its interesting to note that when people cite their favourite guitarists of all time they are usually: a) American...if not then usually, b) British, from the 70's. Says it all. Our new 'talent' is rubbish like the Arctic Monkeys a so-called guitar band..the lyric hark back to the days of ska, so kudos there i suppose...reinventing the wheel. The amount of kids ive taught who were amazed to find that they could play virtually any Oasis song in just a few lessons. Oasis are a great example of a zero talent band, strumming acoustic, campfire type guitar songs (but amplified) and whining an almost monotonous drone over the top..One can drone a single note over every oasis song every written... Sadly in the UK we have moved from live music to DJ's. An affect of this is the drought of decent venues and a vacuum of talent. Kids are getting blown away by the likes of Ed Shearing or whatever his name is..a kid who should be busking outside Camden tube. The US scene has always lead the world. Sure, weve had some great bands (between 30 and 50 years ago was arguably our heyday), but we havent innovated any new styles or evolved. Weve got crap like Coldplay...a nasal, lispsy parody of Pink Floyd, plagiarising the likes of Joe Satriani, Kraftwerk etc then winning the courtcases and and Brits...they even settled out of court then took a Brit for the song they stole. Im sick of it, pure and simple and the better i got the more disappointed i became...one day i hope to fall in love with the guitar again..its part of who i am. i always used to wonder why the lecturers at Uni were so bitter and so secretive about their contacts..now i know. One of our first year guys played and recorded with Gillespie, Coltrane, Nat King Cole, Brubeck, Kenny Ball..everyone..he was a 'face' at Ronnies for years..and here he was, teaching a bunch of -for the most part (myself NOT included) uninterested fools beyond his retirement years because he was skint. ive been looking into lots of different careers, ideally id like to be 100% self employed again, preferably running my own business. Ive even been looking into becoming a barber. My sister in law rakes in big, big money working for a company called Saks (very prestigious in the hair game) and is giving me a days training gratis next monday..if i took to it and did a course it may be way out of teaching the guitar, plus i can take the barbering anywhere and earn money. Also it could mean that i was able to set u my shop etc....Because music is so shit, thats another option thats nigh on impossible: owning your own music shop> the start up cost is massive, the franchise deals crippling, the profit margin small. Rehearsal studio>monsterous start up costs, very low return, terribile hours. Studio>astronomic start up costs, very low return, crap hours, very high risk... Every way there is to make money from music, whether it be teaching, publishing, writing, journalism is an absolute nightmare with very poor returns and constant rejections..ive lost count of the amount of articles ive had published in Guitar World etc and either not been paid, been wrongly credited (not even getting my name in the article), or as per usual, submitting loads of material, get it rejected, then see it re-recorded and written under a new heading...it has to be the most soul destroying, despicable business out there...based entirely on luck and fashion, then if you become flavour of the month, everyone can say how they were into you on the ground floor. i fkn hate the music game, all of it. its shit..i rarely even listen to music at home anymore...
I'm just loving this anti-music game bile! There is no recipe for success in anything - there's a lot of luck involved. Meritocracies don't exist, because man is social animal and who you know rather than what you know is very important if you want to get on. And I suspect, Funky, that you have a trait I share which most people don't like, i.e.: you tend to say what you think. This never goes down well with organisations. Writing novels has got to be worse, though. You beaver away for months putting your soul into something and then it is rejected multiple times. Even if it is accepted for publication, it won't make you any money. I was amazed at those Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books. Have you seen the length? The guy wrote all three of them (thousands of words) and they were published posthumously. He never saw a bean. It can only mean that he wrote the first one, got rejected, wrote the second one, ditto and so on to the third. Talk about staying power. I reckon good music is generally made by people who have something to say. There are umpteen musicians who are hugely talented, but they can't seem to stick a decent riff together, or make a moving chord progression, or write any lyrics that strike a chord with people. Of course, they might do all those things and still fail. Oasis (whom I don't like - completely share your opinion) clearly struck a chord with a large part of the market. Dunno why, but then I don't know why Pot Noodles are so popular. One of the things you learn to respect in marketing (when you have your success/money making hat on) is that the market is generally ignorant and has appalling taste. It's no good just saying it's wrong. It likes dross and buys it massively. From plastic white bread to Crocs to piss-poor lager to dubious training shoes to McDonalds, the great unwashed has little discernment. You have to find something to do that you really like doing, or find something to do that will earn you so much cash, you don't have to spend much time doing it. But MrsC is also right - who you are doing the thing with is also hugely important. If you're surrounded by people who are a joy to be with, you can more easily stand doing something that isn't making you a fortune or not really floating your boat. We need to have a chat.
