Guitar playing has become a sport. Back then, players would have things come to them and find a way to play them. They used their instruments to play music. Now, players work on how to use their techniques. The use music as a way to demonstrate their chops.
They want to be mechanically good at using a guitar with less interest in being musicians. They are pure guitarists. They sound like what I imagine reading the Paul Reed Smith manual would sound like. "Put finger here when metronome clicks"
Scott Henderson said it perfectly ( something to the effect of ) " I'd rather hear Albert Collins drop his guitar than hear perfect sequence of 1/16th notes.
I'm a songwriter first and a guitarist second, so to me it's always been about the song. And that's why these early guitarists were so brilliant - they were serving the song first and anything that blows your mind guitar-wise afterwards is just a bonus.
My opinion : the reason the musicians of the time were more artistic/creative . The chances of the players are in the same room , ... you can't record the HEART. I mean , a computer can't record the HEART . This one guy can do it all , ain't working . Play music with someone . It happens , I speak from experience .
Agreed. I couldn't name a Vai or Satriani song and find them unlistenable. I only listen to Vinny Moore when he is playing Michael Schenker stuff in UFO.
@This is 86 calling Control. Come in, Control... "There once was a girl, whose heart was a frown, 'cause she was crippled for life and couldn't make a sound, until one day she decided to die. She took her wheelchair to the edge of the shore, and to her legs she smiled you won't hurt me no more. But suddenly, a sight she had never seen before made her jump up and say, look, a golden winged ship is coming my way, and it didn't even have to stop, it just kept on going, and so castles made of sand slip into the sea, eventually". Castles Made of Sand, third verse. There once was a boy, who played left-hand, and he took his guitar to a matinee to jam, for the first time, trying to get in a band. He took his guitar up to the front of the stage, and to his left hand he said it's your turn to play, and just when his nerves were getting the best of him, a band member said hey, your playing really fits in, asking him to travel on the road with them, and he didn't have to stop playing, as hassles of left hands slips into being seen... eventually. Jimi still inspires me after 1969.
@This is 86 calling Control. Come in, Control... Don't listen to this troll he obviously doesn't even know who Jimi was, beyond a couple of RUclips videos, if that, or else he would know that Jimi is widely regarded as one of the great songwriters of the era! LMFAO
I think the major difference between those classic guitar players and current ones is that they played MUSIC in BANDS. They did not learn to play in isolation in their bedrooms, plugging their tracks over other electronic tracks in an arithmetic manner. They learned by playing gigs. Hundreds if not thousands of gigs. They played parties and clubs. They were in house bands that had standing gigs six nights a week. What you heard as slop was actually the musical nuance that did not fit an arithmetic grid. It was the emotion of musicians playing together as a cohesive unit. The networks of opportunity to play live music that existed in the past do not exist today. There are very few places that have live music most nights of the week, and very few of those have house bands where players can learn and hone the craft set after set, night after night. The result is guitarists, and others, that sound like precise robots. They may have technical chops, but they don't have musical chops. It's not a lack of talent or creativity. It's lack of the proper environment for talent and creativity to develop and flourish. I'm sure many will disagree, but that is what i hear as a guy that has been playing 35 years or so. And I say that because I recognize those same faults in my own playing. It is something I grew to recognize with the perspective of age and time.
Really well put. Hendrix cut his teeth playing on the “Chitlin Circuit” with the Isley Brothers. Can you imagine? Page played on something like 60% of the rock songs coming out of England in 1965-1967 as a studio ace and in the process became a studio and compositional wizard and master. These original players from the 60’s and early 70s were pros, and they were living life and leading bands and paying dues. From all that experience came the essence of ballsy, emotional ROCK music, with great, imaginative, original songs and new sounds. Everyone who came after stood on their shoulders and they deserve their legacies (Hendrix, Clapton, Beck, Page, Richards, Harrison, Davies, Iommi, Blackmore, Kossoff, Green, Gibbons, Frampton, etc etc etc)
Yup you're not wrong Jonas, these bedroom guitarists don't understand the amount of work and experience you need to be a great guitarist, Jimmy Page didn't just daydream and wish in his bedroom about being a great guitarist, he did a lot of work in bands and session studios to be where he got to. Williman thinks that he can just daydream in his private room about guitar and he'll become a great guitarist, it doesn't work like that in the real world, you have to get out there and work like any other trade and learn the craft 😄
I've never been a clean technique player. And I'm 100 % ok with that. I play from my heart, enjoy every moment of it, and that's all that matters to me. My spark comes from channeling energy straight from the soul.
Should be read as: “I've never been a clean technique player. And never will be. It's just too hard to play even one note on electric so it doesn't sound like total crap. These soulless robots shred like hell, and that makes me deeply depressed, because I'd literally sell my asshole to Devil for a skill like that. They are definitely talented, they just picked up their instruments and instantly became gods. Or sold their arse to the hell king. I have no natural ability, and Satan doesn't want to buy my ass, so I will never reach that level. I also don't want to practice because it takes time, that sweet time I can spend watching Netflix and eating cheap pizza. And it's hard like hell, it's like performing a real job. Instead of torturing myself with these totally unnecessary actions, I should stick to screaming “this has no soul!” when I hear a player that's at least half good. This is much easier to both comprehend and practice, and there's enough of similar idiots in the crowd I belong to, so they'll scream louder than these nerds who don't leave their rooms unless the police has come. This way, I'll look more respectable by the public, and I also will get my nonsensical bias towards hard working people confirmed”.
It's the quality of the songs. If the song is great, the potential for the guitar to be memorable is much higher. Also, those guys were all a part of great bands (even Hendrix) and not trying to be a standout solo player. They were team players playing on fabulous songs.
Yeah composition is the true art of music, take Lennon & Harrison or Richards & Jones and more people listen to them than all the technical players because Ticket To Ride & The Last Time are simple on the guitar but great tunes.
As a kid, I loved Carlos Santana and mocked heavily for it. I felt the emotion and intensity of his playing. It’s nice to hear your respect for his playing.
Most dudes back in the day were self taught. They learned by listening to records over and over. Now everyone takes lessons and little kids can play anything.
There is a reason why "Old man" guitar playing is so iconic. Clean, technical guitar playing is fun and interesting to listen to IF you're a clean, technical guitar player....Maybe 1 percent of any audience. The rest of the audience enjoys art. They want to feel and be transported by leads, not put in a catatonic state or lulled to sleep.
Yeah people confuse technical prowess with being better than and that’s just not the case, a guitar solo is supposed to kick you straight in the ball sack and some shredders just can’t get the effect but that’s just my 2 cents! I respect the shred and math rock stuff the Tik tok bros do now a days but it’s just lacking something for me
@@kane6529 well yea there are parts where playing like a machine (tempo or volume wise) sounds really good but then there are also parts where it sounds best to be more "vocal" with those. Yes it can actually sound really good, not to play mathematically in time, in the same way as it Sounds good not to play all loud all the time, and makes for me often the difference between boring and intense. You won't hear much of that in modern pop music but when you hear it and you are not aware of it you can not point the Finger at it. It's just interesting sounding. In earlier Musical they used it a lot though. For example the concept of Rubato in clasical Music.
You should scream this louder so every RUclipsr and Instagram guitarist can hear you. Cause this is something they don't understand. Every idiot on here sounds exactly the same
No, you've got it wrong. The techincal guitar players are the ones enjoying art. After all, their advanced knowledge of improvisation, allows them to create art. LIsteners, the "other percentage" of the audience are the ones that don't recognize art. That's why they want a sing along, or repetative, simple guitar licks, designed for the most basic of listeners. By the way a catatonic state would be more likely induced, in those who don't have a clue what a performer is doing musically. They need a clear, simple beat, with a repetitive, simple line to follow in order to maintain their attention.
I had the exact same feelings having grown up with shredders like Racer-X, Cacophony, Yngwie, Tony MacAlpine and the more I realized how expressive the blues was, I started to really appreciate that raw, organic sound... I always loved Led Zeppelin but even lately now I've been going back to The Allman Brothers, Moody Blues, etc. (before my time) - to see what people were listening to 10 or 20 years before the music I remember.
By 1993 I'd been playing for 15 years. Us "old school players" didn't have RUclips, the internet or cellphones with video capabilities and massive storage. When we wanted to learn something we had to work it out by ear from a record or cassette. Getting lessons was expensive so Guitar Player magazines with their shitty little plastic records included were our saviour. To get specialist training ,, you had to mail a money order to the U.S. ( that took at least a few weeks } for a booklet with notation and TAB and a cassette of the style of player you wanted to be. The whole exercise took about 6 weeks. Going to gigs and hassling good players into giving up some knowledge was the other method of learning. One guy that became a good friend of mine,, Victor Holder,, went to Berkley music school and was a great influence. I was 17 and playing in some of the roughest blues bars and pubs in Australia. Nowdays if i want to learn some really cool shit i just click a link. The computer generations don't know how fucking lucky they are. The struggle was real.
I’ve been struggling with the same issues for years, always thinking that the stuff I came up with was all already done a thousand times before and that it wasn’t good or original enough. Today I try to develop a more holistic way. Yes, I am a guitar player and the guitar is my main instrument BUT first and foremost I’m a musician and that’s what it’s all about for me, i don’t want to be an incredible guitar player anymore, I want to create music. The best ideas I have arise from melodies that often come naturally, most of the times when I don’t have a guitar in my hands or close. I need to have the music in my head first and afterwards use the guitar or piano to record it and if I lack the technical skills to do so, then I work on the specific technique that enables me to create what I had in my head before. That’s what was so special about Mozart, he could compose a whole piece in his head, then write it down because he knew how and later play it or have it played and that’s what was and is special about the early rock guitar players, music came first and they tried to channel it as it came.
Having grown up in that era, I am that old man and proud of it. It was in fact, Peter Frampton's playing on Humble Pie's "Humble Pie Performance Rockin' The Fillmore" album, which I bought when it was released in '71 that made me want to play guitar in the first place (honorable mention goes to Mark Farner from Grand Funk's first live album released in '70). Of course, I listened to Beck, Clapton, Hendrix, Page, etc. in the '60s (still do), along with Jazz players such as Wes Montgomery and Kenny Burrell, but it was Frampton that really made me want to play. Although I like "Satch" and pretty much have all of his albums, I find it hard to listen to a lot of players from that era as well as the modern players. Not that there's anything wrong with them, they're technical masters to be sure, but it's just too sterile for me. Consequently, I still listen to the same music I listened to 40/50 and almost 60 years ago. "To each their own" I guess?
I too suffer from being slightly old, I play in a few ' collectives ' not quite bands but groups of like minded( and not) musical types,some are blues,some blue grass inspired. I notice that songs that some would discredit as being old still inspire the audience. I listen to radio more than half the day through earmuffs and I often suggest songs that I hear on a regular basis,they may be 40 yrs old but if you recognise it it's going to be a successful choice
I think players like Page, Hendrix and Santana were more interested in making good music than being good guitarists. It was the spirit of the age. It was all about the vibe.
@@zfm1097 I mean they were/are great songwriters (not sure about Santana) and also great guitarists who are role models for new generations of guitarists to this day
Early guitarists like Django, Charlie, Wes, Herb Ellis, Early George Benson, Tal Farlow, many more, and late sixties/early 70s guys like Bill Conners, McLaughlin, Holdsworth, and many more, have as much or probably more technique than the "new guys." The early ROCK guys were almost PURPOSELY letting it be loose, because of the feel. Technique matters to a point in any art, but art with little technique is still valid, and sometimes way cooler than perfection if done right. I always felt those with tons of technique have very little in the way of musical ideas, so they just practice technique. Plus, Yngwie, for instance is stuck in the past, like 200 years in the past, harmonically and melodically. When blues came around, it had very little to do with technique, it was more about expression. Finally, in the Hendrix or Zeppelin catalogue, there are very few songs that sound alike, and it was about a band sound and interaction with the other musicians so it was more of a general musicality and creativity thing. So many of the new players just shred over what sounds like jamming to harmonically basic jam tracks. Not all, of course, but many. There are always incredible guitarists around, the new guys too. The new stuff, by the way, is almost always completely edited, note for note, so of course it sounds like they never make a mistake, and if they can do it live, they are not living on the edge, which is what many listeners are looking for, reaching for things. Might miss, oh well, but if you GET it it is worth it!
The old school players played with their ears. Not with books & videos. They generated ideas and tried ideas, rather than only copying them. They (like Jonas said) played live in front of people and sucked live until they built skills and a thick skin. This made them FAR FAR FAR more versatile.
All the fast and clean shredding is nothing modern or new:already done in the seventies by the jazz fusion guys.The modern guys are not cleaner and faster than their seventies counterparts, there are just more of them. Allan Holdsworth and John Mclaughlin had done all that stuff by 1973!
Nobody sounded like ichiko before him. Nobody sounded like Guthrie govan before him. They are super creative and have their own sound. Super dismissive and wrong to say that there's nobody doing anything new.
@@nikhilmalik62 I'll check them both out. I'd be very surprised if either of them has expanded on the musical vocabulary of John McLaughlin or Allan Holdsworth though. I'd LOVE to be blown away though! Thanks for the names!
I've listened to 'highly technical' music requiring high levels of ability. Some I like, some I don't (same for everyone). My favourite guitar player just plays 'enough' notes with feeling - David Gilmour is just so expressive (and Pink Floyd is just sooo good). No 'flashy' stuff there. No need.
@@itsmeagain1745 David Gilmour is one of my all time favorites. Hendrix inspired me to play but David Gilmour had a big impact on my style (however I am still myself regarding my sound)
Great video, in my younger days I never tried to copy tone but I focused on vibrato technique and melody (that space between the notes) and in my opinion David Gilmour is a master of that.
A couple other factors... back then studio time was often limited, and tracking was not infinite. They often didnt have the time and resources to cut and paste to get perfect tracks... and editing the finished material was far more limited. I might be the odd man out here, but there have been many instances where I've split up a guitar part to try and get it recorded tighter... only to toss out the tracks and use my rough take. Cut a paste recording can suck alot of life out of a track. Imo you can still hear this in more current albums, bands putting out excelent albums early on, and later recordings somehow losing something as the budgets go up.
Excellent take. I know exactly what you mean. There is something about the grungy, loose takes that have more depth and meaning to them, as opposed to the sterile perfect ones.
@@jraelien5798 You can get the best of both worlds, play one track loose and use it as a pattern for the rest of the playing. Don't lock to a grid, but maybe cheat and make sure you're always in the pocket.
@@skaldlouiscyphre2453 I hear what you are saying, and have done it but theres something in the urgency and attack that comes from making awkward jumps around the fretboard rather than just splitting the riffs up. In particular I rember this call and answer riff I was recording where I played a bar of this light airy John Frusciante thing way up the neck, then answered it with a really aggressive/ percussive Tom Morrello thing down low. No matter how much I tryed to split that riff into two parts to avoid continually punching pedals and making weird jumps all over the fretboard, it lost a tremendous amount of groove and feel.
I agree i wont copy abd paste riffs i play every one of them! Otherwise the dynamics are non existent abd cant increase intensity through the song etc!
