The thing that keeps all musicians going is that we secretly believe that there is an even further point along the line where you get so good that you go beyond these mortal players, beyond space and time, to another dimension and beat literally everyone else who even stares at you with your skill and everyone will like your music and most amazing of all... you actually make some money.
i remember playing a broken version of the crazy train riff for my in-laws and everyone loved it, year after that i played a bunch of solos and shredding and literally everyone ignored me and started playing ed sheeran really loud on a blue tooth speaker
that hits too close to home. i've been learning prog riffs for the last few years and last time i sat in my parents living room and played for a few minutes my dad asked "can you still play, like, beautiful songs?"
What I've noticed as a long-time hobbyist guitar player is that people are impressed when you play something they know and like. I guess it's just human nature to respond positively to familiar things. And I'm like that too; I'm most impressed by other guitarists who can play things that I know and have found to be difficult.
Which is why I don't play for people. I don't really care to learn popular songs. I mean, I can do Rolling in the Deep, I know the chords to that, but that's just because I like it.
@@Billiamwoods lol yeah. If was to be a guitarist, i'd just force people to listen to the shit i like to play honestly lol if they like it so be it, if they dont like it, i dont give a damn.
@@user-og6hl6lv7p Thats not how i read this at all, they're simply admitting to the same cognitive bias they see in others. I will say i for one do not have this bias lol. If i hear someone playing a metallica song or a slayer song or something i instantly suspect they have no talent for composition, improvisation, etc. Neither bias is really dope, and i doubt many people fall in the middle zone of no-bias.
The thing is, you gotta play for yourself. I want to be good because I want to be good, not to impress anyone. Hell, I haven't even played infront or my parents or any friends in years.
100% - it's the only way to play. I downright quit playing in front of my non-musician friends because they always wanted it to be some kind of competition between me and anyone else they could find or think of, it was cringe as fuck. The idea that by being "good" I could discourage someone else from playing was devastating to me. Plus, other people's definition of "good" for themselves might be totally different or even change over time. When I first started, as a teen I just wanted to shred. By 22 I was bored with shredding. Now I just turned 40 and all I play is classical, bluegrass and banjo, I barely touch my electrics anymore and if I do it's usually clean. "Good" for me was just being proficient in as many styles as possible, even if I'm not the best in the world at any one of them.
@@podunkest everyone has their bar for what they consider good and thats all up to the individual, competition among friends can be fun, if i didnt have friends around me that were awesome at their instrument it may have not pushed me to learn, it gave me a a view of what a normal person can achieve with a little elbow grease, if a guitarist is talking shit on others ya thats one thing and i dont support that mentality at all, but being worried about making someone feel discouraged by skill is silly imo, that self doubt is antithetical to creation and a problem that person needs to work out, letting that stop you from achieving whatever skill or interest you have isnt healthy music can be a personal hobby all for ones own intrinsic interest and can be also someting to share with others to perform any of the functions that art can, ideally its both, making a living doing something like really requires both and i dont see that as a problem or a weakness
I've been playing for 40 years and teaching for 30, and literally nothing impresses me any more. I mean, there are some superb players out there who are way better than me on a technical level, and I love watching them do stuff I can't do, but it doesn't "impress" me. Because after a while, you realize anyone can do anything as long as they practice it for long enough. And that's really all there is to it. Nobody is born knowing how to play, and nobody is born with skills that other players can't attain. If you practice anything for long enough, no matter what it is, you'll eventually do that. And I know that's true, because there used to be all this material I thought I'd never be able to play, but eventually I learned it all, and now I regularly practice things without thinking about whether I "can" play it or not - I know that I *will* play it, once I get the practice in. So, there's nothing to be "impressed" by, because it's all just a matter of practice. So now I tell my students: stop being impressed and worshiping players you admire, and instead realize you can play just like them, you just have to put in the time. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Yeah dude. 95% of people can become phenomenal players with enough practice... It's far more rare to be able to actually write good music. Ideas impress me, not virtuosity.
@@Big_Tough_Guy - exactly! You get it. I'm way more impressed by great songwriting, which is not something you can just get good at by merely practicing. I mean, you need to practice that too, but becoming a good songwriter also takes good taste and instincts, which can be developed, but is more "artistic" than just practicing technique.
Something that can’t be attained by practice is individualism on the guitar. Aka having your own identifiable sound or style regardless of genre or song.
The last person to really impress me on guitar was Chris Buck. He does this thing with further bending a bend, and then sliding whilst in a bend already that has so much feel it's unbelievable. But it's not the technique that's impressive, it's the expressiveness.
@@GuitarSaxBassoon Eh while I get what you are saying let's be honest...the only reason both are "valid" is because most people didn't know b-a-r-r-e spelled "bar"
Yeah, and just generally not worrying one way or the other about impressing anyone at all for that matter once you're over the age of like 16. Just do what you enjoy and what makes you and/or your audience feel good. I *hated* (with a fucking passion) how my friends who never played an instrument would try to always make it a competition like they were playing vicariously through me or comparing me to other people who were far newer than I was as if it was a positive thing to make someone else who was just starting out feel discouraged or bad about not being as far along as I was.
I've noticed there's a huge problem with amazing guitar players on youtube/instagram being terrible at songwriting. You'll find an amazing guitar player's video, think "wow how does this guy only have 2k followers?" then you go to his bandcamp and listen to his music and it's the most generic trash you've ever heard.
You’d be surprised. So many comments I’ve seen talk about how somebody isn’t as good a musician because they can’t shred, even if they write the most brilliant songs
@@oggabobwhen you say song writing you aren't just talking about lyrics right? You are talking about chord progression, musical ideas, and lyrics right?
The amount of guitarists I've played with that can do flashy things but can't maintain a basic chord progression when we jam/practice is hilarious. *EDIT:* This comment really blew up lol. Funny to see how many relate and those that are butthurt by it, you may want to consider if you are that band member 😉
Being able to listen and be supportive/compliment what’s being played is so much more useful and practical of a musical skill than lightning fast sweeps and crazy tapping licks. One makes me smile and one makes me roll my eyes
Those type of players don't know the difference between just showing off by yourself and actually playing together in a band or with another muscian where you try to find that pocket to fit in the song to compliment and harmonize with the other player/players.
well most (fingerstyle/classical) guitarists just play their songs and maybe a little bit of improvising. maintaining a chord progression is weirdly a lot harder because you do so little that you automatically stop paying attention and then mess up, so it's really more an attention problem than a skill issue
I played as a lounge pianist for years. I played all kinds of music; classical, jazz, classic-rock, and some very technical pieces. But if I busted out some Legend of Zelda songs it would blow people's minds. They absolutely loved it.
Same. I played piano at a Valentine's dinner back in middleschool (this was my first "gig" lol), and everyone kept asking me to _this_ song or _that_ song. I was even asked if I could play "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana (I couldn't lol).
You just proved my point in my other comment. Emotion trumps all. This video is all hung up on technical skill which is the least important of the 'trifecta': technical skill, emotion, and songwriting.
Fr, I stopped playing guitar for a few years because I wasn't consistent enough until I heard The Last Of Us Main Theme and that made me wanna pick up my guitar again. Till now, The Last Of Us and part 2 for it remind me that I will never start from scratch, I will be starting from experience.
@@charlespancamo9771 To be fair. part of the skill of an entertainer is playing something that resonates with people. it is an unfortunate but normal truth that if you are going to entertain people, your own enjoyment becomes secondary
I think you can both play very skillful guitar and also produce good songs. They’re not mutually exclusive. But there is certainly a tendency for ppl with high technicality to make music that’s harder to listen to. One thing to consider though is that some genres and styles of music require you to develop the “palette” to listen to and appreciate them. Doesn’t make them worse or bad. It just takes time to understand your own ability to enjoy it. I think it’s annoying when the hyper technical guitar wizards shit on simple things because it isn’t “hard to play”, but it’s also annoying when people that haven’t put as much time into their instrument shit on the hyper technical as just being “noise” and produced “only to flex”. Bottom line being: you can be hyper-technical, produce enjoyable music, do BOTH, or neither.
@@darthvader3465 I definitely agree with “capturing a coherent idea”/motif to make the more technical stuff shine as its own music. But I think you’re underselling a lot of social media guitarists. And it’s not really fair to question their “guitarist” authenticity even if they’re making stuff you don’t consider music. They’re still technically proficient and love their craft. No need to gatekeep what defines somebody as a musician or guitarist. And even if these social media guitarists in question haven’t achieved that, doesn’t mean they can’t in the future.
I think people that can be extremely technical but can also bop with the masses are players like Lukather or Satriani. Vai can do it with some songs but most of his stuff crosses the "too good for average listeners" zone more. It's just a matter of taste by the player. Vai likes his output to be technically harder and Satch favours his more approachable-but-highly-technical style. Lukather is just a man who can write pop songs but can shred the guitar at will.
@@rodrigoodonsalcedocisneros9266 And Jeff Beck, Eric Johnson, etc... but the 'greatest' guitarists of all time are mostly those who don't have to show such immense technical skill, they just write great music that has a vast influence on their genre. Clapton, Hendrix, Page, Richards, Iommi, Blackmore, Fripp, Harrison etc, pretty much the founders of all heavy rock/metal music. One could argue only Jeff Beck and Van Halen have that overlap between being immensely influential on blues rock/hard rock/metal and incredibly technical at the same time.
@@darthvader3465 Beck has a more jazzy approach to electric guitar, tone-dependent style similar to Mayer or Gilmour. Eric Johnson is a blues shredder, more akin to guys like Bonamassa, SRV, Gallagher, or even Satch and Govan at times. Johnson is more self-contained, but he us a highly technical player nonetheless. Fripp is not a shredder, but dude does technically difficult things too all the time. He is a master at innovating effects and rhythms for electric guitar. I would put him closer to Govan than to Beck.
you got it man. If you're just copying some random guitar solo from a song, like... okay. I know it's hard but it's not really music. Musicians tell stories with sound, make you feel emotions. Nobody really cares about random guitar solos and riffs or hearing stairway to heaven solo for the 9000th time, it doesn't make them feel anything. Which is why this video mentioned if you sing, people care way more. Because you're expressing! Classical guitar is also much more expressive even at its most simple levels
100% solid analysis. Competitive guitar is EXHAUSTING. The solo from More Than Words by Extreme is really easy, and when you can play that, most people think you're an absolute god. And all the people who are better than you will probably enjoy it too, because it's awesome.