I think you have said enough for me to agree with wholeheartedly..........I have just sold my huge kit of drums for about a quarter of their real value, partly because of health; mainly because of the basically, effing crap drummers that think they are good these days...... ....none of them know basic rudiments and you only have to watch them with their big biceps and arms flailing at 100mph, just to produce what they think is a 'roll' by going left right left right as fast as they can..... ....and a drummer that bounces and flails his arms around other than when hitting cymbals or moving from one drum to another and back again is basically sh*ite....they should only need forearms, wrists mainly and fingers to do the job..... ...somehow they have even all managed to f*ck up the sounds of the drums....since when did a bass drum start clicking instead of booming...? AL Trouble is it all part of the dumbing down of the masses....my industry has gone the same way with PCs taking over, but the tw*ts that use them don't know how to build in the first place...they are just computer operators being led by the nose by the software manufacturers who are creating a fixed industry standard (IMO, that should read sub-standard)....fortunately for me, I identifed the problems and wouldn't get drawn into it, so although I could and can do it that way, I don't want to sit staring blankly into a monitor all day.....I'm more skilled than that.... Trouble is I don't seem to be able to generate interest (that means dosh) in an alternative skill....
since they all became triggers and samples mate. dont get me started on drummers!! we used to roll around laughing (scuse the pun) watching the rock/metal guys...Lars Ulrich to name just one..grimacing and snarling, fists clenched, no concept of moeller technique, no timing, no independance...no music nuance..it IS possible to play the drums musically..ask Dave Weckyl or Vinnie Colauita...as for this speed thing....old giffers like Jim Chapin and BuddyRich blow these Nu Metallers away...fact..or if you prefer, try Marvin Smitty Smith on the Buddy Rich concert vs Steve Smith..ive never seen a bloke move his feet so fkn fast...and clean. sucks balls mate.
deffo Glidd. nobody needs a PhD in marketeering to know that the public would brush its teeth with shit if David Beckham advertised it and it was called Baddass. The last place one wants to look for reason is an opinion poll, or worse still, yahoo answers. most people love crap like Noasis, because they are simply unaware of anything else. its put in front of them, the mags says it cool..next they get a village idiot haircut and union jack on their lapel. ive never been mainstream anyway. too clever, too discerning and quite frankly, too well hung.
I didn't mention Buddy Rich for obvious reasons.......IMO he set a standard that I strived to reach (and got close) but merged it with techniques I learned from Baker....... .....I bet there aren't many of these days drummers that can paradiddle on a snare let alone on a pair of bass drums withe their foot pedals.......I can, if my breathing holds up... ......in fact I wonder if they actually know what a paradiddle is...... There is only one modern drummer IMO who should have stuck to drumming....Dave Grohl......his timing is impeccable and knows exactly how to accent the drum strokes... AL
Agree Al, But Bonzo was a freak of nature! Rock And Roll - Foo Fighters, with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones [High Quality] - YouTube
I reckon that in music there is no correlation between instrumental artistry and sounds you want to hear. Look at Dylan - hardly a top musician (Knocking on Heaven's Door is only 3 chords), strange nasal whining voice. But are we all going to stand up and say that he has no talent and that everything he's done is dross? I actually really like the couple of Arctic Monkeys albums I have. I was interested to listen to them owing to the hype, so a friend copied one for me. It was good enough to prompt me to buy their third one, still need to buy the second one. Are they great musicians? Hardly. When they made the first album they probably hadn't been playing a lot longer than I now have. But who cares? It sounds good. Joy Division were a seminal band for me. Once again, I'm not sure how they rank on the musicianship stakes (low, I expect, with the possible exception of Peter Hook) - but they produced art.
