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Old 06-12-2015, 10:26 AM   #1 (permalink)
EPOCH6
V8s & 12 Bars
 
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Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: British Columbia
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Default Playing Instruments w/ Feeling

An essential part of learning to play music is growing comfortable enough with your instrument that you can focus more on emotional expression than the actual act of playing, less on where the chord sits along the neck and more on how your fingers are moving along the strings. The velocity of your notes, the dynamics of each vibrato, the swing of your melodies, the tone of your amp, your choice of instrument, and all of the other subtle nuances you work into your playing that make up your style. These are the things that allow us to clearly differentiate between a Jimmy Page and a Tony Iommi, or a Duke Ellington and a Count Basie, or a Brian Eno and a Robert Fripp, just by using our ears.

There's much more to playing an instrument than learning the movements and there's much more to being a great musician than playing music, being able to emotionally move a listener with nothing but the sounds you're producing is the goal. Like painting or any other arts it's the works produced with feeling that we tend to love the most. It's the art we can relate to that we keep going back to, and to be able to relate to the nature of a sound, that takes a significant amount of skill on the behalf of the musician.

First examples:



How generic of me to immediately drop the Zep, especially a 12 bar blues tune, but all fandom aside, there's a very genuine reason Jimmy Page is the legend that he is, and this also applies to SRV, Keith Richards, Angus Young and many other iconic rock guitarists. It's very obvious that there are many many guitarists that swamp Page in technical skill, but what Page did best was speak through his playing. Undoubtedly he is a master of his instrument, and there are plenty of examples of him demonstrating his true technical skill, but for the vast majority of us it's almost always his simpler and more visceral riffs or melodies that we go back to. The subtle sliding chords capping off the verses in the Rain Song are enough to send chills down my spine, let alone the soaring dynamics of his playing throughout the entire track. The overwhelming passion in Since I've Been Loving You, the restraint and subtlety in Ten Years Gone, the building of tension in Kashmir, the visceral excitement in Good Times, Bad Times, the sloppy swing and punch of Heartbreaker, the intoxicating disorientation of Dazed & Confused or Whole Lotta Love. Page consistently demonstrated the range of the electric guitar and its ability to express moods across the spectrum so clearly.

And that's something to note, playing with feeling doesn't mean making your guitar cry, it's simply about being able to convey mood accurately, whatever that mood is. How does music as simple as AC/DC's get my blood flowing as intensely as Beethoven's Symphony No. 5? It's the pop of Angus Youngs playing, the visceral attack on the strings, the crunchy razor sharp distortion and the unrelenting rhythm never losing steam. I find some of AC/DC's tracks heavier than some of the most crushing sludge or doom metal I've ever heard, and it's entirely because of the overwhelming aggression and passion in which it's performed, and how meticulously honed and refined their sound is. AC/DC knew exactly what tones they needed to hit hardest and they capitalized on that for their entire career.



Anyway, enough gushing over classic rock, somebody bring some more genres into this.

Post examples of artists playing with exceptional feeling, talk about what it took for you to become comfortable enough with your instrument to express yourself through it, talk about all of the factors involved in playing with feeling. This thread is for all instruments, however most of us will likely be speaking from a guitarist's perspective.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobbycob View Post
There's 3 reason why the Rolling Stones are better. I'm going to list them here. 1. Jimi Hendrix from Rolling Stones was a better guitarist then Jimmy Page 2. The bassist from Rolling Stones isn't dead 3. Rolling Stobes wrote Stairway to Heaven and The Ocean so we all know they are superior here.
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