60s guitarists were breaking trail. Yes, they stood on the shoulders of blues and to a lesser degree jazz and country players, but sonically this was a whole new game. All the cutting edge players of the time had the improvisational high-wire expressiveness and nerve of many of the blues and jazz players of the time... often even in the studio. With amplification and effects, sounds were being made for the first time. With all of the imperfections and sometimes sloop, the really great players seemed to have captured the lightning of those times... sparks flew. Many are still burning today.
Very well put amigo, I'm glad I grew up in that time with soul of the sixties, sometimes I tell stories of that Era and I get an Aliënated look, doesn't matter I bare that treasure with me👍
@@JazzgutsVGvanKampen But read some of the biographies... Eric Clapton in a video says he can tell what he was 'on' when playing. That Keith Richards, by his own admission is surprised he's still going strong. 'Moon the Loon' collapsed on stage and subsequently died (horse tranquiliser if I remember correctly). How many have been broken by alcohol and/or cannabis? I'm glad that you managed to keep away from 'the devils weed' and other such 'aids', but many of the greats have had 'assistance' (legal or not so much) when playing live.
@@itsmeagain1745 It's true what you say, but I never understood this madness of drugs, it certainly ain't true that someone is going to play better on that shit. Someone may think so, but in reality that ain't the case.
Imagine a 3 hour Zepp concert or similar with the guitarist playing with economy of movement, accuracy and uniformity in note spacing like some modern shredder. What a total drag that would be. Or a great singer singing Since I’ve Been Loving You and then some idiot chimes in with legato or picked scales. People would walk out after half an hour. Speed needs to be exciting, not a smooth move up through metronome notches. Great technique sounds great in its place but its place is not in emotional music.
Great comment! Right on point! Technique is great....but feel, taste, and passion are king...just ask Leslie West or Jeff Beck or Jimmy Page and all the rest of the great players of the 60s and 70s.
Can some of these shredders hold down a whole concert? Think about that Zep example. Every night they played more than 3 hours, and played straight rock, blues, trance, funk, acoustic folk, rockabilly, psychedelic, punk, and who knows what else in incredible synch with each other, delivering maximum power, highs, lows, almost like classical movements. Sure, call Page “sloppy” if you must, but the dude was delivering magic every night playing songs that might have 4-6 tracked guitar parts, in all those styles, and with all kinds of stage presence, moves, drama. JP once referred to The Song Remains the Same as “mediocre”, but good Lord if that’s mediocre, a great performance had to be transcendent. Each song was an epic. These new players might be technically advanced, but never again will there be a rock God like Jimmy Page!!
You're equating good technique to boring playing as if the technique causes that It doesn't... technique is merely a tool Evenly spaced notes and boring composition have nothing to do with playing technique Economy of movement has no real downside, bullshit. If you like big rock movements, fine, but stop pretending that showmanship has any effect on the actual music You're just a sucker for the image. This tired old "learning technique destroys your feeling" is a load of old hat cope bullshit by atechnical guitar players... Zep was sloppy and fucked up live more compared to even their contempararies like deep purple and the such... they never were as good as the competion even in their time lol
The things that these older guitarists had that is all to lacking in todays players, is heart and soul. Now it's all technique, and it's hard to differentiate the players.
I started playing classical guitar, and the players today (I admit that I don't listen to much of them; now jazz or blues-check out Jack Pearson playing with Josh Smith) sound like they are playing finger exercises, i.e. boring as hell imo.
@@smelltheglove2038 -- It's the difference between guitarists as artists versus guitarists as athletes. Shredding is "hard" and people are impressed by the skill it takes. But music isn't about skill; it's about creating a feeling or mood; it's about telling a story. People forget that guitar solos are actually filler material in a song. They takes up the space the vocalists aren't using. If an actor draws attention to his acting, then he is doing a bad job. If a musician is drawing attention to his playing -- rather than to the feeling created by the song -- then he is doing it wrong.
@@enonknives5449 there are guitar players out there that take their virtuoso style playing and tell a story. Those are the players that I gravitate towards. Guys like Derek trucks, Jerry Garcia, Duane Allman, Clapton, Trey Anastasio.
Ya I get what you're saying, being in the same age group and started in the same genres. In the 80s I used to mock alot of bands and genres as sounding too easy. Blues, even rock bands like ac/dc. First working dollars spent on a half stack and played in the house. Showing up at a jam ready to play Free Wheel Burning, some local blues guys were there already jamming with my drummer buddy. I thought "weird", then fire up my amp and blast away. They ask me to try doing a few blues riffs. I was stumped. Couldn't. Should have been my eye opener. Fast forward a few decades and I read Angus Young stating that rock is supposed to be fun, supposed to be simple. Then I get it, and try learning a few of their songs. The little nuances they used..... more than meets the eye there apart from that basic 4/4 beat. Suddenly I'm getting it and having fun again. With a new found respect for alot of other early artists.
I went to the jazz but started with Rory Gallagher, came from school and started playing " on the boards" which blew my mind and in the end I could play the whole album, all the leads by ear before I went to the conservatory in Adam. I can understand you completely, the Era of Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Page, is about expressive inperfection, the mindset is very important, yes I'm an older guy. Greetings Vic
What you are describing and you just recently discovered, delightfully so, is something the musicians of my generation knew instinctively but actually WAS explained by Page in early interviews when asked about his style. He summed it all up in 3 words. Loose but tight. It's a feel that most of the players of that era subscribed to.
I sometimes think the young players are actually hampered by perfect technique and the fear of getting something wrong. Timing is another thing that has messed up the feel of modern stuff, the old stuff used off the beat, varying tempo, dragging behind the beat to give feeling to a song. Also the drummers, bass and keyboards were all adding their own feelings to the overall feel. The drumming alone in When The Levee Breaks has more feel than most modern guitarists sadly.
What is missing is the thrill of discovery. Imagine flight as experienced by the Wright brothers and the early barnstormers and how that differs from boarding a jet plane today. You are going faster, and farther, and higher but you barely notice. There was the thrill of life and death in every moment of flight and now it is tedium and something to be endured until you arrive at your destination. It is no longer about flight; it’s about getting there. As you perfect something by continually polishing it and endlessly trying to refine it, you are buffing away the thrill of discovery until you arrive at your destination: a perfect nothing. I’m an old man, 79, soon to be 80. I earned my keep as a full-time “professional” guitarist for 36 years and spent nearly 11 years in continuous road travel and at times accompanied major stars. Every new album that came out contained an explosion of never before experienced creativity, a sumptuous stew of possibilities. It was breathtaking in the way only first time things can be. We were like children seeing dazzling color for the first time and maybe that kind of thrill belongs exclusively to the child in us. Too much of anything robs us of our innocence and makes us in some way old. We can never again regain that innocence or that thrill. I am stunned every day by the virtuosity, skill and imagination that is on display everywhere by the players of today but it is a dry and barren admiration, devoid of the child-like wonder my first exposure to even basic guitar playing once carried. You can only lose your virginity once. It’s never going to be quite the same again. Love making might improve with experience but there is only one ever first time. You might still love the flight but you have already experienced the destination. There is never a way to go back.
IDK if you've come across the channel "Wings of Pegasus" from the UK, but the host Fil, when I came across him a couple of years ago, would mainly focus on Guitarists and their playing. But recently he's switched up and in addition to the playing, he's added analyzing the vocals, including of non-guitarists, and showing when Autotune has been used, and not used in the production, and how taking away those "mistakes" in the vocals can rip the soul and feel out of the song.
When I started out I wanted to play like the greats but in the pre-internet world of the 80s, most of all I just wanted to play. I had one great guitar, one great amp and a few pedals and for 30 years that was all I used. Now in my 50s, I am surrounded by gear and overwhelmed by all the talent on youtube - most of it also selling me more gear or telling me my technique sucks (which it probably does) - and I can understand the "Road to Damascus" moment David must have had. The guitar is the love of my life but it is also a massive steaming pile of over-priced pedals, amps, modifications and assorted nonsense that distract you from making music. And guitar solos? Give me 15 seconds of quality that works in a song over 60 seconds of widdly widdly wank. The best Eddie Van Halen guitar solo was the one in Beat It - perfect, succinct and made the song. I think we all need to take a breath and step back from this overload of information and sales pitches so we can get back to enjoying playing music without over-analysing every tone, sound, riff, whatever, and most importantly, get back to making songs that can blow away an audience in 3 minutes with or without a guitar solo. That's all they did in the past that was really different to today.
What the old guys did to me was to make me love the sound of the electric guitar. From Duane Eddy to Big Daddy Jimmy. The fuse was lit. All of us are still on fire.
I'm a player who, for the most part, doesn't like most of what I hear on guitar since the mid 80's. It seemed like anger or technique (being too technical) had become what was passing for music. I think what you call sloppy playing is a deeper connection between the soul of the player and what comes out the guitar. The interesting thing is, I've heard people complain that Jimmy Page was a sloppy player. In the 60's this "sloppy" player was said to have played on 90% of the records coming out of England. That's right, he was a studio musician playing all kinds of music and in different genres. I'm sorry but my feeling is, just because it's technical or ultra fast doesn't mean that it's music that others would want to listen too. In the early 80's there were some great guys, playing very original sounding stuff on guitar, who were far from being technicians. Some that come to mind are Robin Guthrie of a group called Cocteau Twins, John McGeoch who played with a group called Magazine in the late 70's and a group called Siouxsie And The Banshees in the 80's, and a guy name Daniel Ash who played in Bauhaus, Tones On Tail, and Love & Rockets. All of these guys were self taught and none of them were angry or technical players, yet they've made more money than most of those that are considered great guitarist. I want to hear the soul, not just the speed.
There is a big guitar revolution going on in Africa right now, that is worth examining...They are combining raw old school unrefined classic rock/blues type playing with traditional African styles...It’s really cool to hear....
I know what you mean. perfection lies in imperfection. I play without knowing about notes or scales. I play by ear and feel. When I play the guitar, only emotions come out. i want to fix this problem
@@bifftannen3167 I feel the same way. You can hear what mood I'm in right now. and I can never repeat it. it is only in this moment. I would like to play a little more what I mean and not what I feel. Luckily I play a lot of blues so it's not that noticeable.
Totally agree with this. I've played since the 70s. Whatever the type of music, emotion, (excitement, love, sorrow, anger etc) and feelings for the music are what elevates it , even if the listener doesn't realize that. If you really love what you're playing, whether it's from original songs, the other musicians you're playing with, or just on your own, nailing a cover or two, and really getting into it then it will show in the final results. And this translates for the audience, most of whom are not guitarists remember. For some reason the "new" technical/shred, acoustic two handed tapping type or whatever, come across as clinical, cold and calculating, over polished/produced, and lacking in emotion to my ears. They have no emotion whatsoever and actually very hard to listen to.
I have 40 years of playing perspective and things have certainly changed. For one thing, modeling technology has made great sound dynamics and recording accessible to a lot more players. For another, RUclips tutorials have made it possible for me to learn songs and techniques that took me hours to figure out (or seemed impossible) in a few minutes. I can now play songs originally recorded old school guys who seemed like magicians at the time.
I think I finally reached that point of freedom when I stopped worrying about what I was thinking of myself when I played. I allowed myself to just try ridiculous things that the 'critical me' would never have tried. I allowed lots of errors and ate the meat, threw away the bones
There’s something so raw, spontaneous, unscripted, dynamic, emotive, soulful and full of energy the old guys were/are. Today’s guitar players sound much more polished, mechanical even. There are some great guitar players out there today but even though many have unreal chops, most are “musically”forgettable. I’ve been back and forth myself as a guitar player since I first started playing in 1987. But I always find myself coming back to that old school classic rock/blues. To me it’s so much more fun and rewarding improvising in a band mix then it is going over the exact same arpeggios, over and over speeding up the metronome. I do highly recommend developing those chops but as a musician, I think it’s more important learning how to improvise in a band mix. Guys like page, Hendrix and SRV were absolute masters at that even though I wouldn’t call them a technical virtuoso. Well I take that back, I would definitely call SRV a virtuoso. I would definitely call EVH, Eric Johnson and maybe Beck and Blackmore one as well
Hi David, im a millennial but boomer at heart. Maybe in term of guitar music tastes, I'll get along well with your teacher. 70s rock for me isn't not to be competed with today's guitar music, it's something in them that just speak to me (I love my fave bands Yes Rush and Genesis etc and probably will hold them dear to me until in my 90s). Great lessons and discussions as always✌
Old school guitar music connects with people a lot more, I bet 90% of Polyphia listeners are guitars players, it's really nice to watch someone playing a bunch of notes, but after some minutes it gets a little boring.
Your country road epiphany sums up everything I feel about the best parts of my playing. My mind wants perfectly pitched bends in time and space, wants to use the whole neck, flawless arpeggios....but my heart is happy when letting go and I guess screwing up in my own unique way. I used to think of Page as a sloppy player as well when I compared him to a Lifeson or Rhoads but like someone else pointed out he was riding the edge of improvizational composition and ability quite often. Theres a sense that most of his studio takes were one and dones( which feels terribly exciting like capturing lightning in a bottle)Even if they were'nt he sure intended them to sound that way. Jimmy was a top notch hiredgun studio ace for years before Zep who had to perform on que. Its also why Steve Howe is my favourite alltime player...he seemed to know how to blend amazing technical and progressive playing with being so loose and what sounds almost sloppy today on recordings. I marvel at modern players technical ability but often am left feeling cold.
I myself find I play places out. If you're playing every day in the same space, say your studio, or bedroom or garage or w/e it is you play, you can play it out. Just get bored of the space. Played every riff that space has to offer you. Then you go somewhere new. Different environment. Different acoustics, reverbs, scenery. It's all very inspiring to me and makes me play with a renewed vigor that sometimes I lose when in one space or mindset for to long
The question s this: Who is the audience? I would argue that some of the guitarists who you referenced as big influences were never really very popular outside of the guitarist community. They tend to have enormous technical chops and pushed the limits of what could be done with the guitar. That commands a lot of respect from other players. The problem is that a lot of people outside that community just didn't care. Conversely, listing to someone like, say, Carlos Santana on Abraxas, he is, essentially, singing when he plays. It's about the melody and expression more than anything else. His technical skill is focused, entirely, on the pursuit of melody, harmony and expression. This is what appeals to a wider audience, I believe and is why he and his peers are so well-regarded. Who is a "better" guitarist? It's not really a question that has any meaning outside of a given context. I'm (obviously) of "that generation" and, I must admit, I really struggled with the music of the Mahavishnu Orchestra at the time. John McLaughlin could play pieces that were beyond the capabilities of almost every extant guitarist. But I just never connected with the music, it seemed that the playing obscured the meaning. That's a personal observation and I fully accept that I just don't get it in this case. But I think it illustrates my point. The majority of people listen to music for melody (and relatively simple ones at that).
I play acoustic and electric guitar. I'm old, sigh. I've wanted to play guitar for a long time. So I started to learn and practice, practice, practice! Page, for example, pushes himself... hard. He plays 'beyond' his technical abilities. He actually incorporates his 'mistakes' into his playing. That's really hard to do, balancing on the knife-edge like that. Also, I think the time and spaces between the sound of the notes actually being played, is very, very, important too. Too many notes/sounds without controlling the air/space properly, is hard too.
