You HAVE To See This 90s NIRVANA Instructional!
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- Опубликовано: 26 сен 2024
- -You HAVE To See This 90s NIRVANA Instructional!
Special thanks to my friend Bob L. for pointing this in my direction. :)
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Just heard back from Curt Mitchell. He was totally cool with this video. Expect a future collab between Curt and myself most likely in the form of a podcast first. 👍
Did he comment on whether it was true that he didn't really want to do the Nirvana tape?
That’s awesome! I hope he got to see how much we enjoyed his work from back-in-the-day, even throwing in famous riffs from other bands at the end of the tape just for fun.
I ordered some Malmsteen cassettes in the early 90s. The only songs I liked when I heard them were Final Curtain and Dragonfly. I met Tora Tora`s guitar player. Name a song...any song...and he could instantly play the lead. He said one day they were playing packed stadiums and the next they had nothing. He was working in a truck stop, angry wife, crying baby, in a tiny house stacked to the rafters with boxes. Sad situation.
So psyched about this! Hope my email to Curt helped
What happened to Curt Mitchell? Years ago, he used to have lessons on his website (which I loved) but then the website went dark for a really long time. He's great! Glad to hear that he's still around and playing. I have a bunch of his dvds.
He was probably locked into a contract with one of those vhs guitar lesson production companies and had like a day to learn a few songs by ear and throw together a quick 30 minute lesson. Still seems like a cool guy
He is a cool guy
Plot twist: this guy was still bitter about grunge music taking over so he decided to teach people to play it incorrectly.
I like how you think! :)
😆😂🤣👏👏
You really can tell he doesn't give a shit, much like you can tell that a lot of professional tab books don't give a crap about getting things right. It's a product to sell. It can be useful as a tool to figuring things out better for yourself, but it can also really mess you up too if you're not careful.
😂🎉
I believe you're on to something..
Kurt was a songwriter. His music wasn't complicated but it doesn't have to be. He knew how to write songs that appeal to a wide audience. He sang with a lot of emotion and people liked that. Had a good harmony to his voice that matched what he was playing.
Some of his songs weren't even really that good. Other's treaded on previously written material (Killing Joke - Eighties). What Kurt had was relatibility. Generation X kids got where he was coming from. Broken families, the stress, and the feeling of not belonging.
He also played with emotion... and that's all you need if you can write songs. There's a billion people out there right now on RUclips, shredding like robots. But how many of them make your head automatically bob like when you hear Kurt strumming three simple chords?
It's the ability to make people FEEL that matters. If you don't have that, you have nothing.
What's funny is SOOO many players say this Kurt wasn't a good guitar player nonsense. If thats true why haven't all yall wrote better shit? Kurt's playing was aggressive and ethereal. He FELT the music in his soul. That's howvu write good music. There's a divine touch or voice tgat only happens when thise vibrations and your soul come together. That's true inspiration.
I'm into shredders but that doesn't mean I don't love bands like Nirvana or Soundgarden. They WERE the 90s. Just awesome songs by awesome musicians that still beat the shit out of anything on the radio today. You do not have to be Joe Satriani to play great guitar, and this is coming from a huge Satch fan.
Sometimes the simplest guitar playing is the best. Whatever gets your point across is the best kind of playing imo
@@zoso1980 again with the retarded statment about Killing Joke which "stole" the song from The Damned also it's your opinion about songs, which I don't agree at all
There's a quote where Kurt said he wanted to mix The Beatles with Black Sabbath, so that dude was spot on with that.
Yeah you hear more sabbath on bleach than Nevermind and in utero
Would also be a great description for King's X.
That’s what I was coming in to say.
In bloom... Totally a black sabbath riff
I agree with the Black Sabbath now that I think about it. I probably would have named The Pixies and The Melvins before that though but I can see that now.
Black Sabbath was a huge inspiration for Nirvana. I remember reading Ozzy Osbourne was a huge fan of Nirvana and then he freaked out when he heard that Kurt was inspired by him.
You can definitely hear the influence on 'Bleach' and songs like 'Sifting,' IMO.
Kurt mentioned Sabbath a million times. If this dude ever heard an interview about influences, he would know that. The guitarist did not seem bitter at all.
@@Jamestele1you do, though.