Nuno Bettencourt is a really interesting player in that way: He's had some pop hits and some songs where he absolutely shreds with monsterous technicality. If you can play the solo from More Than Words you'd impress most people, but if you can play the solo from Play With Me you'd impress most serious guitarists.
I don’t get why licks and fast riffs are not as impressive to the simple stuff. They probably realize they can’t do it so they sell themselves short. My assumption is people compare to others that look like they have ‘skill’ and ‘technique’ and think they could possibly never get there. But if something is inspiring, why the heck not be inspired?
It's funny that you'd say this because the guy playing guitar on that song is Nuno Bettencourt, and he more or less matches the exact description of the kind of guitarist that you seem to be criticizing. The thing is those really good guitarists that can shred are often just really good all around musicians and you're probably judging them based off of a RUclips video, or some highlight reel of their most "shreddy" moments. You might find that some of those "competitive guitarists" have some good songs that you might like if you gave them a chance.
They're self-improvement nerds who have trouble spotting the point of diminishing returns (or who just don't care about the diminishing returns because they like the journey)
Your mom will always be impressed. Except when you have two siblings, who are a trained singer and a classical pianist respectively. Then no matter how good you get at finger-style you'll always be the family member who also makes music.
It could be freeing in a way, they have to constantly keep up this image of being amazing musicians as part of their self worth, whereas you're free just to jam without any pressure.
@@Chickaqeewhy are so many like you? Averse to personal pressure? That's what makes a better person, pressure and dealing with it healthy and not harmful. Stop avoiding situations, dive in. If you so, you'll convert your mind to "I can handle, and do partake in everything. " what you're doing is implying that self loathing excuse is just as good in a different direction, but, it isn't.
Since you play finger-style, learn some Bach pieces on a classical guitar. I'm sure they'll respect you. Play the Fugue in G minor BWV 1001 or the Fugue in A minor BWV 1003 or the Ciaconna in D minor BWV 1004, to name a few. Everyone will respect you.
Last night I went to see Guthrie Govan with my wife. There was the Aristocrats concert in Istanbul. The situation was exactly like in this video, usually the guitarists had brought their wives with them and all the women looked extremely bored. Honestly, even I could only last 1 hour. After a certain point, it goes from music to hand gymnastics. Once you get above a certain level, it becomes music for musicians, like bebop.
@@mitch5944 Yeah, dude has absolute bangers like "Lost in Rio" or "Wonderful Slippery Thing". I know the tiktokers won't pay attention to that music but the music lovers can certainly appreciate the beauty of it, it has difficult playing but also music taste.
I think that artists like Ichika Nito are the ones that are just at the peak of the Skill/Sounds good graph. His (especially older) music is extremely pleasant to listen to and still is very hard to play. (New) Polyphia on the other hand has crossed that maximum already and is way more focused on skill. I still listen to polyphia, but for a different reason to ichika. One is because the music pleases the soul, the other is because it goes damn hard and I know I won't be able to play their songs without years and years of practice
Sadly Ichika is now starting to get to the more "flexing" style. I really enjoy his older EPs such as "she waits patiently" and "journey". He does not do those style anymore now
@@winston_Ph When he made his older EPs like forn, nobody knew him. He became popular in like 2019 when he started doing more flexing. And that's what (sadly) more people like, so he traded off that ethereal "full beautiful story without words" style for more fame through "cassual" flexing
Honestly their newest album had the least amount of “flex” of any of them imo. There’s playing god and there’s ego death, there’s some solos, there’s the bass one, but then most of the guitar is backing vocals on the rest of them. The “shred” is stuff like ripping down the neck behind Sophia Black in ABC while she sings. To me that stuff is pretty cool is an interesting take on the typical 2 guitar harmonies playing the same scale but a couple half steps off each other
This is absolutely brilliant. And the sad truth is that most musicians will ever be able to impress themselves, hoping the pursuit of technical perfection will one day bring them the fulfillment they're looking for. If you play guitar, take a moment and think of what specific song or riff inspired you to pick up the instrument in the first place. Can you play it now? If you can, you should be impressed. Now it's time to ignore everyone else and have some fun.
I've been playing guitar for 25 years now, but when I first started learning guitar on my own and I started jamming with other musicians, I always had this anxiety. I asked my dad, who was also a guitar player, "What if I am playing live and I mess up?" He said, "They won't know unless they are also guitarists, and even in that case they still might not know you messed up." That kind of put my mind at ease and that made me feel more relaxed when I played, which helped me to become a better guitarist!
But your bandmates will know and throw drum sticks at you and the bass player will hit you in the back of your head with his headstock. Just kidding but there are videos of things like that happening.
Fact, once my whole band lost it playing a song and we just repeated one part until the singer got a cue to go to the next verse. apparently noone noticed. But I knew. Ill always know.
This is disturbingly accurate. The better you get at the instrument, the more tempting the trap of playing too fast or too complicated, and from a performing perspective there isn't much advantage in that because most people don't even hear it.
One of my most burned in memories is being about 18 and visiting a party house. There was this girl there I liked and she was fawning over some dude trying to play the main riff to Crazy Train. I waited and actually got offered to jam.(I didn't say "hey, let me show you how it's done" like a dbag) I proceeded to play the entire song, perfectly I might add. Even played the solo at speed and nailed it. No one one gave a crap. I just put the guitar down and walked past them dry humping and making out. That's when I learned I'm not just ugly but super hero ugly. Ha
@@jasonvoorhees5640 And you sound jealous. Lol Don't take your crppy life anger out on me, a stranger on the internet. It was a life lesson and we both were trying to impress the same girl.
It’s cool to impress people with technical music skills, but there’s nothing like impressing people with an original sound that they’ve never heard before
If you don't play for your own enjoyment, Why did you start playing? To impress others? I play causes it calms my soul and brings me joy, whatever anyone else thinks is their own issue. If you want them to watch you play, they will or they won't, But more people will watch when they can see you are being real.....and enjoying what you are doing.....JS
@@GUITARSTUFF911 I heard beautiful songs that I wanted to know how to play. I taught myself and after 10 years I've come a long way. I'm by no means a master,but I don't play to please others. I only play music that I enjoy and if others like it too then all the better!
You don't have to shred to be amazing at guitar. John Mayer's Neon sounds like a simple acoustic song but it is actually one of the most difficult ones to play.
Depends on what level of accuracy your going for tbh man If you want it 100% the same it’s really hard but if u just want to sound sorta like the record it’s not that hard
@@Tr1syeah i didnt use the exact techniique when learning it but it sounds pretty similiar. Neon isnt that bad but like classical songs are crazy when you dont specialize on fingerpickinh
I love this so much! I've only just discovered your channel, and I appreciate your insights and the fun way you present them. I've been teaching myself acoustic guitar for a few months, and I find this video encouraging, not because my goal is to impress people, but because it makes me feel like competency and satisfaction are closer than I thought. Thanks!
The tricky thing is the thing that's difficult to play doesn't always sound better, but sounding better is a very hard thing to chase after. If you make music that sounds better, you will impress more people.
I think it’s true to a degree. People think the really “hard” stuff is like a freebird solo. If you can play it people who don’t play guitar are gonna be impressed. It’s more complicated things that are impressive to actual guitar players
I am a beginner guitarist (2 months in so I don't even know if I even deserve that title yet). Anyway. I was really impressed with super technical players about a month ago but I realized I can't watch them play for any longer than forty seconds or so. Now I'm more impressed with guitarist that know what a l-ii-IV-V is and how to play different voicings of that and what filler chords bring about what feeling to go back to your l. Those guys make beautiful music!!!
Been playing for longer than I care to admit and yes, I can't listen to super technical players for more than 40 seconds as well. I tune out. It's boring.
And there they go saying: "This has no soul." "Yeah, he plays good, but there is just no substance"... yeah, thats the "normal people won't undestand" point in the graphic.
I genuinely think that beyond a certain point, the technique gets in the way of writing great tunes, melodies and music. In my opinion, good musical ideas are received by us somehow. They're floating about in the musical ether, and our brains catch them if we quieten ourselves and pay attention. We can construct music with our conscious brains, but it's never any good. And super technical musicians get so caught up in the dizzying array of techniques they have at their disposal, they find it harder to listen out for musical ideas as they pass by.
I agree with everything you said, but I think the belief that too much technique hurts your songwriting actually limits guitars players. I don't believe that this means that you should just practice sweep arpeggios all day, but if you can understand it and at least play it slow, you can treat it as a constant source of inspiration (more like connecting neural pathways) and then use your artistic vision to chose the elements within the technique to focus on.
@@jkl.guitar I think I can see what you're getting at, and I agree. There's nothing wrong with technique in and of itself - but it's a tool. The danger lies in coming to mistake these tools as music in their own right. I think this is a very easy trap to fall into, given the thousands of hours one needs to spend on such technical exercises to become a shredding master.
For my own enjoyment, I don't treat drumming or guitar like sports that I practice to beat other people. I use it like a tool or a vehicle to do fun things, and I enjoy the process of learning.
I actually agree with you more than what you show. Because I think it's exactly like the curve of a guitar where it goes up again. When you get to the point of being able to do highly technical stuff and at the same time making it sound good to the average normie, thats when you will start to impress everyone, especially with some additional skills you can display. Forexample like TheDooo, who "learns" a song off the cuff and shreds over it, both giving people some familiarity they can attach to, while people who are good at guitar are still impressed with how well and clean he can play.
