Some reflections... comments welcomed. Apologies in advance for the length.Both this thread and Marty's "Could I play like Doc Watson?" have being nagging at the back of my mind since they came out. The Doc Watson thread disturbed me because I realized that I don't have a guitar hero I hope to be able to play like - just a desire to get better without any solid idea of what I mean by better. And this thread makes me feel guilty, because I never listen to any of these old pioneers, and don't have a clue what they're about.
So anyway, one day last week something suddenly clicked and it was time to do something about this. So I went and bought two CDs - "Foundation: the Doc Watson Guitar Instrumental Collection" and "Can the Circle be Unbroken: The Original Carter Family".
(And it was touching just how excited the record store guy was that I was buying them - he went on and on about the Carter Family and was pointing me out to the other staff, saying "Somebody's buying real music!")
I've never listened to Doc Watson or the Carters before. I was amazed by the Watson CD; how can one guitar do all that? I'm not planning to adopt him as a guitar hero, right away, but I can certainly see why Marty would.
But as for the Carter Family CD... I want to like the Carter Family, really, I do. But I don't like this CD, except for one song (Little Black Train). I found the guitar playing boring, and the singing mildly irritating (though I'm starting to get used to it). I was interested that the CD liner said "Echoes of the Carter Family are still heard, for example, in the original music and vocal style of Indigo Girls." I love the Indigo Girls! But my initial reaction to Maybelle Carter is definitely the same as Big Mick's - I'd rather just listen to the Indigo Girls.
But at the same time I don't want to accept Mark Clark's diagnosis that "if the Carter Family etc.... don't just reach out and grab you, then I'd say your interest in folk music is more as an alternative pop music and has very little to do with honest expression in a folk idiom."
So what I'm trying to figure out is where to go from here... what exactly it means to "invest" in this old music. Make myself keep listening to it in the hopes that I'll start liking it? Put the CD in a drawer for a few years in the hope that I'll appreciate it when I'm older (I'm 28, FWIW) or can "bring more to the table musically"? Try to find those echoes of the Carter Family in the Indigo Girls? Try to copy the one song that does appeal to me? Or buy other people's CDs until I find one that does appeal to me right away?
The Carter Family CD does have one big advantage over the Watson CD - when I hear Maybelle playing I think, "I could do that". This may be untrue, but at least it's a sentiment that gets me spending more time with my guitar. But Doc Watson's playing is just plain intimidating. Actually the CD liner notes put it very tactfully: "The more you think you know about playing the guitar, the more you know you couldn't do that if your whole sorry life depended on it."
Marion
PS Marty, it's been nine months - have you developed an appreciation for the Carter Family yet?