Love older guitarists even though I’m a bass player lol. My faves..Martin Barre from Tull, Alvin Lee from ten years after, Robin Trower, Hendrix, Blackmore etc. But I did the same thing when Yngwie Vai Van Halen etc came out outside of Hendrix & Lee I started to think the same thing about guys like Page sloppy but quickly got out of it.
any musician who claims this one is better than that one isn’t a true musician. You learn music and make it your own,you want to sound like Muddy Watters or slash there mere influences,music and YOUR sound comes from within you.
That's just silly. Of course some guitar players are better than others, that is observable fact. A "true" musician knows and understands why Eddie Van Halen is a much better guitar player than Kurt Cobain. That is evident. But how music makes you feel, and therefore which music you want to listen to is different. Comparing who is better is a very good way to appreciate and learn to critique music.
I get this. My first album that was my own composition rather than someone else's I took the first takes of songs even though they had mistakes in them because the energy from the three musicians in the band who had never been in a studio before came through on the tape. I don't know how to explain it but you could hear the energy on the recording. A favorite story of mine is from the Clash while recording London Calking the studio engineer started tossing barstools and trying to hurt the band to get the energy right for the tape. It became their biggest album.
I grew up listening to those "old school" artists, and listening to it when it was new, I just felt it. I didn't analyze it. You hear every note, and every note counts. Also, as Debussy noted, the music is not just in the notes, but in the spaces between the notes. If there are no spaces, something is lost.
J’aime beaucoup l’exploration que tu nous proposes, elle interroge et en quelque sorte permet de se poser et de se recentrer sur l’essentiel dans la music : l’émotion qu’elle procure ! Merci David👍🏼🍒
I do think that some of the modern guitar players are absolutely amazing because of their technical prowess & precision that they employ. But to my ear, it “feels” cold & sterile. The music of my generation (yes 60’s & 70’s) was filled with raw emotion. Think about Neil Young for instance. If you are critical of his vocal style (for some it sounds like screeching), I might agree. But listen, not with your ears, but with your heart & soul & you might find your eyes filled with tears. The best music is about expressing EMOTION, no matter who the generation was that played it (think Billie Holiday or George Gershwin or Frederic Chopiń). That’s why music is called a “universal language “. Here’s a couple of sayings from Buddhism that I’ve always loved - “To the beginner, there are many possibilities. To the expert, there are few.” or “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” In music, many teachers have appeared in my life, but only when I was ready to truly listen to their wisdom.
Thanks,,, I was trying to put how I feel about these new shredders these days ,,,, and you put it perfectly,,,, Cold and Sterile! Great name for a song!
I don’t think it’s about the era, it’s about the genre or style they play. Math Rock and Djent to me sounds like the definition of boring lol, but a player like Guthrie Govan is clearly so inspired by classic Blues Rock players, and he has that tasty phrasing and vibrato
Music is an emotional experience that allows you to feel something. The music I play whether on piano / keyboards, guitar, bass, etc. isn't perfect and never will be, but it's mine. Now there's nothing wrong in being technically proficient / perfect, it leads to an empty place where it can be devoid of any soul regardless of genre. Don't get me started on auto-tune which is a travesty when used which makes a voice sound perfect, which it seldom is.
A few years ago I decided to put one of my acoustics in DADGAD for a minimum of a year. It made the guitar so new to me again and it felt like my early exploratory years. It also led me to seeking out other DADGAD players, which exposed me to some wonderful music I hadn't encountered before. Two years later and I'm still learning new ways to approach songs, both new and old, in this tuning. It was what I needed to get me out of that plateau.
So much to unpack here First, those old rock guitarists didn't have the pedagogical advances to work with. We learned from friends, teachers and records. There was no slowing down the tracks. I literally played "Crossroads" from "Wheels of Fire" hundreds of times to learn the song. In using this process for dozens of songs, I also learned Second, nuance. People who "shred" all too frequently have very little nuance in their playing. You "shredders" can argue this all you want, but you're wrong. Third, the old guys had a guitar or two - not half a dozen - and a single amp. They had to learn how to get the most out of the minimal equipment they had. Fourth, because there were few pedals available and most of them were very noisy - I was there! - guitarists had to use their hands to achieve their tone, not technology. It's something most modern guitarists won't admit, but pedals have the effect of homogenizing your sound. You all have 42 pedals and you all sound alike. Fifth, as the really old guys - Bach, Mozart, Haydn, etc. - understood, the space between the notes is just as important as the notes themselves. "Shredders" apparently don't understand this, preferring to fill the allotted time with as many notes as possible. It's fatiguing to listen to. Sixth, most of the old guys who are still around are musicians who play guitar, not guitarists who play music. This is a crucial distinction, and if you don't get it nothing I can add is going to help. Finally, technique wasn't an end in itself. Its purpose was to facilitate the expression of feelings. So many "shredders" seem to put technique first. RUclips is jammed with videos of - mostly - guys who came out of formal programs who can play 250 bpm over complex chord changes and yet they are unspeakably boring to listen to, unless you're a fellow technocratic guitarist.
Word !!! - "...most of the old guys who are still around are musicians who play guitar, not guitarists who play music. This is a crucial distinction, and if you don't get it nothing I can add is going to help." 🤘
You're correct. I use to pour Coca-Cola and drizzle chocolate syrup onto my tubes for that "sweet" tone. It felt sweeter, but it didn't smell sweeter.😜
As a 23 year old man, I have to agree and respect your analysis. The grind that people had to have back in the day to play any instrument was incomperable to what it takes now. Technology seems to be 1 step forward 2 step back
Start a solo by stating a theme. It can be a very simple theme (listen to Beethoven’s 5th.) Then, play around with that theme: keep the same rhythm but change the notes, change the rhythm but keep the same notes, etc. If you’re not doing this, you’re just noodling. Repetition of a phrase is very musical; play it over and over, in slightly different ways (listen to Roy Buchanan.) Use various picking techniques. Play softly and tenderly, loudly and ballsy. Snarl and purr. Slow and fast. Think of all the human emotions and try to express them. The key to musicality, as well as all the arts, is playing with the opposites (light and dark in a painting, for ex.) Gradually build in intensity. Build to a climax, which should be near, but not at, the end, like in a novel or a movie. THEN you can throw in those Tom Quayle licks, if you can (I can’t). After the climax, bring it back down at the end (like sex ;-). Tom Quayle plays Tom Quayle licks way too damn much. It sounds robotic, sterile, and boring after the initial WOW wears off. So many players are like this. Again, the key to all great art is playing with the opposites. Again, the key to all great art is playing with the opposites. OPPOSITES. Let that sink in to the very core of your soul.
Forgot to mention, play as if you were speaking in sentences. A great technique is to think of a sentence or a phrase, then play that sentence or phrase. For ex: I love you, baby. I really love you, baby. I wanna make love to you…all night long. Baby, baby, baby. I know, silly example, but it works.
It's about trying to achieve the reckless irreverence and controlled chaos that turns music into rock and roll. You gotta flip the bird to restraint and polish. Be a rebel and yell "FUCK YOU" to anyone who tells you to behave ...or play with your fingers in the "correct" position. Let the raw emotion come out through your guitar. Raw emotion is messy and sometimes unpleasant but not filtered by technique, chasing perfection, and the constraints of others. Rock on.
I like the revelation but not sure I'd call some things imperfections. Without using the term, you describe rubato as an imperfection, even though it's been a part of classical theory for hundreds of years. And a lot of those original rockers used tones that were insanely hard to play fast on, which is why it's hard to compare. I can play twice as fast on a Vai tone than I can on a Page or Hendrix tone.
I’ve been reluctant to play out (solo acoustic) lately.. been focused on writing my own stuff… even thats getting stagnate. I believe wut u described may b wut i need…. Take a step back and come back some time later. I did that in short spurts before and came back w/incredible results… more clarity of theory, better understandin of the fretboard, more ideas and focus. Its time to step back for a “minute”… thx, i dont feel so alone w/this albatross now! Break time!
Page was a bit sloppy but one of the greatest songwriters of all time! Achilles Last Stand! OMG! Imho the modern players are extremely technical but soulless!
He really was only horribly sloppy live (likely depending on the drugs). I'm sure they made him keep it somewhat together in the studio. But all seriousness, he is probably the greatest melodic mind that ever wrote rock music.
@@bradleyblauvelt1572 in the studio perhaps, but the drug use live is very well documented. Theres literal video right here on RUclips him on stage with drug sweats, horribly out of tune and yes playing sloppy. If you watch that and still think it's on purpose we'll have to agree to disagree.
The trick is to get the worst equipment possible and only have 4 random strings on it bc 2 are broke. That's what it's like growing up as a kid learning guitar
Apparently Carl Perkins made his first guitar from a raccoon ribcage for the body , a coyote spine for the neck, barbed wire for the thick strings and the silk of a tarantula's web for the thinner ones....
@@nodgelyobo1 Carl Perkins is my half sisters great uncle for real. One half of the family lives in ohio here and the other in Kentucky. That family is what got me into guitar years ago.
I’ll never forget what my father told me after I was learning guitar and obsessed with learning lead- “what are you going to do? Play goddamned Eruption for everyone around the campfire?”
They might have intended to be sloppy but everyone has their threshold for sloppiness, I actually enjoy a little sloppiness but I can't stand Page or Zappa's solos, if they were unknown and played today at the local pub they would be shot. There are players from that era that weren't sloppy and had great feel, on the other spectrum I have trouble connecting to modern players that play every note perfectly but end up sounding like a computer.
The latest players are amazing. But the old school music I grew up with you can recall in an instant, it’s emotion. When I hear Hendrix play some of his lesser known songs like Hear my Train, it’s humanity crying out it’s thousand of years of emotion. Listen to Stop from aBand of Gypsies rerelease. It’s a blues conversation about being in love, an extension of the soul. Some music today in the virtuoso realm sound like typewriting at 80 words per minute. An amazing feat but not memorable.
No one has topped Hendrix, it’s not just the guitar, it’s not just the songs, it’s the whole vibe, music, songs, guitar, creativity and still going strong.
Oddly enough, I'm also a Bob K., but not the same fellow. I grew up listening to Jimi's music. Love his playing, his emotion, his imagination. I'd have to place Rory Gallagher at the very top, though. The Irishman, like Jimi, was rooted in the blues. But he not only played his Strat just as incredibly and originally, Rory also mastered acoustic, slide, harmonica, mandolin, even saxophone. And he played them all live, worldwide, for millions of people in person and over Eurovision, sometimes for shows as long as three hours. He had the sweetest voice, and led his bands, just like Jimi led the Experience. Large amounts of live concert and TV video, and audio, plus Rory's studio recordings, are easily available for everyone's attention, including here on RUclips. The vibe, music, songs, guitar, creativity... anyone who loves Jimi will also love Rory, for those same reasons.
@@bobkutchko8341 thanks Bob K, yes Rory was a very special one off, the first album I heard of his was from his band Taste, loved it,I saw him a couple of times in the early seventies, he came on stage and just ripped it up with his raw never ending energy, he was brilliant, his albums still hold up today, indeed he was a master.
Expression of emotion is what makes the best guitarists the best. If you can’t pull your soul into your playing you may make money but will never be a legend
We are slaves to our influences. If Robert Johnson were the first guitar player that you ever fell in love with, for instance, your approach to the guitar would be completely different than if Yngwie were your first influence. You can't go back in time and rewire your neural pathways. Nor can you increase your natural creative talent. Novice guitar players always think talent and technical ability are somehow linked. That's barely true. Anyone can become technically proficient with enough hours. But creative talent is an actual talent. It's something you can't manufacture.
Lot of people unfortunately forgot or put blind eye on how important is to have a high creative intelligence when it comes to music. I hear a lot of talk about techniques,speed, difficult compositions to play. No one speak a word about creative intelligence. Creativity is something you are born with.
I am a 51-year-old fairly accomplished multi-instrumentalist. Somehow, since 1985 I recorded nearly every riff as it came to me on guitar, all in tune and great tone, drumming, Hammond and multi-tracking hours and hours. Trash bags full of High Bias Cassettes at half=speed! Digitizing and reworking some currently. I sounded like Bonham Jamming with Page.
It's funny. Back in the day we had such limited access to music that you could go for years not knowing about very popular music that would later become like the air that you breathe. It's also funny that I grew up in the 70's, but I had a similar experience with my evolution as a guitar player that you had 20 years later. For me, I loved the heavy guitar sounds of bands like Kiss and Judas Priest, and I had a guitar teacher trying to teach me classical, but I told him I wanted to play Priest, so he taught me how to play bar chords and the pentatonic scale. I'm very grateful for that knowledge, as limited as it was. Anytime I could get money to grow my collection of vinyl albums, I tended to buy stuff like Kiss, Judas Priest and Black Sabbath, of course. But then, at some point, I was gifted with the Woodstock album and Jeff Beck "Wired" on vinyl, plus several 8-tracks of albums from Santana and the Grateful Dead, and this opened my whole world up to a different kind of music and a different approach to guitar playing. Of course, it took me an extremely long time to get good enough on guitar to be able to understand why, but I knew right away that players like Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Jerry Garcia, Alvin Lee, and Jeff Beck had a very different type of relationship with their guitars than the "heavier" players I had idolized. Then, it was a year or so later before I made a trade for Frampton Comes Alive and Led Zeppelin I, and I had my mind blown again. Now, I don't want to disparage the art and skill of my earlier guitar heroes, for I still love those 70s and 80s metal bands as much as I love all the metal bands that came after, but I know that few of them have the same level of Mojo that the earlier greats had (and the even earlier greats that they learned from), and my many decades of playing guitar have led me to understand what I need to keep striving for, even as I learned that I am already there, if I can only just "let go" and be the music that I feel inside. I know I don't need to explain that to you because I have heard you try to explain it in several videos now, and I just wanted to say that I totally get what you are saying. Also, I appreciate and enjoy what you are doing here and have subscribed to your channel. Keep jamming!
I'm an intermediate level guitarist, musician, I write and record songs. I love the guitar! But sometimes I get into a rut and it's difficult to develop a song and sometimes it's difficult to come up with something exciting. What sometimes helps is grabbing a keyboard and experiment a little with different pads and synths in my DAW. I take random chords and look at what chords the keyboard says they are. That way I can write a whole other types of chord progressions (much voice leading), and then putting guitar on top of that forces me to play along something that already exist, I don't always need to come up with new things on the guitar. But just taking a break for a couple of weeks helps sometimes. And I swear, I'm almost a better guitarist after a few weeks pause than I was in that last few days before the pause, I'm more relaxed, my technique is better, my accuracy and speed are better.
If ever in human history a single human being can replicate Little Wing correctly, I'll begin to think Hendrix wasn't an actual demigod. Sometimes I wonder if every other person on earth isn't clinically deaf. Because the note for note replications of Little Wing by extremely talented and skilled guitar players aren't even close. That includes myself of course. I still can't figure out exactly what's going on on that track. Is it studio magic? Or was he really just that good.
Jimi Hendrix wasn't as sloppy as Page or Iommi, however. And you need to stop taking these pills, whatever they are. They give you severe hallucinations.
I love the raw unpolished guitar sound. I love the sound of Hendrix's amps on full, sounding like they soon gone start burning or brake down. I wish i was there.