Yeah this was a very common formula during a lot of eras, where it would be really thought provoking Melodie’s or whatever, and then go into an impressive solo layered over the melody. Too many examples to name but yeah take anything like war pigs or anything from white stripes etc
It's true. People are always asking you to play something for them when you are a guitarist. But then what you play is never what they want. They don't want an instrumental, they want you to sing AND play. They don't want something slow but they don't want something too fast like speed metal. They don't want something long, but they do want a full song. They don't want something heavy but they don't want something too light. They want something with a beat even though you can't play drums along with your guitar. I've had people online ask me to play them something then X out before I was even half way through. I had my neighbor ask me to play her guitar but said she didn't want to come into my apartment and wanted me to set up in the yard for her...where there was nowhere for me to plug in. I think that peoples ability to scroll through content online on demand has fucked up their ability to be entertained. They don't know anything about music (or any art) and yet nothing is good enough for them.
First you see just the forest ... then, you explore the forest, and you learn about each of the trees, then you, *ahem* ... 'branch out', and reach the top of the trees. When you reach the top of the highest tree, suddenly you once again only see the forest as a whole, but with a new appreciation. I actually think this is the process by which we live our lives, not just in the context of music.
I play because i f.... Love it, it makes me happy, i don't play or care about impressing anyone. Just love it. Its my therapy i guess and you are always learning.
This is actually true. Random guy spends one year nails the most difficult 15 second guitar solo ever played... 37 views and one new subscriber. Random chick wearing her latest haul strums G and D on an expensive guitar her parents bought her gets ..... 340,000 likes and 10,000 subscribers and the most lascivious comments from guys who all think she's the marrying kind, if only they were single.
@@math001 lol I am 10 years old and unfortunately can't buy it myself, but I might get a guitar for Christmas, the one I want is $120 , but that's for the guitar, Amp, and everything else.I wish I could make sure I'll definitley get it , but thank you
I get what this video is trying to say... but for me it's about creating music and enjoying music created by others. It isn't a competition for me. I love seeing others try to improve themselves and I love seeing musicians make art. imho, everything in the world doesn't have to be a competition.
I used to think of the progression of guitar mastery as linear, like your skill increasing over time. But I realized that it’s not about constantly learning new techniques or tricks or licks, it’s about mastering each individual note you play, and making the most out of it. A single note can be either worthless or extremely valuable depending on what a person can make out of it. You might lose people at extremely advanced technique, but even an untrained ear can hear high quality.
Writing good songs is more important than skill if your goal is to gain the most attention of others. Your songwriting ability is far more important in this regard. Being able to play songs people instantly recognize will always be impressive to the masses. If your goal is to impress other nerdy musicians and guitarists then skill would be more important to you where nobody outside this niche community cares about what you're doing nor recognize your talents. The Tim Henson/Tosin Abasi camp where nobody outside the nerdy guitarists knows who these people are whereas everybody's mom knows who Slash is and Eddie Van Halen is and guys of that nature. Why? Because they were not only skilled but also wrote great songs, something many modern day technically skilled guitarists lack and lack greatly. If you want to be the best guitarist you can be, the best advice is to be diverse and open-minded. Listen to all different styles of music and learn to play all different styles of music. Don't just be a metal guy, don't just be a shredder, don't just be a power chord guy, don't just be a Wonderwall guy. That's the downfall I see with many players, they focus on one thing and one style and that one thing they do well but they struggle with others. I've seen firsthand great metal players struggle learning a Sublime song because they've never bothered learning the techniques required to play something with a ska/reggae rhythm. Throws them right off their game immediately when it's not in their limited wheelhouse.
There's also a point in which your technical skill is overtaking the goal of expressing yourself and your music while impressive stops having as much emotional resonance.
I just wanna be able to play well enough to improv with people and have a good time. I may already be good enough, but finding people to jam with is the hardest part now.
I enjoy Polyphia but it is def from a guitarist perspective. There are not many Polyphia songs I enjoy from begining to end, but they do cook up some nice riffs in all their songs.
I've always felt like polyphia would sound epic as a video game soundtrack, but I wouldn't listen to it while working etc. Kind of like with the doom soundtrack
I found Polyphia to be profoundly lacking. They follow the brostep formula and hardly change it up. Basically anyone can shred when you're vamping a 4/4 beat ad nauseam. Just really awful stuff in my opinion.
The all-too-technical stuff like Ichiro and Polyphia can be brutally exhausting. My favorite riff from Polyphia is pretty laid back, Scott’s solo on Neurotica
They really shine with guests. All the collab songs on the new album are incredible and would be boring without polyphia's catchy and complex riffs. ABC would be half the song it is if the guitar was replaced by typical pop song chords or boring electronic beats. I think you can enjoy it for both if they're written well enough. Some of the instrumental only tracks really drag on
When I was 19 I had a roommate who taught himself guitar and it was amazing how quickly he progressed to the campfire chords stage. He was a talented and trained singer and within a few weeks he was able to play and sing fluently, and was writing his own songs. I found it really intimidating, like he was blessed with so much musical talent and I could never do that. That was true, he was a great singer and writer, but I saw him perform about 20 years later and he really hadn't progressed that much on the guitar. It's still impressive to me how quickly he learned to change chords quickly but I understand better that having a working knowledge of music theory and a good voice makes a huge difference on the early part of that curve.
@@thatdude3977 Yeah, but I had a lot of friends who were in bands, and had sung in a shitty one myself, but all the guitarists I knew had been playing for years. It was wild to see it happen in a few weeks.
That graph is so simple but so impressive...you are so right as to how music is interpreted and how putting a lot of effort into something should be done to impress you and nobody else. Most people are easily impressed and there will always be a better guitar player out there. Its called know your audience....look at how many artists put a great debut album then for some reason change their style so as not to be repetitious of the very style people love and want from them. It is also amazing how so many people ask you to play a song, especially a rock song, and do not realize it will sound so different without a band...or worse want you pick out a tune when those mostly single notes will sound pretty bland without some backup music! Sometimes you can reach a comfortable peak and just change for the sake of change instead of perfecting what you know and what works! Hope I understood what you were saying and please correct me if I am wrong! Good work as usual!
Restraint and thoughtful expressions are the most impressive to me. Often guitar solos are pretty boring to me. So many guitarists focus on that. It takes ingenuity and skill to know when to pull back and pause and come in. It takes skill to simplify. -coming from a music producer, singer, songwriter, pianist
Honestly I just never forget that any rock is pop rock. Even Black Sabbath resembles pop rock (in terms of riffs, groove, basic band set-up, catchiness) as opposed to “smart” bands that are proggy
As a song writer this is a big part of my philosophy, not to try to impress people with my technical skill, because literally no one gives a crap about that except other musicians. What people want: 1. A tight recognizable groove or pulse 2. Some narrative or emotional context to set the mood 3. Some interesting tonal textures and volume dynamics. No one cares that you can do scales fast or play the guitar like a bongo or do that slappy, harmonic-on-every-other-note thing. The tones you produce with that stuff often just aren't pleasing to the ear for nonmusicians (and me too as a musician, I think that kind of style is grating and immature for its lack of emotion). I feel the really technical style of play to be lacking in emotional context or any sublime sense of beauty. Do non-musicians know how to explain what constitutes emotional context and a sublime sense of beauty? no. but they feel it when it's happening and they like it and they are way more bored with music when it's not happening.
I know this video was made in good fun, but this is a very real thing. I'm guilty of trying to play more and more impressive things, trying to learn songs that incorporate those flashy techniques, and writing music that was difficult to play and sounded good enough. But I've realized how lackluster my basic skills are after practicing with my church's worship team. It showed the importance of staying in time, and adding things like sus chords, secondary dominants, and slash chords. Trying to do a lot with a little. I think the important thing is to remember that if you're going to learn all these crazy techniques, remember that it's in service to the music.
In short, write music. I’m a metal musician(bassist) and so many guitar players in my genre are don’t try to make catchy riffs. It’s all about the craziest sweeping arpeggios, tapping, 8 string guitars and crazy time signatures. (All why I’m buried in the mix 🙄). As a musician I’m impressed by this since I know just how difficult it is to do this, but most people don’t really care too much. A lot of musicians (in the genre I’m in at least) seem to only make music for other musicians. The guitar players I’ve worked with can shred amazingly, but they can’t write memorable hooks, the can sweep super cleanly but can’t follow a chord progression. I think a good test for this is if you can hear a song once or twice and sing it. Not the lyrics, but if you can literally vocalize the instruments. For example, smells like teen spirit, everyone can vocally sing the guitar riff. But this doesn’t mean that it can’t be complex and difficult. I’m not a huge fan of them but Polyphia makes super complex and difficult music but it’s still super catchy and singable. Another good example is Marty Friedman’s solo in Tornado of Souls. It’s ridiculously hard, has difficult sweeping and is singable. That’s what I feel people are missing nowadays. Just my opinion tho.
@@jasonvoorhees5640that’s not what I said. There are plenty of metal bands that write amazing riffs that get stuck in your head. What I’m saying is that a lot of metal bands nowadays don’t as much and focus on flashier elements as well as forgetting that bass is one of the most important aspects of heaviness.
When I first discovered John 5 however many years ago some of my friends had no idea why I liked it and I couldn't really understand how you could dislike something like that. Took a bit to realize that things you're interested in done at a high level isn't always interesting to everyone, it sounds good to you because you know what's happening but to everyone else it's musical gibberish. It's like having a friend that's really into slot car racing, if they showed you footage of the best slot car racer of all time winning a race you'd probably think it was lame. We're all just nerds geeking out over our hobbies 😅
Simiple guitar playing can be good or bad. Complex guitar playing can also be good or bad. There's no direct connection between quality and complexity. If you are with friends sitting around a camp fire and someone starts doing simple chord strumming of some Beatles songs that could be amazing. Then if the guitar is passed to the next guy who happens to be Tommy Emmanuel, one of the greatest acoustic guitar players alive, that would likely be wonderful as well. It's true that the more complex music becomes it could turn off people who are not familiar with it's complexity, they may fail to appreciate what's going on in the music. This doesn't make that music bad, it just means it's geared to a more narrow audience. This is fine, music is art - it shouldn't always appeal to the largest audience. A great example of this is the jazz classic called Giant Steps by John Coltran. This is a very fast and complex song that cycles through key changes, I think 3 of them, during the song. For people new to this style of jazz it could just seem like a confusing mess. But to those more familiar with jazz/bebop this is a wonderful song. This complexity doesn't make it bad, it just makes it have a more narrow appeal.
