No Stairway to heaven!

[Rocky4]

I like to think of Stairway as a fantastic song on a fantastic album. I still think of it as vinyl. I remember the album creating a mood. 50 degrees and drizzle. 4 in the afternoon and no lights on. That great cover, a total package, a total experience. From Black Dog (which gives me the chills to this day) to When The Levee Breaks. I was too young to understand it when it came out, but I remember an older cousin playing it. It seemed like magic back then, and as long as I avoid classic radio, it will always be. Well done

 

[Kimbabig]

Guys, you can do almost anything to this songs opening intro, I admit the playing was pretty sloppy, but I had alot of fun recording it My link

[neilpanda]

That gave me an idea, I might go round guitar shops playing stairway, get a friend to video all the reactions and make a montage video!

haha DO IT! I would love that.

[Andy R]

As far as Stairway goes it was the first somewhat complicated song I ever learned to play when I was beginning. It's amazing how many songs that I have I learned since and couldn't play a note of without going back and relearning them. I can unusually shake the rust off that one with a couple passes. I think there is a about a 5 year trend in what you will hear all of the beginners playing in a music store. When I worked in one it was Enter Sandman and Sweet Child O' Mine. Those riffs still send chills up my spine and make me cringe. Concerning Stairway in particular I think it has just become more of a joke perpetuated by Wayne's World and older musicians ( who themselves were probably guilty of it at one point)

 

I'm with Duane on playing an instrument/amp the way your going to use it when checking it out in a music store. Unfortunately long gone are most of the smaller guitar stores where you had half a chance to do this without competing against of noodlers who's parents drop them off to use the music store as a day long free day care. I try to be courteous to the people around me as well as the store employees but if I'm checking out an Amp I need to hear what it sounds like at live playing level. Sorry!

 

I was checking out an amp at Sam Ash ( not a single soul in the entire store) and had it at a loud volume ( not outrageous ) one of the only guys working there came out of the acoustic room and said I would need to turn it down. I told him I was interested in buying it but wanted to actually hear the amp. He suggested headphones. I suggested where he could stick the headphones, pulled out the cash I had in my pocket and used it to wave goodbye as i walked out the door. What happened to music stores being music stores?

 

 

 

Andy

[Duende]

As an English guy of all the musicians to come out of the country, I am particularly proud of Zeppelin

 

The University I studied as a post graduate was where they did there first gig billed as Led Zeppelin in 1968! Here is Dr Page (LOL) 40 years later receiving an honourary doctorate from Surrey University

 

 

 

 

Further trivia, John Paul Jones was grew up in the sleepy town of Sidcup where we live now! (Sleepy LMAO - trying to romanticise it a little okay! There are the usual over weight single mothers pushing prams with roll ups sticking in the gobs)

[stein]

ANDY'S BACK!!!!

 

lol..its the kids these days that don't get it. They are supposed to be salesmen but they miss a lot of clues (in life too..we were all like that). If a middle aged guy comes into a music store, 1) he problably has a job and has money. 2) he problably knows more about gear than he does cause he been doing it longer 3) he either has a case of GAS that makes him want to be in a store or is there to buy something.

 

DUH!!!

 

When I encounter such ignorance or greenness, I prefer to **** with them. How else they gonna learn? such (funny to me) questions might be, "who is in charge of selling stuff here?" or "how does the buying process work?" or "so..what do you do for a living?...how do you tell if someone is going to buy something?" or, asking stupid questions to get him looking up information and running back and forth. (this technique works really well at Hooters-ask for ketchup, then when she brings it, mayo..ect).

 

I guess maybe the best thing to do would be to go in and ask if someone could teach you to play "stairway".

 

Or, funnier yet, tell them for some reason when ever you have heard that song, you bought something. I wonder what it would take to take the sales peeps play it. Then you could tell them they played it so bad that you can't buy anything until it gets out of your head or someone plays it right.

[neilpanda]

I guess maybe the best thing to do would be to go in and ask if someone could teach you to play "stairway".

 

Or, funnier yet, tell them for some reason when ever you have heard that song, you bought something. I wonder what it would take to take the sales peeps play it. Then you could tell them they played it so bad that you can't buy anything until it gets out of your head or someone plays it right.

thats great! I will definitely do that! and I saw a new guy at the store so I'll mess with him

[Rocky4]

Unfortunately long gone are most of the smaller guitar stores where you had half a chance to do this without competing against of noodlers who's parents drop them off to use the music store as a day long free day care. I try to be courteous to the people around me as well as the store employees but if I'm checking out an Amp I need to hear what it sounds like at live playing level. Sorry!

