Have guitarists gotten dumber?

[brc]

I stated playing in the mid 50s. Started out taking lessons 4 times a week. I brushed through what they could teach me very quickly, so I stopped the lessons, and I learned more from by ear, plus I enjoyed it more.

In the late 60s early 70s while I was in a group, I then started teaching guitar for the city of Las Vegas.

So I learned both ways, by lessons and self taught. Plus I taught guitar both ways, by books, theory, and by ear.

But the people that were mentioned, Clapton, and even players like Merle Travis Chet Atkins< Travis was self taught>, these were some of the pioneers of that style of playing. There are pros and cons to learning either way.

It seemed to me the people I was teaching to, enjoyed learning and playing much more by ear, and not by such a structured lesson.

[deeman]

I've never had a lesson in my life. I was born 13 years after hendrix passed. I can play by ear and i use and create tabs.

 

Sorry.

[Riffster]

I think guitar players have gotten less famous.

[Marshall Paul]

I started playing Guitar when I was 5. By 10 I was playing rock. And back then (the 70's) there was only one way to learn. Sitting crosslegged on the bed with my sisters record player, the record, my LP and strat, and my ear. A few spins of the record, a couple of hours later, and I'd have it. Chord for chord, riff for riff, and solo note for solo note. And that was how we did it because that was the only way. We didn't have any other options. Not even lessons.

It served as the hardest lesson and a culling process.

Same as the greats we were trying to emulate at the time. Old fashion but effective.

[duane v]

I think guitar players have gotten less famous.

 

Now this seems true..... However if you go to high school music competitions you see electric guitars now inserted into the shows , which wasn't the case in the 80's.

 

IMO what is more disturbing about guitar players in my age bracket, is a majority have a tendency to mock and put down younger players rather than showing them the ropes... The generation before me was a lot cooler than my generation in terms of sharing musically. The newer generation of guitar players appear much more humble and very tech savoy than guys my age.

 

When I'm not playing in my band, I find myself jamming with people 20 years younger my senior ... We have a great time and I get an open window to their perspective and what challenges they have with the current state of the music biz.

[stein]

I think it's a matter of terminology and myth.

 

In the case of Jimi, Page and such, I don't believe they never took lessons or studied. Quite the opposite.

 

Back then, like the 50's and 60's, "learned" or "taught" would universally be thought to mean the standard of learning an instrument at the time. That would mean learning to read music as you learned your instrument, learning how to play music on your instrument from written music and so forth.

 

These days, what we call "lessons" and "education" is basically the same as what these guys did when they referred to being "self taught".

 

Largely, the general way guitar has been taught for the past 20 or 30 years is to follow the path to learn the same way these guys learned how to play. How to steal licks, how to learn what this or that guy is doing. How to play by "ear"-(not the classic way of ear training, but rather how to figure what someone else is doing by what we hear).

 

I don't think anything has changed with that, but rather what we are calling "self taught".

 

Now what MUSIC guitarist are playing and how smart or dumb (or educated).....

[stein]

... the current state of the music biz.

Is there still a music biz?

 

That's a whole different subject right there.

 

Where I am coming from with that...what not so long ago seemed like a "professional" would be a guy (or guys, gals, etc., HAVE to put the etc. nowadays), a "pro" would be a guy who makes a living at it, and thus, plays all the time and as a consequence would generally be a better musician than what can be expected by your average weekend warrior.

 

These days, it seems impossible or rare. Many social and political factors for it, but basically, rents are up. Cost are up, and wages are down. A musician needs more to live humbly than before while at the same time, gigs pay less than they did.

 

As a result, it's rarer now than ever to find a musician who doesn't have a day job. Overall the quality of bands are lower as they play less.

 

Also, the better musicians that are older that DO have day jobs more often have solid gigging experience from the past behind them. But also, the ones that are younger often don't seem as good, or is rarer that they are. And I'm guessing that's because they aren't able to give it the time.

[LarryUK]

They didn`t have any musical editor software to slow down a track...

 

Oh, but we did. We played the record and put our finger on it to slow it down. Such technology.

[charlie brown]

Overall, NO! They merely take more advantage of the learning tools now available.

 

As Always, there will be "talent" issues involved. But, that was true back then,

and it's still true. And, there will be those that approach learning differently

that other's.

 

Whatever works, I say!

 

CB

[Marshall Paul]

Oh, but we did. We played the record and put our finger on it to slow it down. Such technology.

Flanging.

[kelly campbell]

I think it has made todays players,in general not all but most, less creative and more regimented. I think it is reflected by a lot of the popular music today. Just my opinion.

[charlie brown]

Well, that's money driven, isn't it! Being "Pop" as in Popular, as opposed to being

well rounded, musically and otherwise, SEEMS to be pervasive, in our "Culture" or

lack thereof! It's always been true, to an extent, with "Pop" music/culture, but

seems more so, these days. "Pop" music seems to have adopted the Japanese model,

of fast and furious, here today, gone tomorrow, short attention span, "Idol" worship.

 

But, that just IMHO, and...like Milod likes to say, "I'm Old!"