Yup. I've always thought when it comes to highly technical guitar playing, for non-musicians it gets boring after a minute and totally doesn't do justice to the years you spend practicing, and for other guitar players they're either going to think you suck because they are better than you - or they think you suck because they're not. But at the end of the day, no one really cares. That's the ugly truth. Just play from the heart and you can't go wrong.
It's the song that matters. The song is meaning, virtue. We seek meaning and find it in story, in song. When someone "sheds," there's often a feeling of seeing a lot of virtue-signaling with no real virtue. It's like using a convoluted paragraph to convey "I love you." The abundance of words doesn't make it better; it ruins it, and instead of coming off as "I love you," it comes off as "I love me."
Its a interesting arguement because anyone who plays guitar can tell you quite often the most non flashy or non impressive things to look at visually is often the hardest thing to get right. Great example is fingerstyle it doesn't always sound impressive or anything flashy but its much harder than it looks or sounds. Especially when you get into the world of country plyers like Chet Atkins, Merle Travis. Then there is the whole world of blues with slide and playing slide is really difficult and delta blues which is its own thing and can also be really difficult to play there is a song by doc watson called "deep river blues" for example, its a pretty standard delta blues songs at face value but its genuinely a really challenging song even if it doesnt look like it.
This is 100% true. You see it a lot in “classical”. I like to point at Liszt. The pinnacle of difficulty in music. He an amazing composer/musician. He’s known to have said something like he wants to make his music hard so no one else can play it. But when you hear it a lot of it…. It just sounds bad. Not all of it. Some of his pieces are beautiful. But some of it sounds like a child making sounds. But it’s done in a way that super impressive to other musicians especially violinist. I think things get messy when someone makes music for other musicians.
there are listz pieces that can convey much more than a more simple piece due to their complexity. Liebestraum no.3 is my favorite piano piece of all time, and it simply cant be expressed fully without the sweeping arpeggios and technicalities. difficulty in music when done well can most definitely sound good, and even sound better in a way than simple music. i do not think that some liszt pieces sound "bad" because of difficulty, but more so due to the fact that not every piece a musician makes will be outstanding.
@@aaartemif it's so technical that it takes a musician to appreciate it, you're cutting yourself off from a large potential audience...EVH did amazing fretwork...within the context of solid rock songs...Chopin was a brilliant composer...who wrote largely dance pieces and military marches, the pop music of his day
I think you got Liszt and Paganini confused. Paganini is the violinist and Liszt is the pianist. They're both famous for being virtuosos, Liszt is probably a better composer though. It's true that some of these really flashy pieces are not that great musically. But on the other hand it can also be really fun for an audience to see something that's very technically difficult played live. Both Liszt and Paganini were very successful performers in their time (hence "Lisztomania"). I'm not really sure that modern audiences are different but I guess it depends.
Disagree, I will agree with Polyphia but not when you are talking about a Legend that Liszt is. Listen to his only Sonata, one of the greatest piece ever made, or just listen to Don Juan, he's technical but he gets the melody when it's needed the most. Yes, he was no Chopin, who was on the different league but Cmon, he was Liszt.
Functionally, you can replace every sweepy shred section of a song with Kerry King-style whammy bar wankery and it'll be pretty much the same - just some cool sound effects in between the melodic passages people actually commit to memory.
Last level is basically Pat Metheny. He just plays some insane shit that is absolutely unplayable by any other mortal and everyone just turn around and say to each other: "well that´s cute" and start talking about something else.
the key is to play for yourself. if youre only motivated by other peoples reactions and feedback youre more likely that not going to go down a musical path that isnt as fulfilling as if you had chosen purely by what you enjoy playing. if you lose the positive feedback from those around you then you lose your reason for playing or bettering your skills, and if you're not motivated by the music itself, then you're gonna fall off. if you want to be part of the 10% of people that actually keeps playing and dont fall off after a year. then you need to play for the sake of yourself and the music, not validation from other people.
Opinion on what sounds good is completely subjective, I love polyphia, and not everyone will like the same thing, it doesn’t make it worse. I don’t mean to sound prestigious or snooty, but Polyphia has really good music and sometimes can be an acquired taste. Polyphia has other really good songs with simpler melodies, but their insane songs like playing god and goat get popular because they are hard to play. A good song that has a simpler melody by them is All Falls Apart or Euphoria.
Totally agree. I swear people LOVE to hate on Polyphia now just because they play fast/are so popular now. I got into Polyphia in like 2017 and it was so funny seeing all the positivity they received until they blew up, and now everyone just NEEDS to feel "cool" by being "above" fast playing. Or the classic "they have no feel" or "it just sounds like elevator music" which is just yawn- I swear none (or "very few" to not use hyperbole) people would say the same about (many kinds of) Jazz despite it being too fast/complex for them to get into, but that's just because they know it's not popular/is just too complex for them. Like obviously no one needs to like Polyphia, but this new "they suck" circlejerk that is so prevalent now among guitarists is just so boring.
@@DatHombre man, people really need to get over the fact that not everyone will like the same things, there is NO need for justification you like what you like and so what?...always the need to be defensive. YAWN I notice esp. young people do that a lot, it's aggravating Polyphia sounds like a nice impressive DAW demo that's it, good if you like it, now move on
@@DatHombre Music has always been a very gate-keepy fandom and people love to hate what's popular for the sake of hating. I kinda get it in a way, but it is annoying when you are on the receiving end.
Another thing is, once you get to a certain level, people assume you're a pro. And when you reveal you make no money at it, they assume (perhaps rightly) that there's something defective about you therefore your playing is to not to be praised.
The thing that keeps all musicians going is that we secretly believe that there is an even further point along the line where you get so good that you go beyond these mortal players, beyond space and time, to another dimension and beat literally everyone else who even stares at you with your skill and everyone will like your music and most amazing of all... you actually make some money.
that should be a sequel to the tenacious d movie
@@veljkobogdanovic4771omg tenacious E
wait, you make money with music? 🤨
Keyword: “some”
😂😂😂
i remember playing a broken version of the crazy train riff for my in-laws and everyone loved it, year after that i played a bunch of solos and shredding and literally everyone ignored me and started playing ed sheeran really loud on a blue tooth speaker
that hits too close to home.
i've been learning prog riffs for the last few years and last time
i sat in my parents living room and played for a few minutes my dad asked
"can you still play, like, beautiful songs?"
@@zoro789Emotional Damage 😅
That’s my whole family when I start playing megadeth in the living room hen everyone is trying to watch tv😂
@@LandonFolk-wd2ig If only they knew how hard it was... actually they probably wouldn't care either way. 😭
@@LandonFolk-wd2igNeeded to learn A Tout Le Monde lol
What I've noticed as a long-time hobbyist guitar player is that people are impressed when you play something they know and like. I guess it's just human nature to respond positively to familiar things. And I'm like that too; I'm most impressed by other guitarists who can play things that I know and have found to be difficult.
yeah its more important in this situation to read the room and guess what kind of music they would enjoy.
Which is why I don't play for people. I don't really care to learn popular songs. I mean, I can do Rolling in the Deep, I know the chords to that, but that's just because I like it.
@@Billiamwoods lol yeah. If was to be a guitarist, i'd just force people to listen to the shit i like to play honestly lol if they like it so be it, if they dont like it, i dont give a damn.
You say that like it's a good thing. No wonder our culture has stagnated for the past decade...
@@user-og6hl6lv7p Thats not how i read this at all, they're simply admitting to the same cognitive bias they see in others. I will say i for one do not have this bias lol. If i hear someone playing a metallica song or a slayer song or something i instantly suspect they have no talent for composition, improvisation, etc. Neither bias is really dope, and i doubt many people fall in the middle zone of no-bias.
The thing is, you gotta play for yourself. I want to be good because I want to be good, not to impress anyone. Hell, I haven't even played infront or my parents or any friends in years.
You stole the words right out of my mouth,friend 🫂 .
Glad someone thinks this way.
I’ll never be a performer. I don’t have “dancing confidence”, but I love to play and sing by myself. I know I’m decent, but it’s for me.
100% - it's the only way to play. I downright quit playing in front of my non-musician friends because they always wanted it to be some kind of competition between me and anyone else they could find or think of, it was cringe as fuck. The idea that by being "good" I could discourage someone else from playing was devastating to me. Plus, other people's definition of "good" for themselves might be totally different or even change over time. When I first started, as a teen I just wanted to shred. By 22 I was bored with shredding. Now I just turned 40 and all I play is classical, bluegrass and banjo, I barely touch my electrics anymore and if I do it's usually clean. "Good" for me was just being proficient in as many styles as possible, even if I'm not the best in the world at any one of them.
@@podunkest everyone has their bar for what they consider good and thats all up to the individual, competition among friends can be fun, if i didnt have friends around me that were awesome at their instrument it may have not pushed me to learn, it gave me a a view of what a normal person can achieve with a little elbow grease, if a guitarist is talking shit on others ya thats one thing and i dont support that mentality at all, but being worried about making someone feel discouraged by skill is silly imo, that self doubt is antithetical to creation and a problem that person needs to work out, letting that stop you from achieving whatever skill or interest you have isnt healthy
music can be a personal hobby all for ones own intrinsic interest and can be also someting to share with others to perform any of the functions that art can, ideally its both, making a living doing something like really requires both and i dont see that as a problem or a weakness
I came here to say this and @handsom3ben beat me to it. Well said!
"that's only if you can sing" straight through the gut 💀
Facts basic open/bar chords and singing impress 99% of people
Here I am singing to recover my ego after spending an hour failing miserably to make any progress on my guitar. The grass is always greener
I've been playing for 40 years and teaching for 30, and literally nothing impresses me any more. I mean, there are some superb players out there who are way better than me on a technical level, and I love watching them do stuff I can't do, but it doesn't "impress" me. Because after a while, you realize anyone can do anything as long as they practice it for long enough. And that's really all there is to it. Nobody is born knowing how to play, and nobody is born with skills that other players can't attain. If you practice anything for long enough, no matter what it is, you'll eventually do that. And I know that's true, because there used to be all this material I thought I'd never be able to play, but eventually I learned it all, and now I regularly practice things without thinking about whether I "can" play it or not - I know that I *will* play it, once I get the practice in. So, there's nothing to be "impressed" by, because it's all just a matter of practice. So now I tell my students: stop being impressed and worshiping players you admire, and instead realize you can play just like them, you just have to put in the time. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Yeah dude. 95% of people can become phenomenal players with enough practice... It's far more rare to be able to actually write good music.