Eddie Van Halen besides being a guitar player was also a technician. He basically experiment with his amplifiers with no effects by putting a variac on the AC line of it and brought up voltage slowly. From what I either read or heard, his magic sound came when he had the amplifier AC at 89 volts. It was low in volume but had the exact sound that he wanted at that low voltage. He blew up a few amps that way but learned along the way. He wanted his amp to be his effects and not rely on packaged pedals and effects. Thanks to innovators like him, some of the epic sounds are out now. It is still hard for me to believe that Led Zeppelin II was released 53 years ago, which is still my all time favorite Led Zeppelin album. Django Reinhardt had only had use of three fingers on his left hand because of a fire and I think he rescued his sister; and was the pioneer of soloing as far as I'm concerned. He influenced a lot of the greats that came up through the ranks.
I'm very new to playing guitar. My philosophy from the beginning is, after getting my fundamentals, if I want to try to play like my favorite guitarists then I need to find out who influenced THEM.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons Robert Fripp is relearning to play in EAGDBE tuning again at 74 years of age. He has always been one of the most challenging guitarists to listen to. He rarely disappoints as he can hear and play the unexpected and is thrilling for that. His philosophy on the relationship between music, the musician and the audience feeds into and from that. After 50 years of listening to Crimson, frippertronics, him guesting with everyone from Bowie to blondie, he always makes me listen, really listen hard.
@@danielsturdivant5652 Well for a Mix here’s a couple, Bowie Hero’s and Fashion? Fripp and Eno, Evening Star and the whole Live in Paris album. King Crimson, 21st Century Schizoid Man, Discipline and Red. There’s Hundreds more but this is a reasonable overview. After some thought his music is more influenced by Classical music and modern Jazz rather than the Blues, later came I seem to remember an interest in Gamelan (sic) music and timings.
The playing of the "old school" players was blues-based; nearly exclusively minor minor scale including wide bends, vibratos and string inflections. Those players were expanding on the innovations of the blues guys; Freddie King, BB King, Albert King, Buddy Guy and Otis Rush it is like a blues template. Listen to Hendrix's solo on "Red House" it is mostly BB King licks! The examples you played of modern players are scales, arpeggios and sequences played as fast as possible as if the building blocks of Western music are beautiful in themselves. They don't at any moment bend, vibrato or inflect of shade the notes in anyway. It sounds to me very digital! It's like comparing apples and oranges.
When you said "mindset" I think you nailed it. Something that really is not tied to guitar specifically, it's the way you look at the world in general. But those were different times, much more optimistic times, the future looked bright and going up and up. If you want to capture that mindset, you pretty much have to block out most of what is thrown at you by modern culture. BTW, good hair style David, it works for you. I remember you from the old GMC days.
I just play whatever I want. I'm constantly coming up with new things. I've never realised anything. Loving playing bass at the moment. I think I should try to articulate what I go through but its time for sleep. I go through patterns and insane repetition and break them up with improv. Review and pick out what I like. Its beautiful when it becomes intuitive and wonderful surprising parts come through improv. Making patterns and breaking them up comes with interesting results. Listening back from a distance and recognising some of the theory, giving space and considering other instrumentation, education, gathering inspiration from different genres.....there are so many ways to skin the cat ...i never run out and I am grateful. Life is limited and I am quite slow to keep that in mind. Sigh.
The first time i heard Eric Johnson. Brought that back for me. Was stationed in Dallas Tx. A guy at Longhorn guitars. Plays a vtg strat. Thru a jcm 800 combo with orig chandler tube driver. He was playing s song off TONES N BLEW ME AWAY …. soul is where it comes from. All the joy n pain of life should come out. Its not just playing guitar. Itsa Spiritual awakening.
I grew up in the G3 area with vai, satch, petrucci and so on, but also at the same listening to gilmour, blackmore, page from my parents collection. But now that im older, I starting to gravitate more towards the old school players. Why? I think its because they "channelling" their raw emotions and its feels more like at the edge of your seat all the time. Like the guitar is on fire and shit is going down haha
I wonder if technical means better necessarily. Keith Richards isn’t technical but he can kill it on one riff. I do respect the technicians though. Not everyone can start playing guitar at four years old though and become a technician lol.
I grew up on the old school stuff. When I was 18, I could play 'Crossroads' and all the rest, pretty much note for note. Then, I found Steely Dan and Larry Carlton and all of those melodic players. After rap, a new breed of one-e-and-uh-two-e-and-uh-three-e-and-uh-4-e-and-uh high speed shredders had learned how to exploit complex chord changes by playing at warp speed through the song. At 74, I treasure my experience. Listen to the fine crafted solo in LED ZEPPLIN'S Whole Lotta Love. Finally, a nobody who commented below 'jason malever' used the word slop. These folks are treasures. You will never join their ranks.
I find it interesting that in the classical music world, there are critics, especially in competitions, of flawless playing, where it lacks heart and soul, an individual's or ensemble's interpretive ability . With such standardized music bringing something of the individual artist's or ensemble's interpretation, personality spirit soul to the same notes/score is important . In other words, things beyond technical proficiency. It is another side to the equation of what constitutes a truly great performance.
OMG I thought you were going to say Larry Carlton. But no matter. Carlos is cool too. I really like your observation of the old and new. Personally I like humans, not robots. That's my impression of the modern polished music vs the old school stuff we are blessed to have still.
Jimmy Page said: “I don’t deal in technique. I deal in emotions”. And yet, all the guitarists mentioned as the modern best all cite Jimmy Page (and Hendrix etc) as massive influences. But keep in mind, Page, Beck, Clapton, Hendrix, Blackmore, Iommi INVENTED the modern rock era and they’re straight up ROCK BLUES players with some variations that they all popularized in their own unique styles, and each created a new branch on the rock tree. Their music grabs your crotch and brain and burrows into your soul. To be fair, Page’s “sloppiness” did sometimes veer post 73 to into bad playing at times (defined maybe as either (1) mistakes on something simple that Page used to kill; (2) tired playing) because of drug use and burnout (I think). However, he did still have some amazing performances when “on” in 75 and 77, and his studio work remained superb. Great video!
The age of the record player, they truly 'listened' to music, they hunted for it (pre-internet techniques), they had albums (and the art+words included), music was their life and defined them, they had to work very hard to get the information they had. They wanted to contribute to a history of music, rather than separate themselves from past musical styles to define themselves. They were not 'average' musicians, they were far better than the 'new wave' of proficient players. As they had the skill and intelligence to collate their style/techniques, without all the aids we have today (accurate tabs, the internet etc etc). Playing 'well' today is not a challenge ..if you are focused in anyway
It's all about FEEL. Everyone feels different things when they hear sounds or music. The greatest thing any musician of any genre can do is connect people to emotions and feelings. Music is a language. You're speaking and having a conversation. Telling a story. Technical skills are of course important but it isn't the thing that connects people. You can know every word in the dictionary but it's the way you use those words in a real conversation that matters. "I LOVE YOU" are literally 3 simple words any human being from a toddler to a dying person can say but it can mean so much and so different.
I was born in 1987 but was always the weird kid that didn't care for the polished sound. 11th grade in 2003 I was always wearing my headphones listening to Zeppelin, ACDC, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, etc. That 12 second solo break of Whole Lotta Love grabbed my 16 years old music soul. My take is that the old school players were gigging all the time. They didn't have the luxury of sitting on your room doing endless takes to record a song on your own personal studio. There is a real thrill to gigging. I'm a sideman who plays bass. There are hundreds of shows that never got recorded. You just had to be there. Great vid 👍
Another fascinating and informative essay delivered with your lovely, easy, humerous style, David. Ta very muchly. ☝️😎 And now for the Santana video...
I can give you a couple of specific examples of the kinds of things I mean. When I started studying guitar, there weren't many learning tools available. I was gratified when tab books started to appear, but they didn't have the songs I wanted to learn to play. I tried to find a guitar teacher to teach me to play Beatles tunes. I had the fake books, the only things available at the time, but the teacher tried to teach me the fake book version, for seventy dollars a lesson. I knew damned well it wasn't the sound I heard when I listened to the song, but I was at a loss to figure it out. (Slowing down music wasn't very practical with a cassette or record player.) Eventually tab books came out, but they weren't always correct either. I wondered when they were going to put out second editions with the corrections. Eventually I had the computer related things to slow down music and sort things out. In the meantime, I had read something about John Lennon that I could relate to. I liked best live campfire music. I preferred the music that people played purely for fun, not for practice, performance, or recording. If you ever listened to a good musician, playing around on his porch for fun, it was better than any recording you ever heard. maybe on an unconscious level, the music blended with the mood and rhythms of the environment, and it reflected pure feelings, with no other agenda or consciousness. It was spontaneous fun, sound, and feelings. When you played somewhere else, you would call up the spirit of the music you were playing that night, just for yourself. You would go into a sort of trance of emotions, mood, feelings, etc. That sort of thing was probably behind how the song struck you when you were out driving that one time. You hadn't heard the "place" that evoked the song until you were in a similar place, maybe with just the right rhythm of passing scenery. When I'm playing my favorite kind of rhythm songs, I'm rolling across the terrain, like a train rolling across the plains and approaching a tunnel through the mountains. The train has to keep rolling and sometimes it has to gather force for a steep grade and plunge into darkness. All those songs are stories and movements of emotions. Much better guitarists than I could ever hope to be would be blown away by my rhythm playing. How did I do it, they would ask. Just catch the rhythm and ride it and play with it. I didn't really know what to tell them. Wasn't life full of rhythms? Just play them. And the stories of songs have rhythms. Songs walk, run, stumble, or limp along. Sometimes they glide or slide and slam to a halt, then get up again. You can choose to stumble or laugh at a word or a phrase in the lyrics, and you can do it as naturally as any stumble or laugh, and get right back in the groove. Anyway, they said Lennon loved music like that. ( Sometimes, on the drugs, he carried it a little too far like in Revolution Number Nine.) But he would often say their initial complete take of a song was good enough, even with mistakes, because he didn't want to lose the spontinaity of it. If you repeat a joke too many times, it starts to sound stale, no matter what you try. I think he even deliberately began to incorporate the mistakes in the music. I can't remember the song anymore, but there was an early Beatles era song in which I was always unhappy with the written versions. All the cover versions were boring - they somehow didn't have a special sort of intensity, which was like a signature of the Beatles sound. Once I had the technology to study it, I found it was a mistake that was deliberately left in and altered to fit perfectly. Two guitars were strumming through a bar, (No, this isn't a Bar joke.) One guitar held the E chord all the way through the bar, while the other guitar strummed E to A to E to A. Lennon, whose idea it probably was, decided to leave in the second guitar part underneath the First, but dialed it down in the mix, and gradually faded the A chord each time. It had the effect of a very subtle but insistent statement or comment in the background. I had never consciously noticed it before, but once I worked it out, I heard it more clearly every time. It was the very subtle element that made that one climactic bar of the Beatles song seem a little more intense. A live band would have to play it that way to achieve the Beatle's intensity, but they all miss the trick. I always figured I would use it if I had a band, but things never shook down that way. It is an example of a subtle but controlled move into chaos or disharmony that resolves nicely each time to order as the A fades - and all withing the groove of the song. A simple one bar trick, in which the guitars almost duel, but the second guitar nicely backs off. It's a bar that's always treated as E all the way through in the written music, but it's also A playing shyly with E, and so it went over the top with that mysterious Beatles excitement. It slipped a little bit into disharmony and backed off into harmony again. The way the A was initially strummed assertively each time, and deliberately faded indicated it was deliberate. It was for that effect of tension and resolution. And that was just one climactic bar of the song.
I was kicked out of the place I was in, so I had to stop there. I meant to say there was a lot of "play" going on in that bar. it was like a disagreement about which chords to play in that bar, which was resolved by doing both versions as a sort of different level communication. The first guitarist was forcefully and assertively playing his E chord all the way through the bar, while the second guitarist was in effect saying: "I still think it should be an A on the second and fourth beat, but I won't make the statement so strongly, and I'll let it fade each time. It's a subtle communication and a play of different views crammed into a bar that almost no one notices, except as a feeling of tension being resolved. Lennon's hidden genius for making mistakes work and play.
colorado springs is not near any place that is remote! go up outside Gunnison (take 4WD and 2 sets of tire chains plenty of fuel and blankets food water flares...) then listen to tunes as you drive 4wd trails. It will sound way different.
Guitar playing has become a sport. Back then, players would have things come to them and find a way to play them. They used their instruments to play music. Now, players work on how to use their techniques. The use music as a way to demonstrate their chops.
They want to be mechanically good at using a guitar with less interest in being musicians. They are pure guitarists. They sound like what I imagine reading the Paul Reed Smith manual would sound like. "Put finger here when metronome clicks"
Scott Henderson said it perfectly ( something to the effect of ) " I'd rather hear Albert Collins drop his guitar than hear perfect sequence of 1/16th notes.
I'm a songwriter first and a guitarist second, so to me it's always been about the song. And that's why these early guitarists were so brilliant - they were serving the song first and anything that blows your mind guitar-wise afterwards is just a bonus.
My opinion : the reason the musicians of the time were more artistic/creative . The chances of the players are in the same room , ... you can't record the HEART. I mean , a computer can't record the HEART . This one guy can do it all , ain't working . Play music with someone . It happens , I speak from experience .
Agreed. I couldn't name a Vai or Satriani song and find them unlistenable. I only listen to Vinny Moore when he is playing Michael Schenker stuff in UFO.
@This is 86 calling Control. Come in, Control... "There once was a girl, whose heart was a frown,
'cause she was crippled for life and couldn't make a sound, until one day she decided to die.
She took her wheelchair to the edge of the shore, and to her legs she smiled you won't hurt me no more. But suddenly, a sight she had never seen before made her jump up and say, look, a golden
winged ship is coming my way, and it didn't even have to stop, it just kept on going,
and so castles made of sand slip into the sea, eventually". Castles Made of Sand, third verse.
There once was a boy, who played left-hand, and he took his guitar to a matinee to jam,
for the first time, trying to get in a band. He took his guitar up to the front of the stage,
and to his left hand he said it's your turn to play, and just when his nerves were getting
the best of him, a band member said hey, your playing really fits in, asking him to travel
on the road with them, and he didn't have to stop playing,
as hassles of left hands slips into being seen... eventually. Jimi still inspires me after 1969.
@This is 86 calling Control. Come in, Control... Don't listen to this troll he obviously doesn't even know who Jimi was, beyond a couple of RUclips videos, if that, or else he would know that Jimi is widely regarded as one of the great songwriters of the era! LMFAO
Not with Jimmy...live that is.
I think the major difference between those classic guitar players and current ones is that they played MUSIC in BANDS. They did not learn to play in isolation in their bedrooms, plugging their tracks over other electronic tracks in an arithmetic manner. They learned by playing gigs. Hundreds if not thousands of gigs. They played parties and clubs. They were in house bands that had standing gigs six nights a week. What you heard as slop was actually the musical nuance that did not fit an arithmetic grid. It was the emotion of musicians playing together as a cohesive unit. The networks of opportunity to play live music that existed in the past do not exist today. There are very few places that have live music most nights of the week, and very few of those have house bands where players can learn and hone the craft set after set, night after night. The result is guitarists, and others, that sound like precise robots. They may have technical chops, but they don't have musical chops. It's not a lack of talent or creativity. It's lack of the proper environment for talent and creativity to develop and flourish. I'm sure many will disagree, but that is what i hear as a guy that has been playing 35 years or so. And I say that because I recognize those same faults in my own playing. It is something I grew to recognize with the perspective of age and time.