There is a interview with Kurt when asked about his sound he said the Beatles mixed with Black Sabbath
@@travislostaglia8861and black flag
For those who are mistaking this Curt Mitchell with the guy who murdered Tanya Tandoc, that's a DIFFERENT Curt Mitchell. A simple Google search proves that.
I learned a lot from Curt back in the 90's. I bought the Eddie Van Halen Guitar Method. I was just barely learning chords at the time when I decided to tackle it. It was my Bible for the first year of my playing. I still play some of the licks the way he taught them. He was much more into making that video! Give it a play if you haven't yet.
he only murdered those nirvana riffs...
Curt Mitchell's version of come as you are sound more off a killing joke - eighties rip off then Kurt Cobain's version.😂
@@F.guitar82 He murdered some Metallica riffs too
Holy cow.
I like Curt's interpretation of these songs. Almost sounds like Alice In Chains doing Nirvana covers. Everything is in the pentatonic box and the chords are all super tight and crunchy.
good analysis mate 🤘
It’s funny bc I know him and he hates Alice In Chains. Like he has nothing against the musicians but he thinks they’re boring
He kinda looks like Jerry Cantrell so that seems accurate
This dude actually teaches guitar in Carson City and I’ve been taking lessons from him. It’s always fun guy and he is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. He’s taught me a lot of cool songs and he’s really good at making sure I don’t take shortcuts with my playing. He actually let me play the guitar you see in the video and it has scalloped frets.
That's badass, dude seems cool as hell
do you know where they taped all those vhs vids , i owned a few of them the guy is a legend.
@@jeffdubuque3755 Curt has said they were actually recorded in a basement in one of his relatives house
@@jaykelley103 he is genuinely one of the nicest people I know. I’ve been taking lessons since I started high school (I’m halfway through my first semester of college). I’m bummed I’m gonna stop taking lessons soon bc of my schedule. He’s a really nice dude and I’ve learned alot from him
That's awesome to hear. I had one of his Van Halen VHS's back in the day, and was amazed by it.
He is 100% correct on his assessment of Cobain as a guitarist vs Cobain using the guitar as a tool to write incredible songs.
Kurt was a lot better than people give him credit for. This is evidenced by how people to this day struggle to get his parts right, and don't understand what he was doing.
He was a feeling’s player overall. There’s slight differences in every performance. That’s why many people have trouble trying to mimic him.
@@Patrick-857 Even Kurt didn’t know what he was doing tbf. Can’t really replicate that because of Kurts sloppy techniques, only Kurt can play like Kurt.
@@Patrick-857 my goal is to learn to play like kurt Cobain (NOT)
@@Patrick-857 probably cos he was in fact doing things wrong. It added to him sound though and worked for the music
Curt is a legend. A myth. An enigma. Check out his work with Bangalore Choir. This dude can rip and tear.
VH DVD badass got it half off years back $$12. VH!!!!!!
Kurdt*
@@skippydeenice Courtz
@@skippydeenicehe's talking about Curt Mitchell. Not Kurt Cobain. And "Kurdt" was not his legal name. It was used on occasion to sign autographs and was in some liner notes that way. But his name wasn't really spelled that way
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣💩👎
I had his Randy Rhoads tape as a teen and that open A is so burned into my brain 20+ years later I can still tune to it.
The old classic, Curt Mitchell. Guys like him are the forefathers of todays RUclips instructors. Cool nostalgia shot here.
Its fascinating how Curt breathes life into "Breed". His natural 80s rock style when demonstrating the riff makes it sound like Ratt"s "Body Talk". It really is an interesting clash of style and era here as shred players adapted somewhat reluctantly to the grungy change of tides.
Breed is so much fun to play and man, that drum intro!
Breed was one of their heaviest songs! 🎉 It was like their "heavy metal" song.
@@JesusChrist_IsTruth-LoveForALL grunge didn't last too long, I ignored it since it wasn't guitar based music and I played guitar at that time.
@@drmidnight2419 Wdym grunge wasn't guitar based?
@@drmidnight2419 dude most of the bands took pride that all they had was guitar/bass/drums. Lol is there anything OTHER than guitar in nirvana? I've never heard Kurt use another instrument.
Curt Mitchell is phenomenal. His Van Halen tutorials are still some of the best. He doesn’t bash grunge. He has comments which I’m sure the company he worked for made him do the video like if a virtuoso had to teach Billie Eillish method lol. He does praise Kurt for being a lyricist and melodic to his chords. A game changer.