 

CB

[BobF_]

Yeah, actually, they did, and still do to this day. You look at the body of work from guys like Clapton, Beck, Pagey and other greats and see how many covers they did. Willie Dixon, Robert Johnson, the three King's, Freddy, Albert and BB, and many others too numerous to mention. We simply did as they did.

 

Those covers aren't what they're admired for, unless the cover is vastly different from the originals.

[american cheez]

place needle on record

listen to record

find first chord

pick up needle

 

place needle on record

listen again

find second chord

pick up needle

 

rinse and repeat......

 

me too. i wore out more judas priest and and black sabbath albums than one could shake a stick at. (although i don't really know why anyone would want to, come to think of it.) i hated cassettes.

 

 

but what someone else was saying about jimi probably took lessons at some point. jimi had alot of time with the instrument. it's verifiable. hell, he played the chitlin' circuit as a sideman. that right there would sharpen anyone's skills, let alone all the other stuff he was known for. did the 4 years of schooling i had make me the tradesman i am today? hell no. seasoning did that. hendrix did the same thing. he was so busy he packed an entire career into the earlier parts of his life. there's no substitute for time on the instrument.

[cody78]

I think it has made todays players,in general not all but most, less creative and more regimented. I think it is reflected by a lot of the popular music today. Just my opinion.

 

I agree to a point, but there still are lots of avant garde players out there experimenting with new approaches and ideas to playing the guitar.

 

Someone mentioned pioneers earlier and it is wrong to think of Hendrix, Clapton, Beck, Page, etc, as the only pioneers of the electric guitar.

 

As far as 'big name' players go, in the late 60's/ early 70's you had John Mclaughlin who (for me) blew Hendrix and others off the map with his unique approach to the guitar, because he wasn't mainly inspired by blues guys like the rest at the time. Look at Robert Fripp's work with King Crimson too for astonishing originality.

 

During the 80's you had guys like Satriani & Vai, and love them or hate them, they pioneered a new territory of playing along with numerous others.

 

In the 90's guys like J Mascis from Dinosaur Jnr, Dimebag Darrell of Pantera and even Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead had a unique sound and approach.

 

From 2000's to present there are still guys coming out with new ideas, who were influenced by other types of music besides blues & rock, but putting it into a 'rock' or 'progressive' style.

[Marshall Paul]

Those covers aren't what they're admired for, unless the cover is vastly different from the originals.

Yes and no I suppose. They all became induvidual and unique in their own ways with their own compositions, but they had to start from somewhere. Indulge me for a moment if I may please mate. Take, for instance, Clapton.

 

Rambling on my Mind - Robert Johnson

 

Hideaway - Freddie King & Sonny Thompson

 

Crossroads - Robert Johnson

 

Killing Floor - Howlin' Wolf

 

Hideaway - Hound Dog Taylor

 

All songs he is known for obviously, yet all written by someone else. Up on that list are the names of some of blues finest and greatest, especially the regarded best, Robert Johnson himself. These are songs that are still played to this day in Clapton's set list.

You've got to admit, with a body of work to learn from like that, you couldn't help but become great eh! lol

[zigzag]

[Marshall Paul]

LOL! Too good!

[capmaster]

[IanHenry]

Their Spelling and Grammar have certainly regressed.

 

Ian

[capmaster]

Their Spelling and Grammar have certainly regressed.

 

Ian

Slade have always been idols of mine.

[btoth76]

Slade have always been idols of mine.

 

*** on feel the noize? :D

[capmaster]

*** on feel the noize? :D

Good example, Bence, and censored just for spelling, not for meaning. ;)

 

By the way, "Tak Me Bak ’Ome" is my favorite song by Slade. "Mama Weer All Crazee Now" made our English teachers "crazee" then, too.

[flyingfrets]

Based on what I've heard of the newer crop of serious players, regardless of the methods they've used to practice/learn, I find the end result about the same...some of them are very good, others, not so much.

 

I think listeners have gotten dumber though. I'm not talking about musicians who are listening with an educated ear, I'm talking about John & Jane Q. Public.

 

For the most part, it's all about flash. A passable lead player will get more recognition than an outstanding rythmn player. Consequently, if a couple of these twits decide they want to give being in a band a go, the guy playing rythmn isn't doing it by choice or because he's good at it. He's on rythmn because he can't hack lead.

 

Are there any "Keith Richards" or "John Lennons" in the up & coming lot? Both of these guys were pretty hot lead players in their own right, but they chose rythmn because they enjoyed being the guy who "drives" the song.

 

If playing becomes more than a passing whim, yeah, they're probably gonna use tabs, learn tunes off of youtube, maybe take some lessons and once in great while, if they're fairly dedicated, pick things up by ear. But other than lessons, they're not learning any theory. OTOH, theory wasn't a major part of yesteryear's guitar heroes' success either.

 

I think if you invest the time to learn the instrument, how the information got into your head is less important than how you apply what you've learned.

[BobF_]

...

I think if you invest the time to learn the instrument, how the information got into your head is less important than how you apply what you've learned.

 

^^^