Well put Jonas
Thanks so much for your thorough input.
Really well put. Hendrix cut his teeth playing on the “Chitlin Circuit” with the Isley Brothers. Can you imagine? Page played on something like 60% of the rock songs coming out of England in 1965-1967 as a studio ace and in the process became a studio and compositional wizard and master. These original players from the 60’s and early 70s were pros, and they were living life and leading bands and paying dues. From all that experience came the essence of ballsy, emotional ROCK music, with great, imaginative, original songs and new sounds. Everyone who came after stood on their shoulders and they deserve their legacies (Hendrix, Clapton, Beck, Page, Richards, Harrison, Davies, Iommi, Blackmore, Kossoff, Green, Gibbons, Frampton, etc etc etc)
Yup you're not wrong Jonas, these bedroom guitarists don't understand the amount of work and experience you need to be a great guitarist, Jimmy Page didn't just daydream and wish in his bedroom about being a great guitarist, he did a lot of work in bands and session studios to be where he got to. Williman thinks that he can just daydream in his private room about guitar and he'll become a great guitarist, it doesn't work like that in the real world, you have to get out there and work like any other trade and learn the craft 😄
Best summation I have ever heard.
I've never been a clean technique player. And I'm 100 % ok with that. I play from my heart, enjoy every moment of it, and that's all that matters to me. My spark comes from channeling energy straight from the soul.
Amen 👍
Should be read as:
“I've never been a clean technique player. And never will be. It's just too hard to play even one note on electric so it doesn't sound like total crap. These soulless robots shred like hell, and that makes me deeply depressed, because I'd literally sell my asshole to Devil for a skill like that. They are definitely talented, they just picked up their instruments and instantly became gods. Or sold their arse to the hell king. I have no natural ability, and Satan doesn't want to buy my ass, so I will never reach that level. I also don't want to practice because it takes time, that sweet time I can spend watching Netflix and eating cheap pizza. And it's hard like hell, it's like performing a real job. Instead of torturing myself with these totally unnecessary actions, I should stick to screaming “this has no soul!” when I hear a player that's at least half good. This is much easier to both comprehend and practice, and there's enough of similar idiots in the crowd I belong to, so they'll scream louder than these nerds who don't leave their rooms unless the police has come. This way, I'll look more respectable by the public, and I also will get my nonsensical bias towards hard working people confirmed”.
agreed it comes from the inner
I'm a self-professed guitar hack, and I agree with you 100%. I just like pluckin' strings and makin' cool sounds.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Play from the Soul n put your heart inside every note
It's the quality of the songs. If the song is great, the potential for the guitar to be memorable is much higher. Also, those guys were all a part of great bands (even Hendrix) and not trying to be a standout solo player. They were team players playing on fabulous songs.
Yeah composition is the true art of music, take Lennon & Harrison or Richards & Jones and more people listen to them than all the technical players because Ticket To Ride & The Last Time are simple on the guitar but great tunes.
A real team player, that is exceptional in itself these days…
Hendrix not trying to be a Standout solo player? Lol
Andrew CCM Yeah well, he made it look like he didn’t need to try anyway..
The best of the best guitarists don’t have hit songs. There’s a difference between being a great musician and being a great artist.
As a kid, I loved Carlos Santana and mocked heavily for it. I felt the emotion and intensity of his playing. It’s nice to hear your respect for his playing.
DON"T RESPOND TO THE "GUITAR GIVEAWAY" ABOVE< IT"S A SCAM!
How could you be mocked for liking Santana?
Santana is amazing a true musician 👌🏼 love hearing any old performance of him
Caravanserai is a great album, it’s a spiritual journey in music, really cosmic 😎
@@herculesrockefeller8969 friends with no taste. They’re ex-friends now 😂
@@BobK5 Great album. Caravanserai is my favorite Santana album. Love his work with John McLaughlin as well.
Most dudes back in the day were self taught. They learned by listening to records over and over. Now everyone takes lessons and little kids can play anything.
And they play it better
There is a reason why "Old man" guitar playing is so iconic. Clean, technical guitar playing is fun and interesting to listen to IF you're a clean, technical guitar player....Maybe 1 percent of any audience. The rest of the audience enjoys art. They want to feel and be transported by leads, not put in a catatonic state or lulled to sleep.
Yeah people confuse technical prowess with being better than and that’s just not the case, a guitar solo is supposed to kick you straight in the ball sack and some shredders just can’t get the effect but that’s just my 2 cents! I respect the shred and math rock stuff the Tik tok bros do now a days but it’s just lacking something for me
@@kane6529 well yea there are parts where playing like a machine (tempo or volume wise) sounds really good but then there are also parts where it sounds best to be more "vocal" with those. Yes it can actually sound really good, not to play mathematically in time, in the same way as it Sounds good not to play all loud all the time, and makes for me often the difference between boring and intense. You won't hear much of that in modern pop music but when you hear it and you are not aware of it you can not point the Finger at it. It's just interesting sounding. In earlier Musical they used it a lot though. For example the concept of Rubato in clasical Music.
You should scream this louder so every RUclipsr and Instagram guitarist can hear you. Cause this is something they don't understand. Every idiot on here sounds exactly the same
Exactly!! Judas Priests "you got another thing coming" just makes me want to live in a way that no Steve Vai will ever. (all respect to Mr. Vai)
No, you've got it wrong. The techincal guitar players are the ones enjoying art. After all, their advanced knowledge of improvisation, allows them to create art. LIsteners, the "other percentage" of the audience are the ones that don't recognize art. That's why they want a sing along, or repetative, simple guitar licks, designed for the most basic of listeners. By the way a catatonic state would be more likely induced, in those who don't have a clue what a performer is doing musically. They need a clear, simple beat, with a repetitive, simple line to follow in order to maintain their attention.
I had the exact same feelings having grown up with shredders like Racer-X, Cacophony, Yngwie, Tony MacAlpine and the more I realized how expressive the blues was, I started to really appreciate that raw, organic sound... I always loved Led Zeppelin but even lately now I've been going back to The Allman Brothers, Moody Blues, etc. (before my time) - to see what people were listening to 10 or 20 years before the music I remember.
What you can create is far more important than what you can play.
By 1993 I'd been playing for 15 years. Us "old school players" didn't have RUclips, the internet or cellphones with video capabilities and massive storage. When we wanted to learn something we had to work it out by ear from a record or cassette. Getting lessons was expensive so Guitar Player magazines with their shitty little plastic records included were our saviour.
To get specialist training ,, you had to mail a money order to the U.S. ( that took at least a few weeks } for a booklet with notation and TAB and a cassette of the style of player you wanted to be. The whole exercise took about 6 weeks. Going to gigs and hassling good players into giving up some knowledge was the other method of learning. One guy that became a good friend of mine,, Victor Holder,, went to Berkley music school and was a great influence. I was 17 and playing in some of the roughest blues bars and pubs in Australia.
Nowdays if i want to learn some really cool shit i just click a link. The computer generations don't know how fucking lucky they are.
The struggle was real.
I’ve been struggling with the same issues for years, always thinking that the stuff I came up with was all already done a thousand times before and that it wasn’t good or original enough. Today I try to develop a more holistic way. Yes, I am a guitar player and the guitar is my main instrument BUT first and foremost I’m a musician and that’s what it’s all about for me, i don’t want to be an incredible guitar player anymore, I want to create music. The best ideas I have arise from melodies that often come naturally, most of the times when I don’t have a guitar in my hands or close. I need to have the music in my head first and afterwards use the guitar or piano to record it and if I lack the technical skills to do so, then I work on the specific technique that enables me to create what I had in my head before. That’s what was so special about Mozart, he could compose a whole piece in his head, then write it down because he knew how and later play it or have it played and that’s what was and is special about the early rock guitar players, music came first and they tried to channel it as it came.
Having grown up in that era, I am that old man and proud of it. It was in fact, Peter Frampton's playing on Humble Pie's "Humble Pie Performance Rockin' The Fillmore" album, which I bought when it was released in '71 that made me want to play guitar in the first place (honorable mention goes to Mark Farner from Grand Funk's first live album released in '70). Of course, I listened to Beck, Clapton, Hendrix, Page, etc. in the '60s (still do), along with Jazz players such as Wes Montgomery and Kenny Burrell, but it was Frampton that really made me want to play.
Although I like "Satch" and pretty much have all of his albums, I find it hard to listen to a lot of players from that era as well as the modern players. Not that there's anything wrong with them, they're technical masters to be sure, but it's just too sterile for me. Consequently, I still listen to the same music I listened to 40/50 and almost 60 years ago. "To each their own" I guess?
I too suffer from being slightly old, I play in a few ' collectives ' not quite bands but groups of like minded( and not) musical types,some are blues,some blue grass inspired. I notice that songs that some would discredit as being old still inspire the audience. I listen to radio more than half the day through earmuffs and I often suggest songs that I hear on a regular basis,they may be 40 yrs old but if you recognise it it's going to be a successful choice
Frampton is an under rated player.
It happened to me too (with Grand Funk's Live Album - I still get goosebumps when I listen to that album)
Me too! 🙂
I think players like Page, Hendrix and Santana were more interested in making good music than being good guitarists. It was the spirit of the age. It was all about the vibe.
yeah, because they weren't good guitarists LOL
@@zfm1097 I mean they were/are great songwriters (not sure about Santana) and also great guitarists who are role models for new generations of guitarists to this day
Yup, two different disciplines, players play..artist's create.
True, Page was also Zep’s producer, and apparently quite picky about their songs.
Early guitarists like Django, Charlie, Wes, Herb Ellis, Early George Benson, Tal Farlow, many more, and late sixties/early 70s guys like Bill Conners, McLaughlin, Holdsworth, and many more, have as much or probably more technique than the "new guys." The early ROCK guys were almost PURPOSELY letting it be loose, because of the feel. Technique matters to a point in any art, but art with little technique is still valid, and sometimes way cooler than perfection if done right. I always felt those with tons of technique have very little in the way of musical ideas, so they just practice technique. Plus, Yngwie, for instance is stuck in the past, like 200 years in the past, harmonically and melodically. When blues came around, it had very little to do with technique, it was more about expression. Finally, in the Hendrix or Zeppelin catalogue, there are very few songs that sound alike, and it was about a band sound and interaction with the other musicians so it was more of a general musicality and creativity thing. So many of the new players just shred over what sounds like jamming to harmonically basic jam tracks. Not all, of course, but many. There are always incredible guitarists around, the new guys too. The new stuff, by the way, is almost always completely edited, note for note, so of course it sounds like they never make a mistake, and if they can do it live, they are not living on the edge, which is what many listeners are looking for, reaching for things. Might miss, oh well, but if you GET it it is worth it!
Don't ignore Jimmy Raney, Doug Raney (father & son). Find the duo recordings.
Ellis said a long time ago, “there are a lot of musicians these days who play a lot of notes but not a lot of music.”
The old school players played with their ears. Not with books & videos. They generated ideas and tried ideas, rather than only copying them. They (like Jonas said) played live in front of people and sucked live until they built skills and a thick skin. This made them FAR FAR FAR more versatile.
All the fast and clean shredding is nothing modern or new:already done in the seventies by the jazz fusion guys.The modern guys are not cleaner and faster than their seventies counterparts, there are just more of them. Allan Holdsworth and John Mclaughlin had done all that stuff by 1973!
And I still haven't heard a young contender for Holdsworth's or McLaughlin's crown either. Only shallow copycats.
Al di meola too
Uli Jon Roth on Sails Of Charon by the Scorpions '77, well before neo- classical was really a thing.
Nobody sounded like ichiko before him. Nobody sounded like Guthrie govan before him. They are super creative and have their own sound. Super dismissive and wrong to say that there's nobody doing anything new.
@@nikhilmalik62 I'll check them both out. I'd be very surprised if either of them has expanded on the musical vocabulary of John McLaughlin or Allan Holdsworth though. I'd LOVE to be blown away though! Thanks for the names!
I felt like being brought into a jouney to remind us that it is not only the technique but also the emotion that should reflect through our guitar.
I agree and part of that is listening to the other musicians if in a group setting and feeding off them as well.
What?
I've listened to 'highly technical' music requiring high levels of ability. Some I like, some I don't (same for everyone).
My favourite guitar player just plays 'enough' notes with feeling - David Gilmour is just so expressive (and Pink Floyd is just sooo good). No 'flashy' stuff there. No need.
@@itsmeagain1745 David Gilmour is one of my all time favorites. Hendrix inspired me to play but David Gilmour had a big impact on my style (however I am still myself regarding my sound)
Great video, in my younger days I never tried to copy tone but I focused on vibrato technique and melody (that space between the notes) and in my opinion David Gilmour is a master of that.
A couple other factors... back then studio time was often limited, and tracking was not infinite. They often didnt have the time and resources to cut and paste to get perfect tracks... and editing the finished material was far more limited. I might be the odd man out here, but there have been many instances where I've split up a guitar part to try and get it recorded tighter... only to toss out the tracks and use my rough take. Cut a paste recording can suck alot of life out of a track.
Imo you can still hear this in more current albums, bands putting out excelent albums early on, and later recordings somehow losing something as the budgets go up.
Excellent take. I know exactly what you mean. There is something about the grungy, loose takes that have more depth and meaning to them, as opposed to the sterile perfect ones.
@@jraelien5798
You can get the best of both worlds, play one track loose and use it as a pattern for the rest of the playing. Don't lock to a grid, but maybe cheat and make sure you're always in the pocket.
@@skaldlouiscyphre2453 I hear what you are saying, and have done it but theres something in the urgency and attack that comes from making awkward jumps around the fretboard rather than just splitting the riffs up. In particular I rember this call and answer riff I was recording where I played a bar of this light airy John Frusciante thing way up the neck, then answered it with a really aggressive/ percussive Tom Morrello thing down low. No matter how much I tryed to split that riff into two parts to avoid continually punching pedals and making weird jumps all over the fretboard, it lost a tremendous amount of groove and feel.
I agree i wont copy abd paste riffs i play every one of them! Otherwise the dynamics are non existent abd cant increase intensity through the song etc!
60s guitarists were breaking trail. Yes, they stood on the shoulders of blues and to a lesser degree jazz and country players, but sonically this was a whole new game. All the cutting edge players of the time had the improvisational high-wire expressiveness and nerve of many of the blues and jazz players of the time... often even in the studio. With amplification and effects, sounds were being made for the first time. With all of the imperfections and sometimes sloop, the really great players seemed to have captured the lightning of those times... sparks flew. Many are still burning today.
Very well put amigo, I'm glad I grew up in that time with soul of the sixties, sometimes I tell stories of that Era and I get an Aliënated look, doesn't matter I bare that treasure with me👍
often assisted by 'medicinal aids'...
@@itsmeagain1745 no, my friend the music is my medicine,not a single pill from a pharmacy 👍
@@JazzgutsVGvanKampen But read some of the biographies... Eric Clapton in a video says he can tell what he was 'on' when playing. That Keith Richards, by his own admission is surprised he's still going strong. 'Moon the Loon' collapsed on stage and subsequently died (horse tranquiliser if I remember correctly). How many have been broken by alcohol and/or cannabis?