Curt is the man!
I think you meant to write Kurt is the man
well that was awkward...anyways, isn't it funny that the two main subjects of that tape had names that sound the same?
Whew, that takes me back. I bought Curt Mitchell's video+tabs for Metallica, Ozzy, and Korn, out of the Musician's Friend catalog in the late 90's. The tabs weren't always spot on, but the guy was basically my teacher in a pre-youtube small town where everyone listened to country music. And he wasn't any worse than the "official" tab books back then anyway. XD
Oh, man, YES. So much yes. While Curt wasn't 100% correct with "Blackened" by Metallica, he put me a damn site closer than that atrocious Cherry Lane tab book!
This channel has gotten big enough that feel like Mike should be sitting down WITH people like Curt or Paul Gilbert and going through their videos!
The thing that struck me towards the end is that he felt legitimately bothered that Kurt took his own life. That is the element of shared humanity and compassion that can connect us all, and that shows up in music that speaks to us as human beings.
I noticed that too when I first watched it.
Did he take his own life?
Watch these two documentaries.
Bleach
Kurt and Courtney
He didn't take his own life- watch the docs and add up ALL of the evidence that shows otherwise
@@grimmertwin2148 Yeah, he took his own life.
He def did and he'd be pissed at all the people that think he didn't @@mattclyne6263
Kurt literally said his goal was to make Micheal Jackson pop tunes to Black Sabbath style riffs. So yes the heavy sound nirvana had was very much sabbath like
Beatles not MJ
Curt can be forgiven because his EVH lessons still stand up today, despite all the new transcribing tech. It does feel though like Curt didn't take any time at all on this video. I feel like Curt couldn't quite believe that anyone would need a lesson to be able to play this stuff, like someone being asked to do a lesson on how to walk. It was a missed opportunity to drill down on some of the subtle things in Cobain's guitar parts that people still don't pick up on now (like the correct strumming pattern for Smells like Teen Spirit) and Curt Mitchell was the MAN for forensic deep dives, as evidenced by his work on the VH stuff.
That’s no lie! The first vhs I got for guitar was his Van Halen tape. I was blown away seeing those techniques up close that way. So crazy for someone that had only been playing for less than a year.
😂😂
Agreed. His VH techniques vid was awesome.
I had the Hendrix and Clapton Curt Mitchell videos and they were fantastic.
It was because of his demonstration of the cradle will rock, and explaining how you could run the keyboard sound through the amplifier distortion, that inspired me to try and secure an electric acoustic pick up onto my violin so that I could get distorted sounds out of it lol well, not quite right, imagine my surprise when I found the quartet a year later playing Metallica songs on cellos. This sound like track that was played for the beginning of the Van Halen tape was indeed mind blowing.
Before I watch this, I want to say Curt Mitchell is an amazing guitarist and I believe had to play riffs different due to copyright issues. I could be wrong on that. He wasn't trying to teach you how to play songs, but how to sounds like them. Before modeling and the internet, these videos were excellent for helping get a sound you were looking for. Please review his other videos!
edit: I emailed Curt and sent him the video. You should do an interview with him
That’s awesome. I’d love to connect with Curt. Seems like a cool guy. Thank you.
I hope you do it would be very interesting!! Asking him about the era shift from a musician standpoint, making a living with these kinds of videos, clearly having an impact on people based on all the comments. Very cool piece of music history, much appreciated!
Learning to play in the 90’s these tapes were gold. I learned so much for this guy back then. Brings back a lot of memories. Great video.
Curt Mitchell's classic rock videotape was my gateway to learning guitar. I learned probably fifty riffs and that kept me going.
Same story. His Beatles video was mine. His teaching style was very effective for me, and that VHS armed me with a bunch of riffs when I was just an absolute beginner.
Even before this YT video here, I never forgot his name.
There's an interview out there where Cobain said that they listened to everything from black sabbath to bay city rollers.
I literally don't know how anyone learned to play guitar to a decent level before the days of RUclips. RUclips teachers are gifts from God 🤘
Online tabs have been around a lot longer than RUclips. Also, friends used to be a thing people had.
@@llnn5112I would argue rock music currently is significantly more technical than it used to be. Math rock is a huge scene right now because of the internet and young guitarists are creating new techniques every day.