Ideas impress me, not virtuosity.
@@Big_Tough_Guy - exactly! You get it. I'm way more impressed by great songwriting, which is not something you can just get good at by merely practicing. I mean, you need to practice that too, but becoming a good songwriter also takes good taste and instincts, which can be developed, but is more "artistic" than just practicing technique.
Something that can’t be attained by practice is individualism on the guitar. Aka having your own identifiable sound or style regardless of genre or song.
The last person to really impress me on guitar was Chris Buck. He does this thing with further bending a bend, and then sliding whilst in a bend already that has so much feel it's unbelievable. But it's not the technique that's impressive, it's the expressiveness.
thanks for doing my TED talk for me 🎉
Bro is just mad that he still struggling with bar chords
You're struggling to call them barre chords too...
@@user-yh2gt4km3eEither variation is valid. You're just being pedantic.
Bar chords is every dominant 7 in my book@@GuitarSaxBassoon
@@GuitarSaxBassoon in my country it's called padarntick
@@GuitarSaxBassoon Eh while I get what you are saying let's be honest...the only reason both are "valid" is because most people didn't know b-a-r-r-e spelled "bar"
You basically just described having good songwriting chops as being the most important thing which i think everyone can agree with
Yeah, and just generally not worrying one way or the other about impressing anyone at all for that matter once you're over the age of like 16. Just do what you enjoy and what makes you and/or your audience feel good. I *hated* (with a fucking passion) how my friends who never played an instrument would try to always make it a competition like they were playing vicariously through me or comparing me to other people who were far newer than I was as if it was a positive thing to make someone else who was just starting out feel discouraged or bad about not being as far along as I was.
To be the most popular at an instrument, sing while near it.
I've noticed there's a huge problem with amazing guitar players on youtube/instagram being terrible at songwriting. You'll find an amazing guitar player's video, think "wow how does this guy only have 2k followers?" then you go to his bandcamp and listen to his music and it's the most generic trash you've ever heard.
You’d be surprised. So many comments I’ve seen talk about how somebody isn’t as good a musician because they can’t shred, even if they write the most brilliant songs
@@oggabobwhen you say song writing you aren't just talking about lyrics right? You are talking about chord progression, musical ideas, and lyrics right?
The amount of guitarists I've played with that can do flashy things but can't maintain a basic chord progression when we jam/practice is hilarious.
*EDIT:* This comment really blew up lol. Funny to see how many relate and those that are butthurt by it, you may want to consider if you are that band member 😉
my feelings have been hurt
Being able to listen and be supportive/compliment what’s being played is so much more useful and practical of a musical skill than lightning fast sweeps and crazy tapping licks. One makes me smile and one makes me roll my eyes
Those type of players don't know the difference between just showing off by yourself and actually playing together in a band or with another muscian where you try to find that pocket to fit in the song to compliment and harmonize with the other player/players.
We all have that friend that starts shredding when all the other band members are talking...
well most (fingerstyle/classical) guitarists just play their songs and maybe a little bit of improvising. maintaining a chord progression is weirdly a lot harder because you do so little that you automatically stop paying attention and then mess up, so it's really more an attention problem than a skill issue
If you enjoy playing guitar without anyone watching your are automatically above this chart
I played as a lounge pianist for years. I played all kinds of music; classical, jazz, classic-rock, and some very technical pieces.
But if I busted out some Legend of Zelda songs it would blow people's minds. They absolutely loved it.
Same. I played piano at a Valentine's dinner back in middleschool (this was my first "gig" lol), and everyone kept asking me to _this_ song or _that_ song. I was even asked if I could play "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana (I couldn't lol).
You just proved my point in my other comment. Emotion trumps all. This video is all hung up on technical skill which is the least important of the 'trifecta': technical skill, emotion, and songwriting.
100% @@charlespancamo9771
Fr, I stopped playing guitar for a few years because I wasn't consistent enough until I heard The Last Of Us Main Theme and that made me wanna pick up my guitar again. Till now, The Last Of Us and part 2 for it remind me that I will never start from scratch, I will be starting from experience.
@@charlespancamo9771 To be fair. part of the skill of an entertainer is playing something that resonates with people. it is an unfortunate but normal truth that if you are going to entertain people, your own enjoyment becomes secondary
I think you can both play very skillful guitar and also produce good songs. They’re not mutually exclusive. But there is certainly a tendency for ppl with high technicality to make music that’s harder to listen to.
One thing to consider though is that some genres and styles of music require you to develop the “palette” to listen to and appreciate them. Doesn’t make them worse or bad. It just takes time to understand your own ability to enjoy it.
I think it’s annoying when the hyper technical guitar wizards shit on simple things because it isn’t “hard to play”, but it’s also annoying when people that haven’t put as much time into their instrument shit on the hyper technical as just being “noise” and produced “only to flex”.
Bottom line being: you can be hyper-technical, produce enjoyable music, do BOTH, or neither.
It just has to be coherent and focus on capturing an idea, which is a lot more than some social media 'guitarists' can achieve
@@darthvader3465 I definitely agree with “capturing a coherent idea”/motif to make the more technical stuff shine as its own music. But I think you’re underselling a lot of social media guitarists. And it’s not really fair to question their “guitarist” authenticity even if they’re making stuff you don’t consider music. They’re still technically proficient and love their craft. No need to gatekeep what defines somebody as a musician or guitarist.
And even if these social media guitarists in question haven’t achieved that, doesn’t mean they can’t in the future.
I think people that can be extremely technical but can also bop with the masses are players like Lukather or Satriani. Vai can do it with some songs but most of his stuff crosses the "too good for average listeners" zone more. It's just a matter of taste by the player. Vai likes his output to be technically harder and Satch favours his more approachable-but-highly-technical style. Lukather is just a man who can write pop songs but can shred the guitar at will.
@@rodrigoodonsalcedocisneros9266 And Jeff Beck, Eric Johnson, etc... but the 'greatest' guitarists of all time are mostly those who don't have to show such immense technical skill, they just write great music that has a vast influence on their genre. Clapton, Hendrix, Page, Richards, Iommi, Blackmore, Fripp, Harrison etc, pretty much the founders of all heavy rock/metal music. One could argue only Jeff Beck and Van Halen have that overlap between being immensely influential on blues rock/hard rock/metal and incredibly technical at the same time.
@@darthvader3465 Beck has a more jazzy approach to electric guitar, tone-dependent style similar to Mayer or Gilmour.
Eric Johnson is a blues shredder, more akin to guys like Bonamassa, SRV, Gallagher, or even Satch and Govan at times. Johnson is more self-contained, but he us a highly technical player nonetheless.
Fripp is not a shredder, but dude does technically difficult things too all the time. He is a master at innovating effects and rhythms for electric guitar. I would put him closer to Govan than to Beck.
you're not really supposed to play music to impress, but rather to express
beautiful
you got it man. If you're just copying some random guitar solo from a song, like... okay. I know it's hard but it's not really music. Musicians tell stories with sound, make you feel emotions. Nobody really cares about random guitar solos and riffs or hearing stairway to heaven solo for the 9000th time, it doesn't make them feel anything. Which is why this video mentioned if you sing, people care way more. Because you're expressing! Classical guitar is also much more expressive even at its most simple levels
I have songs for expressing and songs for impressing. Some people like to showboat, and that's cool too!
100% solid analysis. Competitive guitar is EXHAUSTING. The solo from More Than Words by Extreme is really easy, and when you can play that, most people think you're an absolute god. And all the people who are better than you will probably enjoy it too, because it's awesome.
Yeah but the other songs on that album are easier 😉
@@christiangasior4244
Post a video of you covering Decadence Dance on guitar then x)
Nuno Bettencourt is a really interesting player in that way: He's had some pop hits and some songs where he absolutely shreds with monsterous technicality. If you can play the solo from More Than Words you'd impress most people, but if you can play the solo from Play With Me you'd impress most serious guitarists.
I don’t get why licks and fast riffs are not as impressive to the simple stuff. They probably realize they can’t do it so they sell themselves short. My assumption is people compare to others that look like they have ‘skill’ and ‘technique’ and think they could possibly never get there. But if something is inspiring, why the heck not be inspired?
It's funny that you'd say this because the guy playing guitar on that song is Nuno Bettencourt, and he more or less matches the exact description of the kind of guitarist that you seem to be criticizing. The thing is those really good guitarists that can shred are often just really good all around musicians and you're probably judging them based off of a RUclips video, or some highlight reel of their most "shreddy" moments. You might find that some of those "competitive guitarists" have some good songs that you might like if you gave them a chance.
When music starts feeling like an athletic event I start to tune out
The intersecting venn diagram between expert guitar players and gym bros always fascinates me.
They're self-improvement nerds who have trouble spotting the point of diminishing returns (or who just don't care about the diminishing returns because they like the journey)
Oh God, I've been going to the gym for a year and I just picked up guitar, and I've been locked in on both of them. Is this my fate?
breaking news: people that like repetitive improvement also like repetitive improvement
@@ale3for913 There are worse fates than being fit and a crowd pleaser
Your mom will always be impressed. Except when you have two siblings, who are a trained singer and a classical pianist respectively. Then no matter how good you get at finger-style you'll always be the family member who also makes music.
It could be freeing in a way, they have to constantly keep up this image of being amazing musicians as part of their self worth, whereas you're free just to jam without any pressure.
@@Chickaqeewhy are so many like you? Averse to personal pressure? That's what makes a better person, pressure and dealing with it healthy and not harmful. Stop avoiding situations, dive in. If you so, you'll convert your mind to "I can handle, and do partake in everything. " what you're doing is implying that self loathing excuse is just as good in a different direction, but, it isn't.
