Cobe Kai

Personal experience with guitar is that one day you can pick it up, and everything will sound perfect, everthing you write sounds great, but the next day... nothing sounds right, even if you're playing it perfect and everything is fine... it's a strange instrument that really reflects moods.

I've found that you need to know stuff to play... you need to know scales and techniques in order to solo (well) for example. Which is why I, after a long time, have resumed guitar lessons... or more specifically, BLUES guitar lessons.

I've been playing with bands for a while now, even recorded, I've written a good setlist of songs with my newest band, but I always want to learn and do more.

I think you need that. You need to WANT to learn more. There is no point playing or learning more if you don't WANT to. You can learn how to play a few songs and never want to play anything else, so don't force yourself to. Don't take lessons just to do it. You need to WANT to do it... and overall ENJOY it, feel accomplished.

I know I'm somewhat skilled with the guitar, but then I meet people who play solos and riffs that I can't play, and it used to put me down. Then I realised, that's what they like to play, I'm content with powerchord songs and improv solos.

You shouldn't go learn to play a genre of music (e.g. blues) unless you like it. If you like it, then learn it, or at least appreciate it.

For example, as previously stated, I'm taking blues lessons, yet my favourate genres are grunge and sludge... not much blues in there, but I appreciate the genre and enjoy a select few songs from it and by God do I respect it. I wouldn't go and learn to play classical guitar, because I genuinely don't like it, though I know I'd benefit, I wouldn't do it so well because I don't like it. So my gems are:

1) Enjoy yourself
2) Want to learn
3) Don't learn something you don't like all the time. You need to do stuff you DO like to get through it (e.g scales)
4) Stick with it. You'll have off days. We all do.

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Fletch

Some more good advice here, that works for me anyway.

I guess thats my point with this thread, just inspiring thoughts that help the insecure (occasionally frustrated/bored) musician (such as myself). Nothing works all the time? Most of us have different moods, right? There`s no monopoly on good advice.

Music is very subjective when it comes to phrases like `play from the heart` etc. In a frustrated practice session it might be more helpful to say `focus on the chord notes during this solo...` or whatever. Or maybe to have a break?

Thats why i like guitarist interviews - there`s so many different ways of approaching music, & even though magazines are mostly full of rubbish, just occasionally you stumble across something that is really helpful to yourself.

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No Bosses, Just Music

Cobe Kai

Thanks for the positive use of something I said, don't get that often, but if you get Total Guitar magazine, I've read some half decent interviews in there... and they tend to have good free stuff too!

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cardboard adolescent

anyone can express themselves through sound, we all do it every day. which forms are considered "superior" are defined by the cultural/artistic elites, since those happen to be the forms they've dedicated their lives to mastering. those of us who haven't done this accept their version of what sounds good/bad because of some vague respect towards their dedication to these systems, and because we don't have their understanding of these systems in most cases we can't offer a critique as coherent as their justifications. i'm not saying that music is good or bad, and only famous people can tell the difference, i'm saying that music is not inherently good or bad, but relies on those with vested interest to bestow value upon it.

Cobe Kai

There are people who are considered superior, who shouldn't be. And vice versa. And those who are considered superior are often the record exec's and promoters, who only want to promote what's popular and what's selling records, not what actually sounds good. I know many local bands who are really good, really talented, sound great and are very interesting to listen to, but aren't big or signed or play many gigs simply because they're not popular.

I choose myself what sounds good to me, and it's not what most other people like. Not that I listen to obscure stuff to try to be cool, it's what I genuinely like.

You see where I'm coming from?

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cardboard adolescent

you're saying a lot of conflicting things. you want to claim that you like the music that appeals to you, which has not been shaped by the opinions of others. so you're basically saying that taste is subjective, but then you're saying that some music is considered good that shouldn't be, so now all of a sudden taste is objective and there are certain principles which everyone should agree on. now if that's true, then what's popular is probably what's good since those are the sounds most people are agreeing on. but you're saying that most of the time what's popular is actually that which doesn't sound good. if you refine this to say that what's popular usually doesn't sound good to you, but is not necessarily bad in an objective sense, then you have to start questioning all the principles you use to judge good music, even your "intuition," which can be seen as a form of cultural conditioning. if, on the other hand, taste is something objective and there are certain qualities which define "good" music, why would "bad" music be so popular? and how can you possibly know that your taste is superior to anyone elses? maybe in that case you really have bad taste and should re-align yourself with the mainstream.

mr dave

eric dolphy said it best -

"when you hear music, after it's over, it's gone... in the air, you can never capture it again"

this is by far the truest statement i've read about actually playing music not songs, but music. the difference is subtle but significant.

you can argue semantics and the objective subjectiveness of an individual's definition all day but in the end it's apples and oranges. sure they're both tasty healthy fruits but they sure aren't the same.

music is special, it transcends itself to become more than the sum of its sounds in the instance it's created and performed. the most you can do is capture a reflection of the music. but the reflection will never be the same as actually being there when it happened, you might think you're close but it's never going to be to the same level.

songs can be just as special but they're made to be reproduced. the emotion contained and projected within the song is controlled and planned out along with every other aspect of the tune. very little is lost between the creation and the reproduction.

it's not to say that one is superior to the other or that one aspect requires more skill only that there IS a difference. same as being dominated by either the left or right side of your brain.

the claim that people need to adhere to established methods in regards to music strikes me as an attempt to cover up an individual's insecurities on their own perception of music within modern society. at the same time claiming that an intangible element of the self will provide everything necessary to create good music is just as pretentiously foolish. it's a matter of striking a balance within the individual, at which point the content of either side of the scales become irrelevant. and to me, having the courage to ignore those pressures is what differentiates the musicians from the people who play instruments.

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i am the universe

guitargirl_93

For me, I go with this thought...

You have to know that you aren't perfect, and that you never will be perfect. All you can do is play to the best of your extent, and strive to learn more, raising the bar with every note.

cardboard adolescent

when i saw les savy fav perform, they played a song i hadn't heard before where the guitarist kept playing faster and faster singing/screaming "this is my body, this is how it works. i try to make it better, but i know it's gonna bust." it was pretty intense, and makes you question the role some of us put on musicians to be more like machines than artists.

mr dave

can they fake it for just one more show?

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i am the universe