polyphony. And unless you've got a big band ensemble in your basement, you can't get a feel for composition otherwise. Like I've said before, there's a friggen reason why the guitar is such a popular instrument. Show me another instrument that can do chords, polyrhythms, dynamics, vibrato and portissimo, and I'll be damned impressed.
how many people do you think who just picked up a guitar for the first time today will ever do something "truly amazing" with it? not many. its just like anything else; you cant expect every single one of them to become successful. those who actually do get somewhere obviously knew what they were doing in the first place, and didnt get where they are by memorizing every ramones song. (at least I hope not) they commit to learning to play the guitar, and learning to play it well. alot of players dont even think about that kind of stuff, and just play to have fun, playing songs they like. theory isnt at all necessary to do that. how do you know?
guitar is just a very simple starting place for many people. They think its cool, so they choose guitar. I played guitar first, but i really want to start branching out more into different instruments. I can play piano a little bit, although i dont own anything but a cheap keyboard.
many people start out on keyboard, mainly because its the simplest and most logical instrument, and often because their parents push them into it when theyre young
it's not in the doldrums, it's only beginning, my man. the technology is moving on and the people trying to at least incorporate the capabilities of trance, hip-hop, drum and bass, all electronica basically, are the ones in the know, especially if they have roots in more traditional, organic forms of music. they are the ones that are open minded, innovative, and looking for something outside the box. well, some of them, at least. the electronic fusion is spreading into every genre imaginable, making it harder and more difficult to notice it's even there to those not looking for it. listen to "real love" by the beatles, think about how it was pulled off for a second, and you've only grasped the tip of the iceberg. I agree with just about everything Sax had to say about this subject, except concerning theory. it's very, very helpful, and makes conveying your ideas to others far easier, but imo, if you have the talent for combining different instruments together, there are ways to get around it. beefheart is a widely respected musician who couldn't play an instrument. he hummed to others and they played the parts. another example: I can't write music but if I had a full orchestra available for a studio session, I could very easily compose each sections' part in Edirol's Orchestral and have Cakewalk print it out the whole score for me. another instrument? the computer. I'm a very big believer that people flat out do not know what these things can do. most people are so turned off to the idea in the first place that they're missing out in such a huge way. they'll plug their guitar into some stomp box, and run that into some expensive amp they bought; but they won't run it into their sound card that has infinite more capabilities than that stomp box (and sounds better,at that), and can put out sound that is just as good as their fender twin or any other amp out there. why do people go out and buy a Hammond instead of getting a midi-controller? I made that mistake, I've got one and you sure can't tell the difference between it and Native Instrument's Hammond B-12. The emulator is far more versatile, in fact. Back to the guitarists' subject. I basically think most guitarists picked up the thing in the first place to impress others. Deep down, they don't want to be a great musician; they want to be a rock star... and that's why most music sucks.
haha, thats why i first wanted an electric guitar. now i just make music because i've simply fallen in love with it.. i spend probably 10 or 11 hours a day atleast making music, writing songs, playing guitar.. its all i wanna do for the rest of my life, and its all im going to do. right now, i dont care if i get famous or not... itll happen eventually, i just gotta be patient. if it takes me 10 years from now, oh well, noel gallagher didnt become known til he was nearly 30 either. :H
i first played guitar caus i was pressured into an instrument after disliking piano. i disliked guitar as well. then a few years ago i stated listenin to music. while doing a maths assignment, i read about how pythagoras descovered that every harmonic structure on tone-emitting sounds is all based on integer fractions of wavelength. I saw how the 12th fret was exactly in the middle of the guitar, and instantly fell into awe and just picked up my guitar from 6 years back and started playing it again. but ive stopped learning technique much lately. i should keep it up but im more interested in jsut making music now, rather than showing off how well i can masturbate my guitar.
Heh. 30 seconds after I made my post, I was like hmmm, I wonder if anyone's gonna recognize the computer as an instrument. Naah. Aw man. I bet the Hammie cost you a pretty penny, too. Of course, I hear you're not supposed to play on them things. You're supposed to gut it, stick a midi controller inside and run it to the NI B4 on your laptop hidden off stage. Hehe. Drawbars are connected to a beer tap just under the console. So it's not a total loss, bro! lol. Masturbating one's guitar. Just don't point that whammy bar at me pal.
Oh well, modernness... it's not going to stop lovers of Hammond B3s, Leslie 112s, Marshall Bluesbreakers, 59 Les Pauls... I'm not an electronic person, but I don't like the same old bland jazz and blues shit. I like world music and combining that, but it's just that all musicians around here tend to suck... hard.