Since you play finger-style, learn some Bach pieces on a classical guitar. I'm sure they'll respect you. Play the Fugue in G minor BWV 1001 or the Fugue in A minor BWV 1003 or the Ciaconna in D minor BWV 1004, to name a few. Everyone will respect you.
With respect, you didn't need the word "respectively" here.
sounds like your mom justs hates you emelie
Last night I went to see Guthrie Govan with my wife. There was the Aristocrats concert in Istanbul. The situation was exactly like in this video, usually the guitarists had brought their wives with them and all the women looked extremely bored. Honestly, even I could only last 1 hour. After a certain point, it goes from music to hand gymnastics. Once you get above a certain level, it becomes music for musicians, like bebop.
Maybe so, but Guthrie does have an incredible tone. If he wanted to play less, he would mesmerize most average listeners imo.
Guthrie is a decent songwriter too tho atleast lmao his musics pretty imo
@@mitch5944 Yeah, dude has absolute bangers like "Lost in Rio" or "Wonderful Slippery Thing". I know the tiktokers won't pay attention to that music but the music lovers can certainly appreciate the beauty of it, it has difficult playing but also music taste.
his songs are boring.
Guthrie is an explorer. If he started playing things that people will like, he's going to bore himself.
I think that artists like Ichika Nito are the ones that are just at the peak of the Skill/Sounds good graph. His (especially older) music is extremely pleasant to listen to and still is very hard to play. (New) Polyphia on the other hand has crossed that maximum already and is way more focused on skill. I still listen to polyphia, but for a different reason to ichika. One is because the music pleases the soul, the other is because it goes damn hard and I know I won't be able to play their songs without years and years of practice
Sadly Ichika is now starting to get to the more "flexing" style. I really enjoy his older EPs such as "she waits patiently" and "journey". He does not do those style anymore now
@@winston_Ph When he made his older EPs like forn, nobody knew him. He became popular in like 2019 when he started doing more flexing. And that's what (sadly) more people like, so he traded off that ethereal "full beautiful story without words" style for more fame through "cassual" flexing
Honestly their newest album had the least amount of “flex” of any of them imo. There’s playing god and there’s ego death, there’s some solos, there’s the bass one, but then most of the guitar is backing vocals on the rest of them. The “shred” is stuff like ripping down the neck behind Sophia Black in ABC while she sings. To me that stuff is pretty cool is an interesting take on the typical 2 guitar harmonies playing the same scale but a couple half steps off each other
@@swarthygiant1463 Yeah I think so too. For me Polyphia has more emphasis on the melody and harmony compared to Ichika Nito songs.
The polyphia Steve vai song is peak listenability though you could get anyone to enjoy that even if they’ve never heard instrumental ‘guitar music’
This is absolutely brilliant. And the sad truth is that most musicians will ever be able to impress themselves, hoping the pursuit of technical perfection will one day bring them the fulfillment they're looking for. If you play guitar, take a moment and think of what specific song or riff inspired you to pick up the instrument in the first place. Can you play it now? If you can, you should be impressed. Now it's time to ignore everyone else and have some fun.
Best advice ever!
There is no inverse correlation between technique and "feeling." You're just too lazy to pay attention to better music.
"That's a fact....Jack" !!
I still can't pay "through the fire and flames" ...
Those guys who play it, are really good, let them play it.........Do your thing !! and have fun!! @@theharvardyard2356
I've been playing guitar for 25 years now, but when I first started learning guitar on my own and I started jamming with other musicians, I always had this anxiety. I asked my dad, who was also a guitar player, "What if I am playing live and I mess up?" He said, "They won't know unless they are also guitarists, and even in that case they still might not know you messed up." That kind of put my mind at ease and that made me feel more relaxed when I played, which helped me to become a better guitarist!
But your bandmates will know and throw drum sticks at you and the bass player will hit you in the back of your head with his headstock. Just kidding but there are videos of things like that happening.
Fact, once my whole band lost it playing a song and we just repeated one part until the singer got a cue to go to the next verse. apparently noone noticed. But I knew. Ill always know.
nobody plays perfect like on the album on stage, but nobody will know so its ok, ja
This is disturbingly accurate. The better you get at the instrument, the more tempting the trap of playing too fast or too complicated, and from a performing perspective there isn't much advantage in that because most people don't even hear it.
I love the implication that the better you are at guitar the longer your curly hair and facial hair grows.
One of my most burned in memories is being about 18 and visiting a party house. There was this girl there I liked and she was fawning over some dude trying to play the main riff to Crazy Train. I waited and actually got offered to jam.(I didn't say "hey, let me show you how it's done" like a dbag) I proceeded to play the entire song, perfectly I might add. Even played the solo at speed and nailed it. No one one gave a crap. I just put the guitar down and walked past them dry humping and making out. That's when I learned I'm not just ugly but super hero ugly. Ha
guitar
@@bryansmith7758When your right your right.
@@TheCrain
trying to one up the guy made you seem kind of pathetic and cringe tbh
@@jasonvoorhees5640 And you sound jealous. Lol Don't take your crppy life anger out on me, a stranger on the internet. It was a life lesson and we both were trying to impress the same girl.
@@jasonvoorhees5640 Also, I did 1 up the dude. That's the whole point. Lol stupid ppl man...
It’s cool to impress people with technical music skills, but there’s nothing like impressing people with an original sound that they’ve never heard before
Still not as cool as playing for your own enjoyment and not giving a fuck what people think
I never heard tubescream fart before.
Basically play for YOURSELF because you can't please everybody. But you can always be better than you were yesterday
If you don't play for your own enjoyment, Why did you start playing? To impress others? I play causes it calms my soul and brings me joy, whatever anyone else thinks is their own issue. If you want them to watch you play, they will or they won't, But more people will watch when they can see you are being real.....and enjoying what you are doing.....JS
@@GUITARSTUFF911 I heard beautiful songs that I wanted to know how to play. I taught myself and after 10 years I've come a long way. I'm by no means a master,but I don't play to please others. I only play music that I enjoy and if others like it too then all the better!
Amen, you have to love what you do to do it well!@@AntiquatedApe
You don't have to shred to be amazing at guitar. John Mayer's Neon sounds like a simple acoustic song but it is actually one of the most difficult ones to play.
Depends on what level of accuracy your going for tbh man
If you want it 100% the same it’s really hard but if u just want to sound sorta like the record it’s not that hard
@@Tr1syeah i didnt use the exact techniique when learning it but it sounds pretty similiar. Neon isnt that bad but like classical songs are crazy when you dont specialize on fingerpickinh
@@Tr1s He slaps his thumb as a base note, some people still pluck or slap pluck, but he just slaps. I think I got pretty close, I posted a short.
@@realryanvarnell Great job man!! Keep it up :))
@@ContentFall757Gaming Thank you! Getting there!
I love this so much! I've only just discovered your channel, and I appreciate your insights and the fun way you present them.
I've been teaching myself acoustic guitar for a few months, and I find this video encouraging, not because my goal is to impress people, but because it makes me feel like competency and satisfaction are closer than I thought. Thanks!
The tricky thing is the thing that's difficult to play doesn't always sound better, but sounding better is a very hard thing to chase after. If you make music that sounds better, you will impress more people.
In fact, it rarely sounds better.
Indeed you should aspire to a sound first and foremost not creating something challenging. That is a surefire way to make bad or mediocre music.
Better than what? Music is art, not a competition.
what if my friends are noise musicians and electroacoustic composers?
@@le4chehenry324 Even better
I think it’s true to a degree. People think the really “hard” stuff is like a freebird solo. If you can play it people who don’t play guitar are gonna be impressed. It’s more complicated things that are impressive to actual guitar players
Hey bro I'm impressed with the freebird solo it's bad ass
@@vinandbea3724haha yeah I was about to say. That solo is just hype idk 🤷♂️
Let's not bring Freebird into this 😂
freebird solo is hard, but mostly because it's SO LONG. I can play every part of it, but can I remember all of it? no way
That is why Santana and Clapton make it on to so many "greatest guitar" polls.
I am a beginner guitarist (2 months in so I don't even know if I even deserve that title yet). Anyway. I was really impressed with super technical players about a month ago but I realized I can't watch them play for any longer than forty seconds or so.
Now I'm more impressed with guitarist that know what a l-ii-IV-V is and how to play different voicings of that and what filler chords bring about what feeling to go back to your l. Those guys make beautiful music!!!
Lol l instead of i
Both are difficult, complex and impressive so i don’t get your point. It’s not like the second one is easy, it might as well be harder on some levels
Haha. Thanks. appreciated.@@shroomlord682
Been playing for longer than I care to admit and yes, I can't listen to super technical players for more than 40 seconds as well. I tune out. It's boring.
Super tech stuff AND pop stuff are both awesome. For different reasons and momenta, but both kick ass if you listen close enough
And there they go saying: "This has no soul." "Yeah, he plays good, but there is just no substance"... yeah, thats the "normal people won't undestand" point in the graphic.
I genuinely think that beyond a certain point, the technique gets in the way of writing great tunes, melodies and music. In my opinion, good musical ideas are received by us somehow. They're floating about in the musical ether, and our brains catch them if we quieten ourselves and pay attention. We can construct music with our conscious brains, but it's never any good. And super technical musicians get so caught up in the dizzying array of techniques they have at their disposal, they find it harder to listen out for musical ideas as they pass by.
I agree with everything you said, but I think the belief that too much technique hurts your songwriting actually limits guitars players. I don't believe that this means that you should just practice sweep arpeggios all day, but if you can understand it and at least play it slow, you can treat it as a constant source of inspiration (more like connecting neural pathways) and then use your artistic vision to chose the elements within the technique to focus on.
@@jkl.guitar I think I can see what you're getting at, and I agree. There's nothing wrong with technique in and of itself - but it's a tool. The danger lies in coming to mistake these tools as music in their own right. I think this is a very easy trap to fall into, given the thousands of hours one needs to spend on such technical exercises to become a shredding master.