Try sales mate, you can use your talent and personality to succeed. Just be confident. Or the nuclear decommissioning industry - they are taking on
Ah but what do I do?......getting close to retirement age, much slower because of health which also limits what I can do. Unfortunately I was working in an industry which has advanced with technology (for that, read 'deteriorated') but I was too busy with work to keep up with technology and or experiment / learn new stuff.....although to be fair to me, I am pretty damn good with PCs etc etc....it's just that I didn't want to me a nerd. Not getting any work now, because health limits me meeting the strict deadlines which I have to abide by.... Well stuffed, I reckon. AL.
this is an oxymoron and utterly misses the point. if you really believe this, what ever you do, dont practice. 'instrument artistry' may be summed up as thus..'technique'. Technique is the vehicle which allows an artist (whatever their discipline) to express themselves essentially without concious effort. This is called PROPRIOCEPTION, and is one of the 21 accepted human senses...(the orientation and movement of the body). Technique makes things effortless, from playing a guitar lick, dancing, planing a piece of wood or getting your knee down. The 'sounds you want to hear' become broader and more nuanced as a musician improves and develops a greater understanding and appreciation...you 'develop you ear' as they in music schools. advanced musicians have a greater ability to discern (and accept) consonance and dissonance. Western music can be summarised as 'the public acceptance of increasingly dissonant intervals'.. Therefore, instrument artistry not allows the musician to be aware of the possible nuances and pallet of tones and sounds available, but also to spontaneously create and experiment with those sounds, to be able to contextualise them against his internal 'library' and to technically execute them. With sufficient technique one can play loose, dirty, sloppy, out of time (attitude), or they can play tight and controlled. This is why studios use session musicians to play on albums such as the Arctic Monkeys, particularly when theres a deadline. You, the punter, cant tell. Case in point: about 50% of ALL the guitar work on Appetite for Destruction (Guns n' Roses) was played by the late Tommy Tedesco. He could imitate anyone and play it back in one take, as well as being an exception player in his own right....because he had music artistry and was able to recreate the sounds he wanted to hear. A current impersonator would be someone like Guthrie Govan, an essentially little known British journalist and school teacher. The great jazzers and fusion players run this gamut. You dont have to be good to be successful, you have to be lucky. You also have to connect to people. Art is emotion, whatever discipline it may be. Dylan was able to express himself perfectly...he may have a very limited technical repertoire but that didnt matter. Ok, theres no where to go or to develop without improving your musicianship, that evolution for you, but is it not artistry to be able to express ones emotions through your art? Zimmerman, sorry Dylan, stole black music mercilessly and black protest songs (Knocking on heavens door).... And isnt the blues and protest music meant to be expressed this way?? loose, gravelly, honest?? its a music born of common folk, its not Opera or Bebop. Also you mentioned the great unwashed have their propensity for consuming shite..they do not discriminate...if its easy and requires no effort then thats all good..sadly it usually makes things superficial and transitory. This is why they have jazz appreciation classes on music degrees..people 'dont understand it', and their brains cant hear or process the notes fast enough and cant distinguish the intervals between the notes (this is a scientific fact: when studying an instrument thoroughly the brain changes-your hearing actually improves in the same way as a painter can see hues within colours)... I used to hear lecturers saying to us students, 'dont worry, you'll get there', 'you ear hasnt developed yet' or 'try harder'....and think they were off their rockers...but then we couldnt distinguish dominant chords from major 7 chords. Once your ear develops then its like lifting a veil..sadly a lot of music then also begins to sound like nails down a blackboard. Sorry but to believe that there is no relationship between instrumental artistry and the sounds you want to hear is to be ignorant of the topic from the most remedial level.
My Son took lessons for a while and so I have been known to pick up his guitar, but all I can play (badly) is the opening riff from 'Smoke on the Water', turned up to 11 of course... :biggrin:
i could have put my life savings on that.... ive only taught that song to about 12,000 people, usually starting on 1 string. Kudos though for playing on 11..thats metal, that is....just do me a favour, never ever learn 500 miles by the proclaimers...this is my most hated song of all time by a country mile.
Dammit, Funky, how did you do that? That is exactly the song that has popped up right now as I type on my current iTunes playlist - a randomised selection of over 7500 tracks. Shee-it. (It's on a compilation CD, I haven't bought any Proclaimers CD's, I hasten to add.)