I'm glad that you managed to keep away from 'the devils weed' and other such 'aids', but many of the greats have had 'assistance' (legal or not so much) when playing live.
@@itsmeagain1745
It's true what you say, but I never understood this madness of drugs, it certainly ain't true that someone is going to play better on that shit. Someone may think so, but in reality that ain't the case.
Imagine a 3 hour Zepp concert or similar with the guitarist playing with economy of movement, accuracy and uniformity in note spacing like some modern shredder. What a total drag that would be. Or a great singer singing Since I’ve Been Loving You and then some idiot chimes in with legato or picked scales. People would walk out after half an hour. Speed needs to be exciting, not a smooth move up through metronome notches.
Great technique sounds great in its place but its place is not in emotional music.
Great comment! Right on point! Technique is great....but feel, taste, and passion are king...just ask Leslie West or Jeff Beck or Jimmy Page and all the rest of the great players of the 60s and 70s.
Can some of these shredders hold down a whole concert? Think about that Zep example. Every night they played more than 3 hours, and played straight rock, blues, trance, funk, acoustic folk, rockabilly, psychedelic, punk, and who knows what else in incredible synch with each other, delivering maximum power, highs, lows, almost like classical movements. Sure, call Page “sloppy” if you must, but the dude was delivering magic every night playing songs that might have 4-6 tracked guitar parts, in all those styles, and with all kinds of stage presence, moves, drama. JP once referred to The Song Remains the Same as “mediocre”, but good Lord if that’s mediocre, a great performance had to be transcendent. Each song was an epic. These new players might be technically advanced, but never again will there be a rock God like Jimmy Page!!
You're equating good technique to boring playing as if the technique causes that
It doesn't... technique is merely a tool
Evenly spaced notes and boring composition have nothing to do with playing technique
Economy of movement has no real downside, bullshit.
If you like big rock movements, fine, but stop pretending that showmanship has any effect on the actual music
You're just a sucker for the image.
This tired old "learning technique destroys your feeling" is a load of old hat cope bullshit by atechnical guitar players...
Zep was sloppy and fucked up live more compared to even their contempararies like deep purple and the such... they never were as good as the competion even in their time lol
@@miketan3398 amen brother 🙏
@@Dan-zq5wt yep, I agree with you 10000% .
The things that these older guitarists had that is all to lacking in todays players, is heart and soul. Now it's all technique, and it's hard to differentiate the players.
I started playing classical guitar, and the players today (I admit that I don't listen to much of them; now jazz or blues-check out Jack Pearson playing with Josh Smith) sound like they are playing finger exercises, i.e. boring as hell imo.
You know who I think is one dimensional and boring? That Tim Hanson kid. All of his “shredding” sounds exactly the same.
@@smelltheglove2038 -- It's the difference between guitarists as artists versus guitarists as athletes. Shredding is "hard" and people are impressed by the skill it takes. But music isn't about skill; it's about creating a feeling or mood; it's about telling a story. People forget that guitar solos are actually filler material in a song. They takes up the space the vocalists aren't using. If an actor draws attention to his acting, then he is doing a bad job. If a musician is drawing attention to his playing -- rather than to the feeling created by the song -- then he is doing it wrong.
@@enonknives5449 there are guitar players out there that take their virtuoso style playing and tell a story. Those are the players that I gravitate towards. Guys like Derek trucks, Jerry Garcia, Duane Allman, Clapton, Trey Anastasio.
@@smelltheglove2038 -- I'm sure that's true. And telling the story has to be the most important part. Otherwise, the virtuoso is just showing off.
Ya I get what you're saying, being in the same age group and started in the same genres. In the 80s I used to mock alot of bands and genres as sounding too easy. Blues, even rock bands like ac/dc. First working dollars spent on a half stack and played in the house. Showing up at a jam ready to play Free Wheel Burning, some local blues guys were there already jamming with my drummer buddy. I thought "weird", then fire up my amp and blast away. They ask me to try doing a few blues riffs. I was stumped. Couldn't. Should have been my eye opener. Fast forward a few decades and I read Angus Young stating that rock is supposed to be fun, supposed to be simple. Then I get it, and try learning a few of their songs. The little nuances they used..... more than meets the eye there apart from that basic 4/4 beat. Suddenly I'm getting it and having fun again. With a new found respect for alot of other early artists.
Judas Priest is just as simple sounding as AC/DC. Same kind of music.
@@michaeldejong2700 How? Have you heard Painkiller?
I went to the jazz but started with Rory Gallagher, came from school and started playing " on the boards" which blew my mind and in the end I could play the whole album, all the leads by ear before I went to the conservatory in Adam. I can understand you completely, the Era of Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Page, is about expressive inperfection, the mindset is very important, yes I'm an older guy. Greetings Vic
Post a recording of your playing. It would be fun to hear what you do.
What you are describing and you just recently discovered, delightfully so, is something the musicians of my generation knew instinctively but actually WAS explained by Page in early interviews when asked about his style. He summed it all up in 3 words. Loose but tight. It's a feel that most of the players of that era subscribed to.
Absolutely
Too loose and everything falls apart
I sometimes think the young players are actually hampered by perfect technique and the fear of getting something wrong. Timing is another thing that has messed up the feel of modern stuff, the old stuff used off the beat, varying tempo, dragging behind the beat to give feeling to a song. Also the drummers, bass and keyboards were all adding their own feelings to the overall feel. The drumming alone in When The Levee Breaks has more feel than most modern guitarists sadly.
Blame the music industry for that, not the players
Ask tim pierce on how that worked
What is missing is the thrill of discovery. Imagine flight as experienced by the Wright brothers and the early barnstormers and how that differs from boarding a jet plane today. You are going faster, and farther, and higher but you barely notice. There was the thrill of life and death in every moment of flight and now it is tedium and something to be endured until you arrive at your destination. It is no longer about flight; it’s about getting there.
As you perfect something by continually polishing it and endlessly trying to refine it, you are buffing away the thrill of discovery until you arrive at your destination: a perfect nothing.
I’m an old man, 79, soon to be 80. I earned my keep as a full-time “professional” guitarist for 36 years and spent nearly 11 years in continuous road travel and at times accompanied major stars. Every new album that came out contained an explosion of never before experienced creativity, a sumptuous stew of possibilities. It was breathtaking in the way only first time things can be.
We were like children seeing dazzling color for the first time and maybe that kind of thrill belongs exclusively to the child in us. Too much of anything robs us of our innocence and makes us in some way old. We can never again regain that innocence or that thrill.
I am stunned every day by the virtuosity, skill and imagination that is on display everywhere by the players of today but it is a dry and barren admiration, devoid of the child-like wonder my first exposure to even basic guitar playing once carried.
You can only lose your virginity once. It’s never going to be quite the same again. Love making might improve with experience but there is only one ever first time. You might still love the flight but you have already experienced the destination.
There is never a way to go back.
IDK if you've come across the channel "Wings of Pegasus" from the UK, but the host Fil, when I came across him a couple of years ago, would mainly focus on Guitarists and their playing. But recently he's switched up and in addition to the playing, he's added analyzing the vocals, including of non-guitarists, and showing when Autotune has been used, and not used in the production, and how taking away those "mistakes" in the vocals can rip the soul and feel out of the song.
Yes, Fil is really worth checking out.
When I started out I wanted to play like the greats but in the pre-internet world of the 80s, most of all I just wanted to play. I had one great guitar, one great amp and a few pedals and for 30 years that was all I used. Now in my 50s, I am surrounded by gear and overwhelmed by all the talent on youtube - most of it also selling me more gear or telling me my technique sucks (which it probably does) - and I can understand the "Road to Damascus" moment David must have had. The guitar is the love of my life but it is also a massive steaming pile of over-priced pedals, amps, modifications and assorted nonsense that distract you from making music. And guitar solos? Give me 15 seconds of quality that works in a song over 60 seconds of widdly widdly wank. The best Eddie Van Halen guitar solo was the one in Beat It - perfect, succinct and made the song.
I think we all need to take a breath and step back from this overload of information and sales pitches so we can get back to enjoying playing music without over-analysing every tone, sound, riff, whatever, and most importantly, get back to making songs that can blow away an audience in 3 minutes with or without a guitar solo. That's all they did in the past that was really different to today.
What the old guys did to me was to make me love the sound of the electric guitar. From Duane Eddy to Big Daddy Jimmy. The fuse was lit. All of us are still on fire.
I'm a player who, for the most part, doesn't like most of what I hear on guitar since the mid 80's. It seemed like anger or technique (being too technical) had become what was passing for music. I think what you call sloppy playing is a deeper connection between the soul of the player and what comes out the guitar. The interesting thing is, I've heard people complain that Jimmy Page was a sloppy player. In the 60's this "sloppy" player was said to have played on 90% of the records coming out of England. That's right, he was a studio musician playing all kinds of music and in different genres. I'm sorry but my feeling is, just because it's technical or ultra fast doesn't mean that it's music that others would want to listen too. In the early 80's there were some great guys, playing very original sounding stuff on guitar, who were far from being technicians. Some that come to mind are Robin Guthrie of a group called Cocteau Twins, John McGeoch who played with a group called Magazine in the late 70's and a group called Siouxsie And The Banshees in the 80's, and a guy name Daniel Ash who played in Bauhaus, Tones On Tail, and Love & Rockets. All of these guys were self taught and none of them were angry or technical players, yet they've made more money than most of those that are considered great guitarist. I want to hear the soul, not just the speed.
There is a big guitar revolution going on in Africa right now, that is worth examining...They are combining raw old school unrefined classic rock/blues type playing with traditional African styles...It’s really cool to hear....
Sounds fascinating! Do you have links or names of artists I should check out?
I know what you mean. perfection lies in imperfection. I play without knowing about notes or scales. I play by ear and feel. When I play the guitar, only emotions come out. i want to fix this problem
@@bifftannen3167
I feel the same way. You can hear what mood I'm in right now. and I can never repeat it. it is only in this moment. I would like to play a little more what I mean and not what I feel. Luckily I play a lot of blues so it's not that noticeable.
Totally agree with this. I've played since the 70s. Whatever the type of music, emotion, (excitement, love, sorrow, anger etc) and feelings for the music are what elevates it , even if the listener doesn't realize that. If you really love what you're playing, whether it's from original songs, the other musicians you're playing with, or just on your own, nailing a cover or two, and really getting into it then it will show in the final results. And this translates for the audience, most of whom are not guitarists remember. For some reason the "new" technical/shred, acoustic two handed tapping type or whatever, come across as clinical, cold and calculating, over polished/produced, and lacking in emotion to my ears. They have no emotion whatsoever and actually very hard to listen to.
Yeah I have to agree. Honestly the shredders from the 80s despite what some may say definitely had more emotion than the Math Rock we have today
I have 40 years of playing perspective and things have certainly changed. For one thing, modeling technology has made great sound dynamics and recording accessible to a lot more players. For another, RUclips tutorials have made it possible for me to learn songs and techniques that took me hours to figure out (or seemed impossible) in a few minutes. I can now play songs originally recorded old school guys who seemed like magicians at the time.
I think I finally reached that point of freedom when I stopped worrying about what I was thinking of myself when I played. I allowed myself to just try ridiculous things that the 'critical me' would never have tried. I allowed lots of errors and ate the meat, threw away the bones
There’s something so raw, spontaneous, unscripted, dynamic, emotive, soulful and full of energy the old guys were/are. Today’s guitar players sound much more polished, mechanical even. There are some great guitar players out there today but even though many have unreal chops, most are “musically”forgettable. I’ve been back and forth myself as a guitar player since I first started playing in 1987. But I always find myself coming back to that old school classic rock/blues. To me it’s so much more fun and rewarding improvising in a band mix then it is going over the exact same arpeggios, over and over speeding up the metronome. I do highly recommend developing those chops but as a musician, I think it’s more important learning how to improvise in a band mix. Guys like page, Hendrix and SRV were absolute masters at that even though I wouldn’t call them a technical virtuoso. Well I take that back, I would definitely call SRV a virtuoso. I would definitely call EVH, Eric Johnson and maybe Beck and Blackmore one as well
Hi David, im a millennial but boomer at heart. Maybe in term of guitar music tastes, I'll get along well with your teacher. 70s rock for me isn't not to be competed with today's guitar music, it's something in them that just speak to me (I love my fave bands Yes Rush and Genesis etc and probably will hold them dear to me until in my 90s). Great lessons and discussions as always✌
Old school guitar music connects with people a lot more, I bet 90% of Polyphia listeners are guitars players, it's really nice to watch someone playing a bunch of notes, but after some minutes it gets a little boring.
if not seconds...
Your country road epiphany sums up everything I feel about the best parts of my playing. My mind wants perfectly pitched bends in time and space, wants to use the whole neck, flawless arpeggios....but my heart is happy when letting go and I guess screwing up in my own unique way.
I used to think of Page as a sloppy player as well when I compared him to a Lifeson or Rhoads but like someone else pointed out he was riding the edge of improvizational composition and ability quite often. Theres a sense that most of his studio takes were one and dones( which feels terribly exciting like capturing lightning in a bottle)Even if they were'nt he sure intended them to sound that way. Jimmy was a top notch hiredgun studio ace for years before Zep who had to perform on que. Its also why Steve Howe is my favourite alltime player...he seemed to know how to blend amazing technical and progressive playing with being so loose and what sounds almost sloppy today on recordings. I marvel at modern players technical ability but often am left feeling cold.
I myself find I play places out. If you're playing every day in the same space, say your studio, or bedroom or garage or w/e it is you play, you can play it out. Just get bored of the space. Played every riff that space has to offer you. Then you go somewhere new. Different environment. Different acoustics, reverbs, scenery. It's all very inspiring to me and makes me play with a renewed vigor that sometimes I lose when in one space or mindset for to long
The question s this: Who is the audience? I would argue that some of the guitarists who you referenced as big influences were never really very popular outside of the guitarist community. They tend to have enormous technical chops and pushed the limits of what could be done with the guitar. That commands a lot of respect from other players. The problem is that a lot of people outside that community just didn't care.
Conversely, listing to someone like, say, Carlos Santana on Abraxas, he is, essentially, singing when he plays. It's about the melody and expression more than anything else. His technical skill is focused, entirely, on the pursuit of melody, harmony and expression. This is what appeals to a wider audience, I believe and is why he and his peers are so well-regarded.
Who is a "better" guitarist? It's not really a question that has any meaning outside of a given context. I'm (obviously) of "that generation" and, I must admit, I really struggled with the music of the Mahavishnu Orchestra at the time. John McLaughlin could play pieces that were beyond the capabilities of almost every extant guitarist. But I just never connected with the music, it seemed that the playing obscured the meaning. That's a personal observation and I fully accept that I just don't get it in this case. But I think it illustrates my point. The majority of people listen to music for melody (and relatively simple ones at that).
Man check out love devotion surrender. Both at the same time. It is the bridge
Nobody’s playing Eruption for their girlfriends around the campfire LMFAO
I play acoustic and electric guitar. I'm old, sigh. I've wanted to play guitar for a long time. So I started to learn and practice, practice, practice! Page, for example, pushes himself... hard. He plays 'beyond' his technical abilities. He actually incorporates his 'mistakes' into his playing. That's really hard to do, balancing on the knife-edge like that. Also, I think the time and spaces between the sound of the notes actually being played, is very, very, important too. Too many notes/sounds without controlling the air/space properly, is hard too.