I understand the half step tuning because Kurt would always play a half step down live, so either someone told him he was always in half step down tuning or he just assumed that since he's always playing that tuning live, the same thing happened in the studio.
Well that's not true it?
Curt’s videos are unbelievable. The EVH video and the SRV videos are top notch and in my opinion haven’t been replicated since. And he did all of it before technology/RUclips/etc
All of the guitar solos on Nevermind were recorded with a telecaster; specifically the one that Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead is famous for playing as his favorite guitar. It was an old telecaster that I converted into a Telecaster Plus clone. Radiohead, Nirvana, and Mazzy Star was touring Europe at the same time. We (I was a guitarist for Mazzy Star) went to each other's shows and partied together. Jonny won that guitar from me in a game of poker.
You are so full of shit. And Cobain didn't touch teles until the last months of his life...
That’s crazy. Thanks for sharing.
@@xheyitsbyron He did own a Tele at least by the time of the Come As You Are music video shoot, and he played it on a bunch of shows in early 92, after he'd painted it blue. Obviously that doesn't mean it was used on Nevermind, but he did own and use a Tele way before the last months of his life.
I did not know this about the telecaster being used on Nevermind. It's always cool to learn something new about the making of Nirvana albums. The same information has been kicking around for years, but I'd never heard about or seen Kurt play a Tele before. Thanks for sharing.
I attribute Curt's Van Halen instructional videos on how I play now. Truly a legend.
He was actually doing an amazing job with experimenting with different formats. On the Eric Clapton tape, it came with a booklet that you would have to reference if you wanted the tab. Later on, on the Metallica 2 tape, they used on screen tabs. On some of the more tricky riffs, he would not only play the riffs multiple times slowly and normal speed, but he would play specific parts of the riff and give his ideas on potential pitfalls, and how to overcome them. The series of tapes was called “in the style of “and not be official transcription :-) he always stressed that every guitarist has their own voice, and we should focus on learning how the compositions were created in order to find our own voice. That really helped me since I could never see good enough to make out anything other than the general idea in the tab books anyway. Everybody thought I was cool for putting my own spin on the music and the truth is that I had to :-)
Curt Mitchell is a name that really took me back. I had his VHS Metallica lessons, and I wore that tape out when I first started playing. I understand why you'd find Curt's tuning explanations so amusing in today's world, but as an old-timer who started playing back in the nineties, I can tell you that lots of sources were awkward about what were thought of as "quirky" tunings. I remember Guitar World Magazine talking about "Drop D down a full step" instead of saying, "Drop C." You'd hear "tune a full step down" instead of saying "tune to D standard." (Notice how it's implied that you would have to tune down in order to reach D standard?) Curt's stammering is really just an open window into another time. There just wasn't the same comfort level talking about low tunings as there is today. Of course there were outliers like Motley Crue or Black Sabbath that routinely used lower tunings, but the vast VAST majority were still riding E standard.
As always, great video!
Let me tell you something about these videos, I had several of them on vhs growing up when I was first learning guitar. Curt Mitchell is a very good guitar player and he was in a rock band called The Bangalore choir back in the '80s. He is a very good guitarist but the hair metal scene was so big that his band never really broke through. Anyway, had a bunch of his videos and I'm thankful that I was able to learn a whole lot from him. Keep in mind guys, this was before the days of RUclips and this was one of the only resources we had. However, I can assure you that his VHS tapes were in every guitar store Coast to coast. On a side note, he was a huge Eddie Van Halen fan and his guitar is a custom built Warmoth. He talks about it in some of his other videos.
I think Mike already explained that in his video
Yes! I have a couple of them too! I for sure still have the Metallica VHS with the little tab booklet inside. I have to dig them out, then I have to find a working VHS player. 😂
They had huge names involved in writing and recording the album
Also , Jon Bon Jovi helped out and the legendary Max Norman produced it , actually sold around 400,0000 copies and almost broke gold which is nothing to be ashamed of at all .
@@JesusChrist_IsTruth-LoveForALL booklet? Mine had 2 sheets of paper that were printed lopsided, lol. The lines for the strings were too close together and the numbers overlapped, but it was BEAUTIFUL.
@@leviathan_is_me yeah, I only remember getting those with the Jimi Hendrix tape. I don't think I got them with any other VHS.