@@taylorius well said
Polyphia bangs tho
For my own enjoyment, I don't treat drumming or guitar like sports that I practice to beat other people. I use it like a tool or a vehicle to do fun things, and I enjoy the process of learning.
More guitar thingies bro I love the way you put things together 😂❤
I actually agree with you more than what you show. Because I think it's exactly like the curve of a guitar where it goes up again. When you get to the point of being able to do highly technical stuff and at the same time making it sound good to the average normie, thats when you will start to impress everyone, especially with some additional skills you can display. Forexample like TheDooo, who "learns" a song off the cuff and shreds over it, both giving people some familiarity they can attach to, while people who are good at guitar are still impressed with how well and clean he can play.
Yeah this was a very common formula during a lot of eras, where it would be really thought provoking Melodie’s or whatever, and then go into an impressive solo layered over the melody. Too many examples to name but yeah take anything like war pigs or anything from white stripes etc
It's true. People are always asking you to play something for them when you are a guitarist. But then what you play is never what they want. They don't want an instrumental, they want you to sing AND play. They don't want something slow but they don't want something too fast like speed metal. They don't want something long, but they do want a full song. They don't want something heavy but they don't want something too light. They want something with a beat even though you can't play drums along with your guitar. I've had people online ask me to play them something then X out before I was even half way through. I had my neighbor ask me to play her guitar but said she didn't want to come into my apartment and wanted me to set up in the yard for her...where there was nowhere for me to plug in. I think that peoples ability to scroll through content online on demand has fucked up their ability to be entertained. They don't know anything about music (or any art) and yet nothing is good enough for them.
for a guy with masculine in his name you sure sound like a crying cowardly woman. lmao
Wonderwall... take it or leave it
First you see just the forest ... then, you explore the forest, and you learn about each of the trees, then you, *ahem* ... 'branch out', and reach the top of the trees. When you reach the top of the highest tree, suddenly you once again only see the forest as a whole, but with a new appreciation. I actually think this is the process by which we live our lives, not just in the context of music.
I play because i f.... Love it, it makes me happy, i don't play or care about impressing anyone. Just love it. Its my therapy i guess and you are always learning.
Ok but u really said Tim Henson sucks?
ah polyphia, music for guitarists
Yep it's only exclusive to guitar people 😔
The most important thing is to make the audience feel something. You don’t need to shred to do that, but it’s more difficult than it seems.
This is actually true. Random guy spends one year nails the most difficult 15 second guitar solo ever played... 37 views and one new subscriber. Random chick wearing her latest haul strums G and D on an expensive guitar her parents bought her gets ..... 340,000 likes and 10,000 subscribers and the most lascivious comments from guys who all think she's the marrying kind, if only they were single.
I might get a guitar and ypu really helped me understand the basics, and stuff like that. Thank you
Wdym might? Definitely go and get one 🎸
@@math001 lol I am 10 years old and unfortunately can't buy it myself, but I might get a guitar for Christmas, the one I want is $120 , but that's for the guitar, Amp, and everything else.I wish I could make sure I'll definitley get it , but thank you
''You are no better than anyone else, and no one is better than you'' Katherine Johnson
Pretty sure I'm better than a two year old.
I had to come back and watch this again. Such a great explanation and it's true across nearly all skills.
Hey man, your one of my guitar inspirations. I'm one year in!
Imagine having a R E T A R D for a guitar inspiration
I get what this video is trying to say... but for me it's about creating music and enjoying music created by others. It isn't a competition for me. I love seeing others try to improve themselves and I love seeing musicians make art. imho, everything in the world doesn't have to be a competition.
I think a lot of shred haters just assume it’s all about ego and impressing people when really it’s just about having fun.
@@blueorpheus5693y’all aren’t contradicting anything he said lol
"and also, you're doing it wrong" kills me
Dude you just described my whole guitar journey in a 1 minutes 44 seconds video.
Screw the average person. Shred because you were born to.
well said.
The only way to impress, is to play guitar while being over 6 feet and looking like gigachad.
Shower thoughts in a video:
The reason I started playing was because people said someone with Tourettes can’t play guitar. Now I’m pretty allright on guitar ^^
I used to think of the progression of guitar mastery as linear, like your skill increasing over time. But I realized that it’s not about constantly learning new techniques or tricks or licks, it’s about mastering each individual note you play, and making the most out of it. A single note can be either worthless or extremely valuable depending on what a person can make out of it. You might lose people at extremely advanced technique, but even an untrained ear can hear high quality.
This was very accurate to my experience right up to the part where you said your mom would support you
Writing good songs is more important than skill if your goal is to gain the most attention of others. Your songwriting ability is far more important in this regard. Being able to play songs people instantly recognize will always be impressive to the masses.
If your goal is to impress other nerdy musicians and guitarists then skill would be more important to you where nobody outside this niche community cares about what you're doing nor recognize your talents. The Tim Henson/Tosin Abasi camp where nobody outside the nerdy guitarists knows who these people are whereas everybody's mom knows who Slash is and Eddie Van Halen is and guys of that nature. Why? Because they were not only skilled but also wrote great songs, something many modern day technically skilled guitarists lack and lack greatly.
If you want to be the best guitarist you can be, the best advice is to be diverse and open-minded. Listen to all different styles of music and learn to play all different styles of music. Don't just be a metal guy, don't just be a shredder, don't just be a power chord guy, don't just be a Wonderwall guy. That's the downfall I see with many players, they focus on one thing and one style and that one thing they do well but they struggle with others. I've seen firsthand great metal players struggle learning a Sublime song because they've never bothered learning the techniques required to play something with a ska/reggae rhythm. Throws them right off their game immediately when it's not in their limited wheelhouse.
i get impressed when ever one comes up with something new cause the most difficult thing in any art is inventing
The thumbnail had Tim Henson on it. TIMMAAAAAAY !
"Depending on how much money you spent" lmaooo
There's also a point in which your technical skill is overtaking the goal of expressing yourself and your music while impressive stops having as much emotional resonance.
I love this. I’ve always preferred melodic soloing like Jeff Beck did over the fast shredders. Playing fast never impressed me. 😅
same here
I just wanna be able to play well enough to improv with people and have a good time. I may already be good enough, but finding people to jam with is the hardest part now.
I love that the guitarist thats "slightly better than you" just has more dark curly hair.
This is the most accurate chart i've ever seen about anything
it ain’t accurate. You’re just too biased and D U M B
I enjoy Polyphia but it is def from a guitarist perspective. There are not many Polyphia songs I enjoy from begining to end, but they do cook up some nice riffs in all their songs.
I've always felt like polyphia would sound epic as a video game soundtrack, but I wouldn't listen to it while working etc. Kind of like with the doom soundtrack
I found Polyphia to be profoundly lacking. They follow the brostep formula and hardly change it up. Basically anyone can shred when you're vamping a 4/4 beat ad nauseam. Just really awful stuff in my opinion.
The all-too-technical stuff like Ichiro and Polyphia can be brutally exhausting. My favorite riff from Polyphia is pretty laid back, Scott’s solo on Neurotica
They really shine with guests. All the collab songs on the new album are incredible and would be boring without polyphia's catchy and complex riffs. ABC would be half the song it is if the guitar was replaced by typical pop song chords or boring electronic beats. I think you can enjoy it for both if they're written well enough. Some of the instrumental only tracks really drag on
When I was 19 I had a roommate who taught himself guitar and it was amazing how quickly he progressed to the campfire chords stage. He was a talented and trained singer and within a few weeks he was able to play and sing fluently, and was writing his own songs. I found it really intimidating, like he was blessed with so much musical talent and I could never do that. That was true, he was a great singer and writer, but I saw him perform about 20 years later and he really hadn't progressed that much on the guitar. It's still impressive to me how quickly he learned to change chords quickly but I understand better that having a working knowledge of music theory and a good voice makes a huge difference on the early part of that curve.
You described every band from the last 100+ years 😂 but you must be built different it sounds like 😮
@@thatdude3977 Yeah, but I had a lot of friends who were in bands, and had sung in a shitty one myself, but all the guitarists I knew had been playing for years. It was wild to see it happen in a few weeks.
That graph is so simple but so impressive...you are so right as to how music is interpreted and how putting a lot of effort into something should be done to impress you and nobody else. Most people are easily impressed and there will always be a better guitar player out there. Its called know your audience....look at how many artists put a great debut album then for some reason change their style so as not to be repetitious of the very style people love and want from them. It is also amazing how so many people ask you to play a song, especially a rock song, and do not realize it will sound so different without a band...or worse want you pick out a tune when those mostly single notes will sound pretty bland without some backup music!
Sometimes you can reach a comfortable peak and just change for the sake of change instead of perfecting what you know and what works! Hope I understood what you were saying and please correct me if I am wrong! Good work as usual!
Restraint and thoughtful expressions are the most impressive to me. Often guitar solos are pretty boring to me. So many guitarists focus on that. It takes ingenuity and skill to know when to pull back and pause and come in. It takes skill to simplify. -coming from a music producer, singer, songwriter, pianist
Honestly I just never forget that any rock is pop rock. Even Black Sabbath resembles pop rock (in terms of riffs, groove, basic band set-up, catchiness) as opposed to “smart” bands that are proggy
When you get click baited but you're pleasantly suprised by what you didn't expect.
Excellent insight! Very true.
As a song writer this is a big part of my philosophy, not to try to impress people with my technical skill, because literally no one gives a crap about that except other musicians. What people want: 1. A tight recognizable groove or pulse 2. Some narrative or emotional context to set the mood 3. Some interesting tonal textures and volume dynamics. No one cares that you can do scales fast or play the guitar like a bongo or do that slappy, harmonic-on-every-other-note thing. The tones you produce with that stuff often just aren't pleasing to the ear for nonmusicians (and me too as a musician, I think that kind of style is grating and immature for its lack of emotion). I feel the really technical style of play to be lacking in emotional context or any sublime sense of beauty. Do non-musicians know how to explain what constitutes emotional context and a sublime sense of beauty? no. but they feel it when it's happening and they like it and they are way more bored with music when it's not happening.
I know this video was made in good fun, but this is a very real thing. I'm guilty of trying to play more and more impressive things, trying to learn songs that incorporate those flashy techniques, and writing music that was difficult to play and sounded good enough.
