Guitarist rant...

Nitefly

Nitefly

Nitefly

Man of Honour
Joined
24 Sep 2005
Posts
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Hello, thought I'd share a rant I had with another guitarist.

Whilst in my room at uni the other day I was playing through this overplayed piano classic - http://www.guitaretab.com/b/beethoven-ludwig/1378.htm (I only link because its fabulous and saves me making another thread :D )

When people came into my room socialisage (Its a word). After a minute or so of playing through I was pelted with requests...

"Oooo can you do 'I predict a riot'?"
"Erm, don't know it, sorry...."
"How about that white stripes song, the new one?"
"I'm not really into that style of music..."
"Oh... any chillies stuff?"
".. nah, sorry!"

Fair enough I thought. The exact same thing happened to my mate, who was also bombarded with requests much to dissapointment of people. Then this other guy picked up the guitar and played the start to that 'hotel yorba' song, to much praise. He then took a red hot chilly peppers request which was some three note solo to many 'oooo.... ahhhhh!' responces. After this guy left the room, people commented on what a fantastic guitarist he was. My eyes instantly caught with the second mentioned player in a look of '....................'.

Does anyone else find it REALLY irritating that people judge your guitar playing by what songs you can play? Not meaning to sound up myself, but I find it exceptionally 'peeve-offable' when I make my way through the whole of moonlight sonata without anyone batting an eyelid (Not that annoys me at all, couldn't give a damn what people think about what I play :) ) only to be 'upstaged' by a freekin' three note solo!

Agh!

Anyone else experienced this frustration?
 
I haven't experience it personally, seeing as I'm crap at playing guitar, but I can understand the feeling.

It's the same annoyance I experience when people find the Chilli Peppers interesting in the first place. (Also whenever I've been working in the bar and we've had live music in, they always play MOR stuff, and say "We'll take requests". I go up, say: "Any Elliott Smith, Nick Drake, Ryan Adams...list of names...?". Reply: "Nope, sorry, but we know some Oasis tracks if you'd like to have one of those played?". Me: /stabs self in eye.

On a slight side-note:

DiS said:
A US radio presenter has accused the Red Hot Chili Peppers of plagiarism, claiming that the band's 'Dani California' single is near identical to Tom Petty's 'Mary Jane's Last Dance'.

Dan Gaffney, of Delaware-based WGMD, told his listeners of the similarities. Subsequently, the show's producer Jared Morris told reporters:

"The chord progression, the melody, the tempo, the key, the lyrical theme... they're identical."

To prove the point, Morris has posted MP3s on his personal blog, here. Neither Petty nor the RHCP are yet to comment.
Click to expand...

http://www.jared-morris.com/blog/petty.mp3

And there's the link ^^

Pretty damn funny.
 
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Nitefly said:
Does anyone else find it REALLY irritating that people judge your guitar playing by what songs you can play? Not meaning to sound up myself, but I find it exceptionally 'peeve-offable' when I make my way through the whole of moonlight sonata without anyone batting an eyelid (Not that annoys me at all, couldn't give a damn what people think about what I play :) ) only to be 'upstaged' by a freekin' three note solo!
Click to expand...

yup, ive had that a good few times. i dont play to "the masses" as it were, but i have learnt the chords for plenty of well known songs becuase i know thats how non musical people judge how people play.
 
What guitarists must remember is that you're judged by what sounds good to other people, not how fast you can play and how much crap modes and scales you can shove into a 17/9 bar ;)
 
A lot of you have got a lot to learn with audiences.
You could go on stage and play something like For The Love Of God and not raise an eyebrow but play The Birdy Song or Apache and your gods gift to music.
Even with my rock band where we're basically playing stuff we really want to play can get tiresome. We decide to play a less so famous track by a band and it doesn't go down so well but play the one they're famous for and you're loved.
I can go further back in the Workingmens Clubs where one arse kept shouting for Elvis.
I did Marie His Latest Flame
He shouted "Play Elvis"
I then did Girl of My Best Friend
He shouted "Play Elvis"
I then did Jailhouse Rock
He got very abusive and shouted "Are you going to play ******* Elvis?"
I shouted in front of 500 people "I've just played 3 ******* Elvis songs in a row, what do you ******* want?"
"Blue Suede Shoes"
"Oh **** off".

Audiences are so fickle.
 