Curt Mitchell taught me guitar and I am forever grateful! He's so engaging and cool!
I learned my first Hendrix and Clapton riffs from this guy. Life before the internet. He showed me a lot via VHS.
Curt’s VHS tapes on Van Halen changed my life! That’s not an exaggeration…before RUclips was prominent , playing Van Halen seemed impossible to me, but Curt took the mystery out of it and even though it was still challenging it became possible. If you read this, Thanks Curt!
curt Mitchell is the best... his Van Halen guitar method is spot spot on! I love his tone his technique everything
Gotta agree about Malmsteen. I can listen for a few minutes and be amazed with how incredible his playing is. But I've never gone "Oh what a great song let me go listen to that again or buy it".
Disciple of Hell, Voodoo, Pyramid of kheops ? Nasty Riffing right there
Malmsteen has maybe 1/2 dozen songs I listen to on rotation
Far Beyond The Sun
Rising Force
Seventh Sign
Black Star
Lost In Hollywood (Live with Alcatrazz)
Jet to Jet (Live With Alcatrazz)
I See The Light Tonight
Don't wrong...Yngwie is a legend and I respect the hell out of him.
When he was at his peak I don't think there was anyone who had the vibrato and control he had
But he's always lacked solid songwriting. Even he's said that he's struggled making the solo fit the song, rather than making a solo to fit the solo (In an old Wolf Marshall for Guitar For The Practicing Musician) back in the early 90s!
Just watched the original video, easily found here on RUclips. The guy is nothing buy complimentary about Kurt. Just watch the first 3 minutes to hear how respectful he is and how he pokes fun at himself. It's laughable to think that someone can't say that Kurt wasn't a "good" technical guitarist. Especially when they qualify it very specific ways. He clearly explains how Kurt's songwriting was where he was great, even Beatle-esque.
I thought it was weird too that he compared them to Sabbath. However I cannot stop hearing the Sabbath/Fu Manchu now. Fascinating. Nice video.
It isn't weird at all. Cobain was definitely influenced by Sabbath.
Curt Mitchell was and is a phenomenal guitarist. I used to have all of his courses on VHS. You have to realize it was much much harder to figure out how musicians were playing their licks back then. Concert footage was always shot at a distance with cut-away video. All the big guitarists hid their licks intentionally from the camera. Tab books sucked and were put out by guys figuring out stuff sitting on the edge of their bed.
As for Kurt Cobain Nirvana I’m not a huge fan but I’m not a hater either.
I started with Doug Marks and then Curt Mitchell....I definitely gained some good chops and worked in my own style to what they taught me. Curt`s awesome. For that matter so is Doug Marks...Got me started on a good note.
I want to add that his Van Halen course intro song, which is not a VH song but something that sounds like them, is absolutely killer
I laughed out loud when “Kinda confusing tuning explanation #4” hit the screen. Felt like an Abbot and Costello routine at that point.
Great vid, from both of you. I hadn't heard of Curt Mitchell until now but he has gained my respect for his straightforward honesty and humility.
He was a household legend back in the '90s. Every kid learning guitar had at least one of these tapes. My mother bought me some for my birthday and I got one for Christmas one year. They were awesome. It's really the only way you had to learn other than just listening to CDs back then.
I've seen ALL of "CURT MITCHELL'S" instructional videos. People would comment and criticize Curt, and I didn't understand why. CURT MITCHELL is an AWESOME guitar player and his instructional videos include different styles, techniques, equipment, etc. of a variety of mainstream, well-known guitar players. He put a lot of work into those videos!!!
Curt Mitchell is bad ass!! I used to watch all his videos when I was younger. He’s an incredible teacher and a great guitarist
Thanks for this really crazy video. The guy seems somewhat reluctant to do the video. I also wonder if all of these little mistakes with regard to Nirvana songs were common among guitarists in the early to middle 90s. (I was in the very very early stages of guitar at this point.) And thanks for being self deprecating, Mike. There are some RUclips guitarists who take themselves a bit seriously and you have a of lightening stuff up. Thanks, dude.
He looks like Adam Sandler in an unreleased film about a struggling rockband, called "The Hairmitments"
I actually owned this video on VHS. I've always been a HUGE Nirvana fan and when I was first starting to learn guitar, my parents gave it to me for Christmas.
i can actually see some Black Sabbath influence in Nirvana. also man that White SG is gorgeous, probably my favorite color on an SG
Your video is essential watching material, especially for anyone who wants to get a vibe of the transition from hair metal to grunge.