 

Back i the late 70s, when I was first learning, I used to hang out at a local shop and got to know the employees quite well and got to be friends with them. One was a fantastic guitar player. Every now and then he would take a Dean Z and plug into a Marshall stack and rock out with the doors open. The whole neighborhood could hear it, but nobody complained. You could go there, grab a guitar plug into anything and play and shoot the breeze all afternoon. These are the guys I credit with my musical tastes. I was around 14 and was being exposed to Johnny WInter, Roy Buchanon, Hound Dog Taylor, Frank Zappa, and the Beano album.

[Andy R]

Back i the late 70s, when I was first learning, I used to hang out at a local shop and got to know the employees quite well and got to be friends with them. One was a fantastic guitar player. Every now and then he would take a Dean Z and plug into a Marshall stack and rock out with the doors open. The whole neighborhood could hear it, but nobody complained. You could go there, grab a guitar plug into anything and play and shoot the breeze all afternoon. These are the guys I credit with my musical tastes. I was around 14 and was being exposed to Johnny WInter, Roy Buchanon, Hound Dog Taylor, Frank Zappa, and the Beano album.

 

 

 

I hear ya. My place had red shag carpet and a guy named Bill Butz ( now deceased) that was a phenomenal player. He turned me on to Robin Trower, Pat Travers, Warren Haynes ( way back in the day before Govt. Mule ) just to name a few. I worked there years later ( I had the red shag removed)

 

The store is now long gone now... Shame... it was the first Gibson dealer in Indiana. Started out as an appliance store in the 50's. Vic ( The owner ) took a trade for some appliance work for a guitar and threw it up in the front window for sale. The gibson rep was traveling through and asked him if he wanted to start selling guitars. Vic like the idea of hauling guitars instead of washers so he gave it a whirl. They were in business for almost 40 years..

 

 

Andy

 

 

[EvanPC]

these guys made a great cover.

This is really damn cool.

[sgman]

Having been in store when someone has picked up a guitar and started playing the first couple of bars to stairway, I have heard the jeers etc coming from staff and other customers and I think the rolled eyes says it all. Stairway To Heaven is a classic rock song no doubt about it, but I think because it's so good some guys/girls are maybe under the mistaken impression that in order to turn heads in a guitar shop, they have to play Stairway. Personally it doesn't bother me that much when I hear someone try to play it, as long as they do it justice and don't f**k it up. Each to their own I guess.

[DMichaelG]

Like some have said in earlier posts. Overplayed. Over played. Ov er pl ay ed.

 

A radio station in the late 70's in the central San Joaquin valley took the acoustic intro, cut out everything but the ending...'from heaven'...on. Best version I ever heard. When ever they'd get a request for the song they'd play that one. I am sure if Mr. Page heard that he would have sued. Maybe he did.

 

A better version is the band (? name) who put the Gilligan's Island lyrics to Stairway to Heaven. If my old memory is still there...that version didn't last too long. Mr. Page got his lawyers involved and had it taken off the air. No sense of humor. That, from someone who would know about copyright infringement first hand.

[FirstMeasure]

It was overplayed on the radio in the 70's, then it was overplayed by "Beginners" in the 80's. For some reason guitar instructors felt it was ok to "Teach" beginners an Eleven Minute opus, complete with tempo changes, and advanced Flamenco-style descending bass lines against advanced finger picking techniques. Not to mention Triads and chord inversions......oh, and the best part for beginners, the dramatic pause into the Dsus2-D-Dsus4 into the very challenging C-C flatted5th add 9th-Cm7 flourish. Which is just a joy to listen to several times a day, from every kid whose parents thought $20 a lesson seemed very reasonable for a guy who used to do studio work in LA.

 

The best part was listening to the same kids that try to play Stairway (with no delicate respect for the rhythm) scoff when you tell them they should learn "Wild Thing" or "Gloria", dismissing them as "Old".

 

I guess the stigma has worn off after 20 years of "Teen Spirit" and "Come As You Are", Music Store Employees are cringing for a different class of "Beginner".