Love older guitarists even though I’m a bass player lol. My faves..Martin Barre from Tull, Alvin Lee from ten years after, Robin Trower, Hendrix, Blackmore etc. But I did the same thing when Yngwie Vai Van Halen etc came out outside of Hendrix & Lee I started to think the same thing about guys like Page sloppy but quickly got out of it.
any musician who claims this one is better than that one isn’t a true musician.
You learn music and make it your own,you want to sound like Muddy Watters or slash there mere influences,music and YOUR sound comes from within you.
So very true.. You nailed it. Technique and MELODY are 2 completely separate animals
That's just silly. Of course some guitar players are better than others, that is observable fact. A "true" musician knows and understands why Eddie Van Halen is a much better guitar player than Kurt Cobain. That is evident. But how music makes you feel, and therefore which music you want to listen to is different. Comparing who is better is a very good way to appreciate and learn to critique music.
I get this. My first album that was my own composition rather than someone else's I took the first takes of songs even though they had mistakes in them because the energy from the three musicians in the band who had never been in a studio before came through on the tape. I don't know how to explain it but you could hear the energy on the recording.
A favorite story of mine is from the Clash while recording London Calking the studio engineer started tossing barstools and trying to hurt the band to get the energy right for the tape. It became their biggest album.
I grew up listening to those "old school" artists, and listening to it when it was new, I just felt it. I didn't analyze it. You hear every note, and every note counts. Also, as Debussy noted, the music is not just in the notes, but in the spaces between the notes. If there are no spaces, something is lost.
J’aime beaucoup l’exploration que tu nous proposes, elle interroge et en quelque sorte permet de se poser et de se recentrer sur l’essentiel dans la music : l’émotion qu’elle procure ! Merci David👍🏼🍒
Jimmy Page is the best guitarist to ever live. His body of work will always be the top of the heap.
ill second that.
Absolutely, after busting out that bow on Dazed and Confused at Madison, to this day, nobody even gets close, and that was just one song in the set.
I do think that some of the modern guitar players are absolutely amazing because of their technical prowess & precision that they employ. But to my ear, it “feels” cold & sterile. The music of my generation (yes 60’s & 70’s) was filled with raw emotion. Think about Neil Young for instance. If you are critical of his vocal style (for some it sounds like screeching), I might agree. But listen, not with your ears, but with your heart & soul & you might find your eyes filled with tears. The best music is about expressing EMOTION, no matter who the generation was that played it (think Billie Holiday or George Gershwin or Frederic Chopiń). That’s why music is called a “universal language “. Here’s a couple of sayings from Buddhism that I’ve always loved - “To the beginner, there are many possibilities. To the expert, there are few.” or “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” In music, many teachers have appeared in my life, but only when I was ready to truly listen to their wisdom.
Thanks,,, I was trying to put how I feel about these new shredders these days ,,,, and you put it perfectly,,,, Cold and Sterile! Great name for a song!
Emotions and feelings are for girl guitarists
@@cowpokez7304 And what’s wrong with girl guitarist,, I love girl guitarist,,, they are just so cute!!!!
I don’t think it’s about the era, it’s about the genre or style they play. Math Rock and Djent to me sounds like the definition of boring lol, but a player like Guthrie Govan is clearly so inspired by classic Blues Rock players, and he has that tasty phrasing and vibrato
Music is an emotional experience that allows you to feel something. The music I play whether on piano / keyboards, guitar, bass, etc. isn't perfect and never will be, but it's mine. Now there's nothing wrong in being technically proficient / perfect, it leads to an empty place where it can be devoid of any soul regardless of genre. Don't get me started on auto-tune which is a travesty when used which makes a voice sound perfect, which it seldom is.
I feel like much more "soul" came through in the older music. The distance between emotion and the tape was much shorter.
A few years ago I decided to put one of my acoustics in DADGAD for a minimum of a year. It made the guitar so new to me again and it felt like my early exploratory years. It also led me to seeking out other DADGAD players, which exposed me to some wonderful music I hadn't encountered before. Two years later and I'm still learning new ways to approach songs, both new and old, in this tuning. It was what I needed to get me out of that plateau.
So much to unpack here
First, those old rock guitarists didn't have the pedagogical advances to work with. We learned from friends, teachers and records. There was no slowing down the tracks. I literally played "Crossroads" from "Wheels of Fire" hundreds of times to learn the song. In using this process for dozens of songs, I also learned
Second, nuance. People who "shred" all too frequently have very little nuance in their playing. You "shredders" can argue this all you want, but you're wrong.
Third, the old guys had a guitar or two - not half a dozen - and a single amp. They had to learn how to get the most out of the minimal equipment they had.
Fourth, because there were few pedals available and most of them were very noisy - I was there! - guitarists had to use their hands to achieve their tone, not technology. It's something most modern guitarists won't admit, but pedals have the effect of homogenizing your sound. You all have 42 pedals and you all sound alike.
Fifth, as the really old guys - Bach, Mozart, Haydn, etc. - understood, the space between the notes is just as important as the notes themselves. "Shredders" apparently don't understand this, preferring to fill the allotted time with as many notes as possible. It's fatiguing to listen to.
Sixth, most of the old guys who are still around are musicians who play guitar, not guitarists who play music. This is a crucial distinction, and if you don't get it nothing I can add is going to help.
Finally, technique wasn't an end in itself. Its purpose was to facilitate the expression of feelings. So many "shredders" seem to put technique first. RUclips is jammed with videos of - mostly - guys who came out of formal programs who can play 250 bpm over complex chord changes and yet they are unspeakably boring to listen to, unless you're a fellow technocratic guitarist.
Word !!! - "...most of the old guys who are still around are musicians who play guitar, not guitarists who play music. This is a crucial distinction, and if you don't get it nothing I can add is going to help." 🤘
Damn technocrats....🧐
You're correct. I use to pour Coca-Cola and drizzle chocolate syrup onto my tubes for that "sweet" tone. It felt sweeter, but it didn't smell sweeter.😜
As a 23 year old man, I have to agree and respect your analysis. The grind that people had to have back in the day to play any instrument was incomperable to what it takes now. Technology seems to be 1 step forward 2 step back
@@MrJohnnyDistortion is this true or a joke, asking out of genuine curiousity
Start a solo by stating a theme. It can be a very simple theme (listen to Beethoven’s 5th.) Then, play around with that theme: keep the same rhythm but change the notes, change the rhythm but keep the same notes, etc. If you’re not doing this, you’re just noodling. Repetition of a phrase is very musical; play it over and over, in slightly different ways (listen to Roy Buchanan.) Use various picking techniques. Play softly and tenderly, loudly and ballsy. Snarl and purr. Slow and fast. Think of all the human emotions and try to express them. The key to musicality, as well as all the arts, is playing with the opposites (light and dark in a painting, for ex.) Gradually build in intensity. Build to a climax, which should be near, but not at, the end, like in a novel or a movie. THEN you can throw in those Tom Quayle licks, if you can (I can’t). After the climax, bring it back down at the end (like sex ;-). Tom Quayle plays Tom Quayle licks way too damn much. It sounds robotic, sterile, and boring after the initial WOW wears off. So many players are like this. Again, the key to all great art is playing with the opposites. Again, the key to all great art is playing with the opposites. OPPOSITES. Let that sink in to the very core of your soul.
Forgot to mention, play as if you were speaking in sentences. A great technique is to think of a sentence or a phrase, then play that sentence or phrase. For ex: I love you, baby. I really love you, baby. I wanna make love to you…all night long. Baby, baby, baby. I know, silly example, but it works.
It's about trying to achieve the reckless irreverence and controlled chaos that turns music into rock and roll. You gotta flip the bird to restraint and polish. Be a rebel and yell "FUCK YOU" to anyone who tells you to behave ...or play with your fingers in the "correct" position. Let the raw emotion come out through your guitar. Raw emotion is messy and sometimes unpleasant but not filtered by technique, chasing perfection, and the constraints of others. Rock on.
It's a relief, really
A painter that can imitate a photo will never be Picasso.
I like the revelation but not sure I'd call some things imperfections. Without using the term, you describe rubato as an imperfection, even though it's been a part of classical theory for hundreds of years. And a lot of those original rockers used tones that were insanely hard to play fast on, which is why it's hard to compare. I can play twice as fast on a Vai tone than I can on a Page or Hendrix tone.
I’ve been reluctant to play out (solo acoustic) lately.. been focused on writing my own stuff… even thats getting stagnate. I believe wut u described may b wut i need…. Take a step back and come back some time later. I did that in short spurts before and came back w/incredible results… more clarity of theory, better understandin of the fretboard, more ideas and focus. Its time to step back for a “minute”… thx, i dont feel so alone w/this albatross now! Break time!
Page was a bit sloppy but one of the greatest songwriters of all time! Achilles Last Stand! OMG! Imho the modern players are extremely technical but soulless!
He really was only horribly sloppy live (likely depending on the drugs). I'm sure they made him keep it somewhat together in the studio. But all seriousness, he is probably the greatest melodic mind that ever wrote rock music.
Page was not sloppy. He was a top session musician. You don’t get session work being sloppy. Everything he does is intended
@@bradleyblauvelt1572 in the studio perhaps, but the drug use live is very well documented. Theres literal video right here on RUclips him on stage with drug sweats, horribly out of tune and yes playing sloppy. If you watch that and still think it's on purpose we'll have to agree to disagree.
@@jscordoba3 well I won’t deny drugs make you sloppy but with that being said he’s not the only one. Check out some RUclipss of Eddie Van Halen
@@bradleyblauvelt1572 OH hell yeah, Eddie was baaaaad live on MANY occasions. Booze and Cocaine!
Originality and soul...that's what makes them famous.
The trick is to get the worst equipment possible and only have 4 random strings on it bc 2 are broke. That's what it's like growing up as a kid learning guitar
Apparently Carl Perkins made his first guitar from a raccoon ribcage for the body , a coyote spine for the neck, barbed wire for the thick strings and the silk of a tarantula's web for the thinner ones....
Jimmy Hendrix started with one string, as I recall.
@@nodgelyobo1 Carl Perkins is my half sisters great uncle for real. One half of the family lives in ohio here and the other in Kentucky. That family is what got me into guitar years ago.
@@davidpenwell3432 yup me too man...nice story..
I’ll never forget what my father told me after I was learning guitar and obsessed with learning lead- “what are you going to do? Play goddamned Eruption for everyone around the campfire?”
They might have intended to be sloppy but everyone has their threshold for sloppiness, I actually enjoy a little sloppiness but I can't stand Page or Zappa's solos, if they were unknown and played today at the local pub they would be shot. There are players from that era that weren't sloppy and had great feel, on the other spectrum I have trouble connecting to modern players that play every note perfectly but end up sounding like a computer.
If Jimmy Page played at a local pub, known or unknown, vagina's would loosen up, lubricate, and leave with Jimmy.
You're WRONG....Page RULES...
also back then they didn't use quantizing so some of that polished technique not all , is established by producers.
Yep, raw, loose, energy & emotion. Exactly why I consider Aerosmith's first album to be their best.
Early Aerosmith were great and they rocked, they're almost a completely different band these days.
The latest players are amazing. But the old school music I grew up with you can recall in an instant, it’s emotion. When I hear Hendrix play some of his lesser known songs like Hear my Train, it’s humanity crying out it’s thousand of years of emotion. Listen to Stop from aBand of Gypsies rerelease. It’s a blues conversation about being in love, an extension of the soul. Some music today in the virtuoso realm sound like typewriting at 80 words per minute. An amazing feat but not memorable.
Wow good analogy at the end. Especially the 1000s of years of emotion part.
No one has topped Hendrix, it’s not just the guitar, it’s not just the songs, it’s the whole vibe, music, songs, guitar, creativity and still going strong.
Oddly enough, I'm also a Bob K., but not the same fellow. I grew up listening to Jimi's music. Love his playing, his emotion, his imagination. I'd have to place Rory Gallagher at the very top, though. The Irishman, like Jimi, was rooted in the blues. But he not only played his Strat just as incredibly and originally, Rory also mastered acoustic, slide, harmonica, mandolin, even saxophone. And he played them all live, worldwide, for millions of people in person and over Eurovision, sometimes for shows as long as three hours. He had the sweetest voice, and led his bands, just like Jimi led the Experience. Large amounts of live concert and TV video, and audio, plus Rory's studio recordings, are easily available for everyone's attention, including here on RUclips. The vibe, music, songs, guitar, creativity... anyone who loves Jimi will also love Rory, for those same reasons.
@@bobkutchko8341 thanks Bob K, yes Rory was a very special one off, the first album I heard of his was from his band Taste, loved it,I saw him a couple of times in the early seventies, he came on stage and just ripped it up with his raw never ending energy, he was brilliant, his albums still hold up today, indeed he was a master.
Expression of emotion is what makes the best guitarists the best. If you can’t pull your soul into your playing you may make money but will never be a legend
We are slaves to our influences. If Robert Johnson were the first guitar player that you ever fell in love with, for instance, your approach to the guitar would be completely different than if Yngwie were your first influence. You can't go back in time and rewire your neural pathways. Nor can you increase your natural creative talent. Novice guitar players always think talent and technical ability are somehow linked. That's barely true. Anyone can become technically proficient with enough hours. But creative talent is an actual talent. It's something you can't manufacture.
Lot of people unfortunately forgot or put blind eye on how important is to have a high creative intelligence when it comes to music. I hear a lot of talk about techniques,speed, difficult compositions to play. No one speak a word about creative intelligence. Creativity is something you are born with.
@@ebandzekan Creativity is the only talent there really is. Anyone can be technically proficient with enough practice.
I am a 51-year-old fairly accomplished multi-instrumentalist. Somehow, since 1985 I recorded nearly every riff as it came to me on guitar, all in tune and great tone, drumming, Hammond and multi-tracking hours and hours. Trash bags full of High Bias Cassettes at half=speed! Digitizing and reworking some currently. I sounded like Bonham Jamming with Page.
It's funny. Back in the day we had such limited access to music that you could go for years not knowing about very popular music that would later become like the air that you breathe.
It's also funny that I grew up in the 70's, but I had a similar experience with my evolution as a guitar player that you had 20 years later.
For me, I loved the heavy guitar sounds of bands like Kiss and Judas Priest, and I had a guitar teacher trying to teach me classical, but I told him I wanted to play Priest, so he taught me how to play bar chords and the pentatonic scale. I'm very grateful for that knowledge, as limited as it was.
Anytime I could get money to grow my collection of vinyl albums, I tended to buy stuff like Kiss, Judas Priest and Black Sabbath, of course.
But then, at some point, I was gifted with the Woodstock album and Jeff Beck "Wired" on vinyl, plus several 8-tracks of albums from Santana and the Grateful Dead, and this opened my whole world up to a different kind of music and a different approach to guitar playing.
Of course, it took me an extremely long time to get good enough on guitar to be able to understand why, but I knew right away that players like Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Jerry Garcia, Alvin Lee, and Jeff Beck had a very different type of relationship with their guitars than the "heavier" players I had idolized. Then, it was a year or so later before I made a trade for Frampton Comes Alive and Led Zeppelin I, and I had my mind blown again.