Yeah, I was just into my teens when grunge took over, and I remember all the shirts swapping overnight. The guy wearing a Poison shirt on Monday was wearing a Nirvana shirt Tuesday. A LOT of the hair metal musicians were super bitter at the time, but eventually realized that's the nature of music, and even learned to take it with a really positive and growing experience.
Definitely seems to be the case here, with this instructor acknowledging that record labels were really pushing for the hair metal sound and then quickly abandoned the bands they were pushing. You end up feeling bad for these guys because they got so attached to the hair metal identity, that fans wouldn't accept them trying to get out of it.
It's great to see this reaction, because it adds so much context to what was happening at that time. thank you!
🤘🏻🔥🤘🏻I kinda agree that he looks like he wasn't happy being there haha, perhaps that was just his resting grumpy face or something haha.
I love what he ended up saying about Kurt's songwriting and playing, it doesn't have to be insane and flashy to convey what he's trying to say or get his point across.
Nirvana was pretty big for me growing up so they and Kurt will always hold a place in my heart.
I did a little search for Nirvana history on this day and it turns out in 1991 they played a nearby city to me called Bristol at a now closed down venue called The Bierkeller, thankfully I went there a few times before it closed.
he always looks grumpy
Loved my Curt Mitchell VHS tapes growing up in the 90s. Always a good time sitting on the sofa with my guitar, watching the "OldTube"
Curt is the only person to explain how to play the end of Eruption, you use a chorus pedal and turn a knob on it
Sounds like YOU also explained.
And The Cradle Will Rock intro...Curt was the first guy to get it right!
I'm pretty sure it's a delay pedal that you turn the knob on it's not a chorus pedal
It's always a good day when shredders can take note of Kurt's ability, he drove just as many people to pick up the axe as Hendrix. Love the videos, I also started with Paul Gilbert VHS.
I remember him! I used to have a vhs of him teaching Metallica stuff. That's how i learned to play fade and master properly. Back when there was no youtube😅. Thanks for the lessons Curt! Thanks Mike for bringing him up.
Ps. The vhs lesson is actually in youtube! ruclips.net/video/TwkHbzn9rug/видео.html
I remember that guitar he uses. Nostalgia!
I have the Metallica VHS too! With the little tab booklet! 🎉💪🎉💪🎉
I picked up a guitar at 14 to play Led Zeppelin and the hair metal bands I loved. Less than two years later, everyone wanted to talk about these guys who never seemed to play as well as the guitar players I loved. It took me a long time to get it. Once I realized these guys wrote such great songs, I was totally annoyed with friends still trying to explain that the hair metal guys could shred better than anyone who came later when that was never the point.
I was so bummed out about the whole Grunge thing. It started right when I got to high school so I was surrounded by it. To make it even worse I live half way between Aberdeen (home of Cobain) and Seatlle (home of grunge) WA. I was a metal guy and played metal guitar, but none of the girls I knew were impressed that I could play Judas Priest. They wanted to hear shit like Green Day. It was really depressing.
I had a few VHS tapes that Curt made. Wayyyyy back when I was first learning.
Curt Mitchell was an awesome guitarist and you right he didn’t enjoy doing that video but to my memory he did some really good stuff back in the day..
Yup. Figuring stuff out used to be way harder and often inaccurate. We all the know the story of evh turning his back to the audience to hide what he was doing. Now we have 4k video of dozens of people breaking it down in slow motion.
I bought this guy’s Metallica video. Some inaccuracies but overall it was good. Dude can absolutely shred.
That's why I've always just trusted my ears when learning to play new songs. Never trusted tabs or watched instructional videos personally. That doesn't mean I play everything perfectly still, more than happy to take feedback when I'm playing with another guitarist and they play it exactly how it's supposed to be played.
It's very interesting seeing all of this! Great video Mike, now you'll just have to find an 80s or 90s Metallica Instructional lol.
I have the Metallica one by curt Mitchell! 😎🎉
One of the things i love about Kurt's playing was his technique of using feedback in songs
I love Curt Mitchell, his EVH lesson is very in depth and usefull. He should do video with Rick Beato.