But I've realized how lackluster my basic skills are after practicing with my church's worship team. It showed the importance of staying in time, and adding things like sus chords, secondary dominants, and slash chords. Trying to do a lot with a little.
I think the important thing is to remember that if you're going to learn all these crazy techniques, remember that it's in service to the music.
church's worship team?
@@jasonvoorhees5640 group of church goers who play worship music. Some hymns, some contemporary stuff.
@@ryanhass8716
ok got ya.
What you meant was “GOOD GUITAR isn’t *always* IMPRESSIVE”
"Depending on how much money you've spent" Dear god that bit home 🥴
In short, write music. I’m a metal musician(bassist) and so many guitar players in my genre are don’t try to make catchy riffs. It’s all about the craziest sweeping arpeggios, tapping, 8 string guitars and crazy time signatures. (All why I’m buried in the mix 🙄). As a musician I’m impressed by this since I know just how difficult it is to do this, but most people don’t really care too much. A lot of musicians (in the genre I’m in at least) seem to only make music for other musicians. The guitar players I’ve worked with can shred amazingly, but they can’t write memorable hooks, the can sweep super cleanly but can’t follow a chord progression. I think a good test for this is if you can hear a song once or twice and sing it. Not the lyrics, but if you can literally vocalize the instruments. For example, smells like teen spirit, everyone can vocally sing the guitar riff. But this doesn’t mean that it can’t be complex and difficult. I’m not a huge fan of them but Polyphia makes super complex and difficult music but it’s still super catchy and singable. Another good example is Marty Friedman’s solo in Tornado of Souls. It’s ridiculously hard, has difficult sweeping and is singable. That’s what I feel people are missing nowadays. Just my opinion tho.
Music for musicians is generally awful
@@lalolanda3996 it's gay. like literally, "hey cut it out that's not what that's for" vibes
"metal guitar players don't make catchy riffs"
-🤡
@@jasonvoorhees5640that’s not what I said. There are plenty of metal bands that write amazing riffs that get stuck in your head. What I’m saying is that a lot of metal bands nowadays don’t as much and focus on flashier elements as well as forgetting that bass is one of the most important aspects of heaviness.
When I first discovered John 5 however many years ago some of my friends had no idea why I liked it and I couldn't really understand how you could dislike something like that. Took a bit to realize that things you're interested in done at a high level isn't always interesting to everyone, it sounds good to you because you know what's happening but to everyone else it's musical gibberish. It's like having a friend that's really into slot car racing, if they showed you footage of the best slot car racer of all time winning a race you'd probably think it was lame. We're all just nerds geeking out over our hobbies 😅
Simiple guitar playing can be good or bad.
Complex guitar playing can also be good or bad.
There's no direct connection between quality and complexity.
If you are with friends sitting around a camp fire and someone starts doing simple chord strumming of some Beatles songs that could be amazing. Then if the guitar is passed to the next guy who happens to be Tommy Emmanuel, one of the greatest acoustic guitar players alive, that would likely be wonderful as well.
It's true that the more complex music becomes it could turn off people who are not familiar with it's complexity, they may fail to appreciate what's going on in the music. This doesn't make that music bad, it just means it's geared to a more narrow audience. This is fine, music is art - it shouldn't always appeal to the largest audience.
A great example of this is the jazz classic called Giant Steps by John Coltran. This is a very fast and complex song that cycles through key changes, I think 3 of them, during the song. For people new to this style of jazz it could just seem like a confusing mess. But to those more familiar with jazz/bebop this is a wonderful song. This complexity doesn't make it bad, it just makes it have a more narrow appeal.
i like that the "better" metal player has just more hair than the normal one
Yup. I've always thought when it comes to highly technical guitar playing, for non-musicians it gets boring after a minute and totally doesn't do justice to the years you spend practicing, and for other guitar players they're either going to think you suck because they are better than you - or they think you suck because they're not. But at the end of the day, no one really cares. That's the ugly truth. Just play from the heart and you can't go wrong.
It's the song that matters. The song is meaning, virtue. We seek meaning and find it in story, in song.
When someone "sheds," there's often a feeling of seeing a lot of virtue-signaling with no real virtue. It's like using a convoluted paragraph to convey "I love you." The abundance of words doesn't make it better; it ruins it, and instead of coming off as "I love you," it comes off as "I love me."
100
tell me you're an incel without telling me you're an incel
as a drummer this is cripplingly accurate
Emotion is more important than technical
Its a interesting arguement because anyone who plays guitar can tell you quite often the most non flashy or non impressive things to look at visually is often the hardest thing to get right. Great example is fingerstyle it doesn't always sound impressive or anything flashy but its much harder than it looks or sounds. Especially when you get into the world of country plyers like Chet Atkins, Merle Travis. Then there is the whole world of blues with slide and playing slide is really difficult and delta blues which is its own thing and can also be really difficult to play there is a song by doc watson called "deep river blues" for example, its a pretty standard delta blues songs at face value but its genuinely a really challenging song even if it doesnt look like it.
This is 100% true. You see it a lot in “classical”. I like to point at Liszt. The pinnacle of difficulty in music. He an amazing composer/musician. He’s known to have said something like he wants to make his music hard so no one else can play it.
But when you hear it a lot of it…. It just sounds bad. Not all of it. Some of his pieces are beautiful. But some of it sounds like a child making sounds.
But it’s done in a way that super impressive to other musicians especially violinist.
I think things get messy when someone makes music for other musicians.
there are listz pieces that can convey much more than a more simple piece due to their complexity. Liebestraum no.3 is my favorite piano piece of all time, and it simply cant be expressed fully without the sweeping arpeggios and technicalities. difficulty in music when done well can most definitely sound good, and even sound better in a way than simple music. i do not think that some liszt pieces sound "bad" because of difficulty, but more so due to the fact that not every piece a musician makes will be outstanding.
@@aaartemif it's so technical that it takes a musician to appreciate it, you're cutting yourself off from a large potential audience...EVH did amazing fretwork...within the context of solid rock songs...Chopin was a brilliant composer...who wrote largely dance pieces and military marches, the pop music of his day
I think you got Liszt and Paganini confused. Paganini is the violinist and Liszt is the pianist. They're both famous for being virtuosos, Liszt is probably a better composer though.
It's true that some of these really flashy pieces are not that great musically. But on the other hand it can also be really fun for an audience to see something that's very technically difficult played live. Both Liszt and Paganini were very successful performers in their time (hence "Lisztomania"). I'm not really sure that modern audiences are different but I guess it depends.
@@rockstar-technology you are 100% correct. I was thinking of Paganini.
Disagree, I will agree with Polyphia but not when you are talking about a Legend that Liszt is.
Listen to his only Sonata, one of the greatest piece ever made, or just listen to Don Juan, he's technical but he gets the melody when it's needed the most.
Yes, he was no Chopin, who was on the different league but Cmon, he was Liszt.
Anytime at a show a band stops to let a guitar solo I go to the bathroom, if I'm home and I know a guitar solo is coming I fast forward.
Functionally, you can replace every sweepy shred section of a song with Kerry King-style whammy bar wankery and it'll be pretty much the same - just some cool sound effects in between the melodic passages people actually commit to memory.
Last level is basically Pat Metheny. He just plays some insane shit that is absolutely unplayable by any other mortal and everyone just turn around and say to each other: "well that´s cute" and start talking about something else.
Yeah I don't understand what he is doing or why it sounds pleasant but it's cool.
My mom disowned me for spending too much money on gear without making money with the gear
That’s just thing thing, when you feel the inner reverberations of this slab of hollow wood, it makes moms go crazy.
"well i can do that. and also... you're dong it wrong" 😂so true
Man why is this so accurate 😭😭😭
the key is to play for yourself. if youre only motivated by other peoples reactions and feedback youre more likely that not going to go down a musical path that isnt as fulfilling as if you had chosen purely by what you enjoy playing.
if you lose the positive feedback from those around you then you lose your reason for playing or bettering your skills, and if you're not motivated by the music itself, then you're gonna fall off.
if you want to be part of the 10% of people that actually keeps playing and dont fall off after a year. then you need to play for the sake of yourself and the music, not validation from other people.
4 chord song still gets me grooving, even though i can play it even if im blackout drunk.
Casually dropping a brilliant video
My drum teacher once told me: when playing drums, what sounds good is to do, what sounds terrible is the hard stuff.
Opinion on what sounds good is completely subjective, I love polyphia, and not everyone will like the same thing, it doesn’t make it worse. I don’t mean to sound prestigious or snooty, but Polyphia has really good music and sometimes can be an acquired taste. Polyphia has other really good songs with simpler melodies, but their insane songs like playing god and goat get popular because they are hard to play. A good song that has a simpler melody by them is All Falls Apart or Euphoria.
Totally agree. I swear people LOVE to hate on Polyphia now just because they play fast/are so popular now. I got into Polyphia in like 2017 and it was so funny seeing all the positivity they received until they blew up, and now everyone just NEEDS to feel "cool" by being "above" fast playing. Or the classic "they have no feel" or "it just sounds like elevator music" which is just yawn- I swear none (or "very few" to not use hyperbole) people would say the same about (many kinds of) Jazz despite it being too fast/complex for them to get into, but that's just because they know it's not popular/is just too complex for them. Like obviously no one needs to like Polyphia, but this new "they suck" circlejerk that is so prevalent now among guitarists is just so boring.
@@DatHombre man, people really need to get over the fact that not everyone will like the same things, there is NO need for justification
you like what you like and so what?...always the need to be defensive. YAWN
I notice esp. young people do that a lot, it's aggravating
Polyphia sounds like a nice impressive DAW demo that's it, good if you like it, now move on
@@alleygh0st
@@DatHombre Music has always been a very gate-keepy fandom and people love to hate what's popular for the sake of hating. I kinda get it in a way, but it is annoying when you are on the receiving end.
Another thing is, once you get to a certain level, people assume you're a pro. And when you reveal you make no money at it, they assume (perhaps rightly) that there's something defective about you therefore your playing is to not to be praised.