But you don't have to please everyone all the time - you should play what you want to play, then again if you're happy to sell out and learn stuff that "other people will like" then so be it. Some of the best musical pioneers were slated when they started playing/composing but you will either get an eventual following of people who like your style or you gravitate to an area where it's more acceptable. There's always critics, even at gigs where people pay to get in - why the hell do they pay £15 to go see |insert_big_band_name_here| then proceed to moan about them all the way through the set??

.. and before anyone says "that's idealistic clap-trap", rubbish! Okay, you can't get anywhere if you don't have fans or respect in the musical community but people will respect you for having musical integrity and not just pumping out some moronic Oasis/White Stripes tat.
 
People respond to different things.

Nearly all of my students (that talk) are amazed after a few lessons how hard guitar actually is, a lot of them expect to be able to play their favourite songs after one lesson (usually without any practise too). 9/10 if you play something that isn't mainstream then only musicians will appreciate the differences in that and a basic 3 chord song that everyone's heard.

It's just sods law with music and every musician should accept that people will find different things you play appealing and you're always going to get annoyed if someone can't see how much work you have put into learning something difficult but not necessarily appealing to the masses.
 
thats what irritates me about people who can play :p.. lol vicious circle.

ive played for 6year had lessons and all that malarky.. so i can safely say i know some stuff.

but i also know that to "joe public" half of the stuff i know is absolutely useless.

so i fill my head up with loads of "party stuff" i.e. a lot of "popular" music...

so when someone asks for something, i might be able to play.. it might be something simple as a handful of chords.. but to someone know knows squat it will be amazing.

some "guitarists" that also know their stuff will be all big headed about it by playing some indian scale and thinking they are the bees knees, but can they play oasis.. lol no. what matters most to most people.. oasis.

so i dunno, it can work both ways.

when i did music at college they were all insisting when it came to the end of year show that we did all these weird and personally great songs... but the i was laughed at when suggesting we played more "popular" songs, turned out we played more obscure songs.. after the show most the people we left unimpressed as they knew hardly any songs...

yet they complimented the people who played heard of songs such as the power of love by huey lewis and the news.. whatever they are :p.
 
lemonkettaz said:
some "guitarists" that also know their stuff will be all big headed about it by playing some indian scale and thinking they are the bees knees, but can they play oasis.. lol no. what matters most to most people.. oasis.
Click to expand...

True, but if it matters to you that you should be playing stuff that people recognise, then learn lots of popular music. However by having knowledge of an 'indian scale' (theory in general) an experienced "guitarist" could work out just about any popular music song in a couple of minutes, so it's all relative.
 
Andelusion said:
True, but if it matters to you that you should be playing stuff that people recognise, then learn lots of popular music. However by having knowledge of an 'indian scale' (theory in general) an experienced "guitarist" could work out just about any popular music song in a couple of minutes, so it's all relative.
Click to expand...

true.. i didnt literally mean the guitarist couldnt play "oasis"

but as for the listening ears the latter would be more important
 
I think people are impressed by seeing your average joe guitarist play popular songs as they're obviously used to seeing/hearing them performed by the artist who wrote them (bad choice of words), so if your best mate -bedroom-guitarist- can play a song then wow they must be like a superstar! It's blurring the line between fame and actual talent.

You could talk about this all day really, in the end I think it's important what matters to you as a guitarist whether that's playing for yourself or playing for a particular audience.
 
its like all the "kid punk" bands in my local area think they are class.. and everybody licks their backside because obviously they are amazing.

its that old power chord cliche guitarist.

problem being too many people play the guitar... a select few actuall learn the guitar
 
Many years back I was sitting with my date in a bar waiting for a table in one of London's NY style restaurants. Down by the reception dude in taxedo played the most amazing jazz on black steinway piano. He didn't look around, played quietly, in the background, and you could see he was enjoying every minute of it. He would jump nicely from one tune to the other, add bits from popular music in the middle of progressions, a true virtuoso style. It was the most amazing jazz on a single instrument I heard for years. And I hate jazz.
After 15 minutes he stood up and walked to the bar for a glass of water. In the same moment some half drunken guy sat at the piano and surrounded by 3 girls started banging something loudly but arythmically. Then he howled and crowd started cheering. It was really bad, karaoke on senior night down at Brighton Bingo club style rendition of Mandy by Marry Banilow, (or was it Barry Manilow). My date said "God, finally someone who knows how to play piano, I thought that other guy would never finish".

I swear I just wanted to walk out and leave her there...
 
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