Cobain himself described the Nirvana sound as "Black Sabbath trying to play The Knack" in his diaries. So maybe this teacher wasn't so wrong...
My independent music "dealer", who hooked me up with Alice In Chains months before anyone had heard of them, sold me Nirvana on the day Nevermind came out. I asked him who they sounded like. He said no one. I called bs and mentioned how Tea Party Splender Solis didnt' sound like anyone but a metal magazine said it was like if Glenn Danzig sang for Led Zeppelin. He said, "Okay...It's like Metallica meets the Beatles.". I said I'm in.
Mid tempo Black album Metallica, perhaps.
I played in the shred scene in L.A. from about '86 till it went away in '91, and Nirvana was the last nail in the coffin. That hair metal scene was on its way out, and this was very clear by 1990, but the fall of '91 really marked the end because of how hard Nirvana hit the music world. Suddenly, nobody gave a damn about shred anymore. While I'd agree that shred got ridiculous, grunge was not the answer. But it was the response. Grunge set itself apart not only by what it was, but what it wasn't, and what it wasn't was hair metal. Whereas hair metal was often about partying and wild women, grunge was about the dark side of life, and little more. It was, in a way, perfect for its day, because the early 90s were the doldrums. America was no longer high on itself, the Cold War was over, and grunge represented the dispirited vibe of the day.
This is brilliant…informative and really funny! I took up guitar in ‘87 aged 30….electronic tuners were available, but easy access to tabs wasn’t, although Tower Records let me take out a subscription and sent me GTFPM over to England. The guitar magazines always seemed to have big hair and pointy headstocks on the cover and Vinnie Moore was killing the VHS market….in a strange way, grunge was a bit like the punk/new wave reboot in the 70’s, it was a reboot that made making music accessible without going to GIT.
I was helping Curt back in the day before he started videos with his "Learn to Burn" course. We never met but just communicated through emails. Anyway every thing he had printed was hand written and didn't look very professional, so I offered to computerize all the tab so it would look a little better. I had just completed a couple of books when he contacted me and said not to continue because of some copyright issues. So he just used the tab description in the front of the book that I completed and then used cassette tapes to "tell you what to play" with a blank tab page and write in down in the book. Those were days.
Also this video really illustrates Curts brilliance.
Curt is a great player. His Van Halen Style Instructional video is great.
It's like he popped a Nirvana tape into his deck on the way to the studio and just learned it by ear in 20 mins lol
I actually liked Kurt's playing!! the free vibe! the antics on stage!! and getting his sound can be done on cheap! grab a secondhand Boss DS-1 or DS-2!! thats a very good start
Plot twist. The guitarist from 3 doors down, had this tape growing up, and it inspired him to write kryptonite.
This whole Curt Mitchell instructional video is great imo. I remember it being one of the first Guitar lesson Video's I've really gotten into.
I won't hear a bad word about Curt Mitchell! I learned everything in my youth from Curt's videos. The first Hendrix, SRV, Jimmy Page, Santana, Clapton, and Randy Rhoads videos were excellent, especially for the time period. To this day I still have a love for natural strats and I'm pretty sure it's because of Curt.
Cobain shopped a lot for his gear at a small shop in Olympia, Washington. There were, just like now, very small lefty choices. So, inexpensive gear was a result of a lack of left handed stuff available. This was way before online shopping… what they did do, once they could afford good gear, Gave all their rehearsal gear away one day at the west Olympia storage spot where we all played.
It just goes to show only the artist that wrote the song really knows how it's played. That's why I laugh when I hear so many guitar teachers say they have a good ear & they improvise. It also goes to show shredding or how fast you can play doesn't really matter. Like B.B King said he knew he could never play fast & came up with his own. Music would be a very boring thing if everyone shredded & played fast.
Very nostalgic, i havent listened to this stuff for like 2 decades, but i still knew the name of every song he played as if i listened to it yesterday
Somewhat dark and humorous anecdote about this guy. I saw a Curt Mitchell video and though “I wonder what happened to this guy?” So I google his name and it turns out there was a guy with the exact same name who killed his whole family which for years I assumed was this guy.
I did the same thing a few minutes ago! Googled his name, saw that a Curtis Mitchell, guitar player and teacher in Kansas, had murdered a woman who he claimed was his girlfriend. He had anger issues and drank a lot. I thought it was the same guy too.