Now, I don't want to disparage the art and skill of my earlier guitar heroes, for I still love those 70s and 80s metal bands as much as I love all the metal bands that came after, but I know that few of them have the same level of Mojo that the earlier greats had (and the even earlier greats that they learned from), and my many decades of playing guitar have led me to understand what I need to keep striving for, even as I learned that I am already there, if I can only just "let go" and be the music that I feel inside.
I know I don't need to explain that to you because I have heard you try to explain it in several videos now, and I just wanted to say that I totally get what you are saying.
Also, I appreciate and enjoy what you are doing here and have subscribed to your channel. Keep jamming!
I'm an intermediate level guitarist, musician, I write and record songs. I love the guitar! But sometimes I get into a rut and it's difficult to develop a song and sometimes it's difficult to come up with something exciting. What sometimes helps is grabbing a keyboard and experiment a little with different pads and synths in my DAW. I take random chords and look at what chords the keyboard says they are. That way I can write a whole other types of chord progressions (much voice leading), and then putting guitar on top of that forces me to play along something that already exist, I don't always need to come up with new things on the guitar. But just taking a break for a couple of weeks helps sometimes. And I swear, I'm almost a better guitarist after a few weeks pause than I was in that last few days before the pause, I'm more relaxed, my technique is better, my accuracy and speed are better.
If ever in human history a single human being can replicate Little Wing correctly, I'll begin to think Hendrix wasn't an actual demigod. Sometimes I wonder if every other person on earth isn't clinically deaf. Because the note for note replications of Little Wing by extremely talented and skilled guitar players aren't even close. That includes myself of course. I still can't figure out exactly what's going on on that track. Is it studio magic? Or was he really just that good.
You think Hendrix was a demigod because he played little wing? Your standards for god-like are incredibly low. How old are you?
Jimi Hendrix wasn't as sloppy as Page or Iommi, however. And you need to stop taking these pills, whatever they are. They give you severe hallucinations.
I love the raw unpolished guitar sound. I love the sound of Hendrix's amps on full, sounding like they soon gone start burning or brake down. I wish i was there.
Eddie Van Halen besides being a guitar player was also a technician. He basically experiment with his amplifiers with no effects by putting a variac on the AC line of it and brought up voltage slowly. From what I either read or heard, his magic sound came when he had the amplifier AC at 89 volts. It was low in volume but had the exact sound that he wanted at that low voltage. He blew up a few amps that way but learned along the way. He wanted his amp to be his effects and not rely on packaged pedals and effects. Thanks to innovators like him, some of the epic sounds are out now. It is still hard for me to believe that Led Zeppelin II was released 53 years ago, which is still my all time favorite Led Zeppelin album. Django Reinhardt had only had use of three fingers on his left hand because of a fire and I think he rescued his sister; and was the pioneer of soloing as far as I'm concerned. He influenced a lot of the greats that came up through the ranks.
I'm very new to playing guitar. My philosophy from the beginning is, after getting my fundamentals, if I want to try to play like my favorite guitarists then I need to find out who influenced THEM.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons Robert Fripp is relearning to play in EAGDBE tuning again at 74 years of age. He has always been one of the most challenging guitarists to listen to. He rarely disappoints as he can hear and play the unexpected and is thrilling for that. His philosophy on the relationship between music, the musician and the audience feeds into and from that. After 50 years of listening to Crimson, frippertronics, him guesting with everyone from Bowie to blondie, he always makes me listen, really listen hard.
What song would you recommend????
@@danielsturdivant5652 Well for a Mix here’s a couple,
Bowie Hero’s and Fashion? Fripp and Eno, Evening Star and the whole Live in Paris album. King Crimson, 21st Century Schizoid Man, Discipline and Red. There’s Hundreds more but this is a reasonable overview. After some thought his music is more influenced by Classical music and modern Jazz rather than the Blues, later came I seem to remember an interest in Gamelan (sic) music and timings.
The playing of the "old school" players was blues-based; nearly exclusively minor minor scale including wide bends, vibratos and string inflections. Those players were expanding on the innovations of the blues guys; Freddie King, BB King, Albert King, Buddy Guy and Otis Rush it is like a blues template. Listen to Hendrix's solo on "Red House" it is mostly BB King licks! The examples you played of modern players are scales, arpeggios and sequences played as fast as possible as if the building blocks of Western music are beautiful in themselves. They don't at any moment bend, vibrato or inflect of shade the notes in anyway. It sounds to me very digital! It's like comparing apples and oranges.
"Izabella" Live at Fillmore East 12/31/1969 by Hendrix, Davis and Cox
When you said "mindset" I think you nailed it. Something that really is not tied to guitar specifically, it's the way you look at the world in general. But those were different times, much more optimistic times, the future looked bright and going up and up. If you want to capture that mindset, you pretty much have to block out most of what is thrown at you by modern culture. BTW, good hair style David, it works for you. I remember you from the old GMC days.
I just play whatever I want. I'm constantly coming up with new things. I've never realised anything. Loving playing bass at the moment. I think I should try to articulate what I go through but its time for sleep. I go through patterns and insane repetition and break them up with improv. Review and pick out what I like. Its beautiful when it becomes intuitive and wonderful surprising parts come through improv. Making patterns and breaking them up comes with interesting results. Listening back from a distance and recognising some of the theory, giving space and considering other instrumentation, education, gathering inspiration from different genres.....there are so many ways to skin the cat ...i never run out and I am grateful. Life is limited and I am quite slow to keep that in mind. Sigh.
Wow , you picked the guy that got me playing the guitar , hats off to you , Alfred NYC /PR
The first time i heard Eric Johnson. Brought that back for me. Was stationed in Dallas Tx. A guy at Longhorn guitars. Plays a vtg strat. Thru a jcm 800 combo with orig chandler tube driver. He was playing s song off TONES N BLEW ME AWAY …. soul is where it comes from. All the joy n pain of life should come out. Its not just playing guitar. Itsa Spiritual awakening.
I grew up in the G3 area with vai, satch, petrucci and so on, but also at the same listening to gilmour, blackmore, page from my parents collection. But now that im older, I starting to gravitate more towards the old school players. Why? I think its because they "channelling" their raw emotions and its feels more like at the edge of your seat all the time. Like the guitar is on fire and shit is going down haha
Hey there! That's an EXCELLENT description of the same thing that happened to me. The excitement of the discovery is what makes music wonderful
I wonder if technical means better necessarily. Keith Richards isn’t technical but he can kill it on one riff. I do respect the technicians though. Not everyone can start playing guitar at four years old though and become a technician lol.
I grew up on the old school stuff. When I was 18, I could play 'Crossroads' and all the rest, pretty much note for note. Then, I found Steely Dan and Larry Carlton and all of those melodic players. After rap, a new breed of one-e-and-uh-two-e-and-uh-three-e-and-uh-4-e-and-uh high speed shredders had learned how to exploit complex chord changes by playing at warp speed through the song. At 74, I treasure my experience. Listen to the fine crafted solo in LED ZEPPLIN'S Whole Lotta Love. Finally,
a nobody who commented below 'jason malever' used the word slop. These folks are treasures. You will never join their ranks.
Well said, sir!
I find it interesting that in the classical music world, there are critics, especially in competitions, of flawless playing, where it lacks heart and soul, an individual's or ensemble's interpretive ability . With such standardized music bringing something of the individual artist's or ensemble's interpretation, personality spirit soul to the same notes/score is important . In other words, things beyond technical proficiency. It is another side to the equation of what constitutes a truly great performance.
OMG I thought you were going to say Larry Carlton. But no matter. Carlos is cool too.
I really like your observation of the old and new. Personally I like humans, not robots. That's my impression of the modern polished music vs the old school stuff we are blessed to have still.
Larry Carlton, another of my favorites! His opening solo on Steely Dan’s “Don’t Take Me Alive” has got to be one of the best intros of all time!
Jimmy Page said: “I don’t deal in technique. I deal in emotions”. And yet, all the guitarists mentioned as the modern best all cite Jimmy Page (and Hendrix etc) as massive influences. But keep in mind, Page, Beck, Clapton, Hendrix, Blackmore, Iommi INVENTED the modern rock era and they’re straight up ROCK BLUES players with some variations that they all popularized in their own unique styles, and each created a new branch on the rock tree. Their music grabs your crotch and brain and burrows into your soul. To be fair, Page’s “sloppiness” did sometimes veer post 73 to into bad playing at times (defined maybe as either (1) mistakes on something simple that Page used to kill; (2) tired playing) because of drug use and burnout (I think). However, he did still have some amazing performances when “on” in 75 and 77, and his studio work remained superb. Great video!
The age of the record player, they truly 'listened' to music, they hunted for it (pre-internet techniques), they had albums (and the art+words included), music was their life and defined them, they had to work very hard to get the information they had.
They wanted to contribute to a history of music, rather than separate themselves from past musical styles to define themselves. They were not 'average' musicians, they were far better than the 'new wave' of proficient players. As they had the skill and intelligence to collate their style/techniques, without all the aids we have today (accurate tabs, the internet etc etc).
Playing 'well' today is not a challenge ..if you are focused in anyway
It's all about FEEL. Everyone feels different things when they hear sounds or music. The greatest thing any musician of any genre can do is connect people to emotions and feelings. Music is a language. You're speaking and having a conversation. Telling a story. Technical skills are of course important but it isn't the thing that connects people. You can know every word in the dictionary but it's the way you use those words in a real conversation that matters. "I LOVE YOU" are literally 3 simple words any human being from a toddler to a dying person can say but it can mean so much and so different.
I was born in 1987 but was always the weird kid that didn't care for the polished sound. 11th grade in 2003 I was always wearing my headphones listening to Zeppelin, ACDC, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, etc.
That 12 second solo break of Whole Lotta Love grabbed my 16 years old music soul.
My take is that the old school players were gigging all the time. They didn't have the luxury of sitting on your room doing endless takes to record a song on your own personal studio.
There is a real thrill to gigging. I'm a sideman who plays bass. There are hundreds of shows that never got recorded. You just had to be there.
Great vid 👍
Another fascinating and informative essay delivered with your lovely, easy, humerous style, David.
Ta very muchly.
☝️😎
And now for the Santana video...
A good lesson. I recall Mark Knopfler saying he doesn't practice every day because it makes him stale.
I always think I'm hearing their heart beat and raw emotion translated thru the guitar strings.
I can give you a couple of specific examples of the kinds of things I mean.
When I started studying guitar, there weren't many learning tools available. I was gratified when tab books started to appear, but they didn't have the songs I wanted to learn to play. I tried to find a guitar teacher to teach me to play Beatles tunes. I had the fake books, the only things available at the time, but the teacher tried to teach me the fake book version, for seventy dollars a lesson. I knew damned well it wasn't the sound I heard when I listened to the song, but I was at a loss to figure it out. (Slowing down music wasn't very practical with a cassette or record player.)
Eventually tab books came out, but they weren't always correct either. I wondered when they were going to put out second editions with the corrections.
Eventually I had the computer related things to slow down music and sort things out.
In the meantime, I had read something about John Lennon that I could relate to. I liked best live campfire music. I preferred the music that people played purely for fun, not for practice, performance, or recording. If you ever listened to a good musician, playing around on his porch for fun, it was better than any recording you ever heard. maybe on an unconscious level, the music blended with the mood and rhythms of the environment, and it reflected pure feelings, with no other agenda or consciousness.
It was spontaneous fun, sound, and feelings. When you played somewhere else, you would call up the spirit of the music you were playing that night, just for yourself. You would go into a sort of trance of emotions, mood, feelings, etc. That sort of thing was probably behind how the song struck you when you were out driving that one time. You hadn't heard the "place" that evoked the song until you were in a similar place, maybe with just the right rhythm of passing scenery. When I'm playing my favorite kind of rhythm songs, I'm rolling across the terrain, like a train rolling across the plains and approaching a tunnel through the mountains. The train has to keep rolling and sometimes it has to gather force for a steep grade and plunge into darkness. All those songs are stories and movements of emotions.
Much better guitarists than I could ever hope to be would be blown away by my rhythm playing. How did I do it, they would ask. Just catch the rhythm and ride it and play with it. I didn't really know what to tell them. Wasn't life full of rhythms? Just play them. And the stories of songs have rhythms. Songs walk, run, stumble, or limp along. Sometimes they glide or slide and slam to a halt, then get up again. You can choose to stumble or laugh at a word or a phrase in the lyrics, and you can do it as naturally as any stumble or laugh, and get right back in the groove.
Anyway, they said Lennon loved music like that. ( Sometimes, on the drugs, he carried it a little too far like in Revolution Number Nine.) But he would often say their initial complete take of a song was good enough, even with mistakes, because he didn't want to lose the spontinaity of it. If you repeat a joke too many times, it starts to sound stale, no matter what you try.
I think he even deliberately began to incorporate the mistakes in the music.
I can't remember the song anymore, but there was an early Beatles era song in which I was always unhappy with the written versions. All the cover versions were boring - they somehow didn't have a special sort of intensity, which was like a signature of the Beatles sound. Once I had the technology to study it, I found it was a mistake that was deliberately left in and altered to fit perfectly. Two guitars were strumming through a bar, (No, this isn't a Bar joke.) One guitar held the E chord all the way through the bar, while the other guitar strummed E to A to E to A. Lennon, whose idea it probably was, decided to leave in the second guitar part underneath the First, but dialed it down in the mix, and gradually faded the A chord each time. It had the effect of a very subtle but insistent statement or comment in the background. I had never consciously noticed it before, but once I worked it out, I heard it more clearly every time. It was the very subtle element that made that one climactic bar of the Beatles song seem a little more intense. A live band would have to play it that way to achieve the Beatle's intensity, but they all miss the trick. I always figured I would use it if I had a band, but things never shook down that way.
It is an example of a subtle but controlled move into chaos or disharmony that resolves nicely each time to order as the A fades - and all withing the groove of the song. A simple one bar trick, in which the guitars almost duel, but the second guitar nicely backs off.
It's a bar that's always treated as E all the way through in the written music, but it's also A playing shyly with E, and so it went over the top with that mysterious Beatles excitement.
It slipped a little bit into disharmony and backed off into harmony again. The way the A was initially strummed assertively each time, and deliberately faded indicated it was deliberate. It was for that effect of tension and resolution.
And that was just one climactic bar of the song.
I was kicked out of the place I was in, so I had to stop there.
I meant to say there was a lot of "play" going on in that bar. it was like a disagreement about which chords to play in that bar, which was resolved by doing both versions as a sort of different level communication. The first guitarist was forcefully and assertively playing his E chord all the way through the bar, while the second guitarist was in effect saying: "I still think it should be an A on the second and fourth beat, but I won't make the statement so strongly, and I'll let it fade each time. It's a subtle communication and a play of different views crammed into a bar that almost no one notices, except as a feeling of tension being resolved.
Lennon's hidden genius for making mistakes work and play.
colorado springs is not near any place that is remote! go up outside Gunnison (take 4WD and 2 sets of tire chains plenty of fuel and blankets food water flares...) then listen to tunes as you drive 4wd trails. It will sound way different.