Turns out the Curt Mitchell from the instructional videos is from Nevada and is still working as a professional musician. I had his In The Style of Brian Setzer and SRV videos :)
Even Kurt said it himself “I couldn’t pass guitar 101 but I think I make up for it with songwriting”
Mitchell was forward thinking for the time 👍
Correct. Cobain was a pretty terrible guitarist. A lot of the 'complexity' in his playing, is just sloppiness, which is hard to replicate. Like trying to replicate a facial tick.
Curt Mitchell became a legend. In another parallel universe curt mitchell made it.
I bought this when it came out. Curt Mitchell, and I did want to learn Nirvana songs like a rookie. lol. You know what... it was better than the tab books by a mile. Of course it's wrong. It's "in the style of.." series. What a classic. lmfao
He was one of the first guys whose instructional stuff I bought at Guitar Center in the late 90s when I first started playing. They had him on DVD and VHS back then. His Guitar in the Style of (whatever artist that particular video tape was about) series was a great way to learn riffs and licks of your favorite artists.
Not to be political but with the lights out it’s less dangerous. Here we are now, entertain us. Thank you for your time
Underrated comment
about Black Sabbath: in the pre-Bleach days, Cobain used to describe Nirvana as " punks playing Black Sabbath"
When I was a kid just learning guitar Nirvana was my favorite band. I bought this VHS tape and I LOVED it! Curt Mitchell was awesome! I loved this tape so much! I’m so glad these videos are on RUclips.
Curt is a legend! I love how slightly passive aggressive he comes across, i never gave a toss about Nirvana myself haha :D
this guy is spot on, i remember learning all these songs 20+ years ago from authorized tablature books i bought at music stores, and they were translated exactly how art of guitar is teaching it, and not at all like the Curt guy.
The Police and Black Sabbath were definitely influences on his songwriting, although The Police weren't mentioned a lot by others.
this is like people saying slash isn't a good guitar player.
i'm from the 80s and i can tell you, his playing was highly criticised at that time. reason being is that shred was king, with the likes of EVH, Steve Vai etc.
Slash said in his bio "I can play fast, but it just doesn't suit my style, which is more of a rock groove like Joe Perry".
Kurt Cobain's playing, is imo, brilliant for the songs he wrote. It's simple, elegant and most importantly, to the point. His voice and songwriting is going to stand for all time.
There's a reason why Nirvana was so famous, and they only existed to the mainstream audience from 91-94
I picked up a guitar at the age 17 or so (so 1997) and this was very, very early days of the Internet still. Tabs were...around (long live ASCII!) but RUclips or any video lessons like you do so Mike, nope - wasn't a thing. So all knowledge I could get was confusing, awkwardly worded (or even weirdly translated) and made no sense like "bridge pickup" (me wondering if it was an analogy of construction site pickup-truck jargon!) and "fret buzz" (I thought that meant vibrato...). The way Curt explains the tuning triggers that era of "you know x? (me: I do! yay!) ok now do y and the song is in x but I do y and maybe a or b and place z on the things and here we go". Oh, the memories of confusion. I'm still sad that confusion made me quit playing guitar for decades.
Anyway, moral of the story: thank you Mike for doing what you do, teaching and explaining so much on RUclips - especially so much for free. I couldn't afford a guitar teacher back then so you bringing and sharing your knowledge is invaluable. Thank you!
I would have been depressed having to do an instructional video for them too.
Ha this guy just had a different style. He straight up heard those songs once and was like “Ya I got it”. Roll the cameras, sign the checks. Respect!
That's just lazy and shitty. No respect for half assing it.
That Bangalore Choir album from '92 is great, it's completely unoriginal in every way but sounds like an action movie soundtrack!
EDIT: Damn, apparently the album was produced by Max Norman and Aldo Nova 🤣
Yes, he needs to find Curt and sit down with him and do a retro look back at his videos.
I still have his Randy Rhoads vhs. I was a member of his message board around 06 or so and got to chat with him. Super nice guy. Hope he’s still around somewhere.
Dude this is gold! You should make a sub series on these old training videos. Both fascinating and funny as hell!
BTW you were far to kind in your assessment of his shortcomings, you're a good dude. 👍
Kurt is an amazing guitar artist
Black Sabbath was definitely an influence.