The guitar is a rotten instument

Subject: RE: The guitar is a rotten instument
From: Paul G.
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 09:21 PM

M.Ted, find yourself a Gamble Rogers Album and bask in the sheer joy of exquisite travis picking melodies and thumb-thumping...and gain a little Florida Philosopy in the balance. Would never have worked with a piano, and what a tragedy that would have been...

pg

Subject: RE: The guitar is a rotten instument
From: Michael K.
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 09:20 PM

I have played and studied piano since age 4, gigged professionally as a keyboard player for 18 years, and consider myself a very accomplished player proficient in all styles.

I have been playing guitar a sum total of about 3 years. Sure you can get ''a sound'' out of the guitar without a lot of effort as you can with any instrument....but compared to piano (and as it relates to fingerstyle playing) I must say that I find guitar inherently more difficult than piano to really master and I tend to be a quick study with instruments and their nuances.

I.M.H.O. the guitar is a very unforgiving instrument. The level of precision required in both hands (with respect to fingerpicking and advanced fingerpicking) to achieve a clean and pleasing sound - at least to my ears - requires 10 or 20 times the amount of practise I ever spent with piano.

When I was studying piano, and went to learn a new tune or arrangment whether classical or jazz or ragtime - whatever, it never took me more than a week to 2 weeks to have it down cold (talking 3-4 hours a day of practise.) The keys on a piano are wide (and forgiving).

The fretting required on a guitar is like a pinpoint on that little sweet spot at the end of your finger. Miss it by an angstrom and you have a buzz or a muted sound. You have to nail things with you fretting hand at just the right angle and just the right amount of arch with those fingers. (I'm sure it's the same for fiddle players as well, or any other stringed instrument.)

How many of us (intermediate to even advanced or professional guitar players) have tunes or arrangements we've been working on for literally months, perhaps years, that we've not yet mastered or have them sounding the way we want them to? Lots I'll bet.

I've been working on an arrangement of ''Dallas Rag'' part Dave Laibman, part David Bromberg for more than a year, and I still cannot play the tune from beginning to end without a glitch, buzz or mistake...but it's a labour of love with me and one day I will play it perfectly. All in all it seems that feel is more important than technical precision anyway.....but I aspire to have both, even if it takes me the rest of my life. I love playing the guitar that much and perhaps it's because I have to work so much harder to get a sound pleasing to my ears with the guitar, as opposed to piano, that I get such a tremendous sense of accomplishment and gratification - that eludes me with piano....although I still love to tickle the ivories as well.

Duck Baker says in one of his video lessons: ''The guitar is not your friend.'' What I think he means is, the way we sometimes have to contort our fingers and tendons into totally un-natural positions (sometimes quite painful,) in order to make certain chord sturctures, which enhance the sound of a given arrangement.

I think deep down most serious guitar players are also masochists. (grin) We like a little pain with our pleasure.

Subject: RE: The guitar is a rotten instument
From: Mbo
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 08:54 PM

Oops! Posted twice. Maybe it'll sink in more that way!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: The guitar is a rotten instument
From: Mbo
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 08:52 PM

Yo, listen MTed! That kind of talk is exactly the kind of stuff the pianists have been dumping on us for the last 400 years! Who cares about bleedin' dancing? There's more to life than that! Regular ol' acoustic guitars take over the moronic job of play rhythms suitable for dancing. Classical guitarists is a higher calling, people like me who play CG have a higher demand for melodic beauty, ornamentation, harmony, and texture. Who really listens to dance music anyway? It's usually mundane because everone's too interested in flapping their legs to care about the music. Classical guitar is something to be studied and to be listened to intently. Hearing you talk like that about my guitar playing almost invalidates my years of study to create beautiful music. If I wanted to make people dance, I could have been like any other mook and learn three chords and not be very good at it. And also, the history of music for the classical guitar, lute, and vilhuela is rich and gorgeous. If all you think of Classical guitar is a "wimpy Baroque dance," I'll be glad to strap to down in a chair and force you to listen to Villa-Lobos' Choroses and Etudes from a guitarist 1 foot away. That stuff is so loud, you can hear it across a concert hall without amplification! As for not being able to hold our notes, I think it is one of the greatest things about guitars! If you want sustained notes, go play the trombone. If you want everything in one small wooden package, play a guitar. Beethoven himself said about the guitar "It's like a whole orchestra all in one instrument". And speaking of breaking guitars over people's heads...

--Mbo (a lover of ALL guitar music and proud of it!!)

Subject: RE: The guitar is a rotten instument
From: Mbo
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 08:52 PM

Yo, listen MTed! That kind of talk is exactly the kind of stuff the pianists have been dumping on us for the last 400 years! Who cares about bleedin' dancing? There's more to life than that! Regular ol' acoustic guitars take over the moronic job of play rhythms suitable for dancing. Classical guitarists is a higher calling, people like me who play CG have a higher demand for melodic beauty, ornamentation, harmony, and texture. Who really listens to dance music anyway? It's usually mundane because everone's too interested in flapping their legs to care about the music. Classical guitar is something to be studied and to be listened to intently. Hearing you talk like that about my guitar playing almost invalidates my years of study to create beautiful music. If I wanted to make people dance, I could have been like any other mook and learn three chords and not be very good at it. And also, the history of music for the classical guitar, lute, and vilhuela is rich and gorgeous. If all you think of Classical guitar is a "wimpy Baroque dance," I'll be glad to strap to down in a chair and force you to listen to Villa-Lobos' Choroses and Etudes from a guitarist 1 foot away. That stuff is so loud, you can hear it across a concert hall without amplification! As for not being able to hold our notes, I think it is one of the greatest things about guitars! If you want sustained notes, go play the trombone. If you want everything in one small wooden package, play a guitar. Beethoven himself said about the guitar "It's like a whole orchestra all in one instrument". And speaking of breaking guitars over people's heads...

--Mbo (a lover of ALL guitar music and proud of it!!)

Subject: RE: The guitar is a rotten instument
From: sophocleese
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 07:59 PM

Yes it is a rotten instrument all you have to do is hold a guitar and moan about your life on stage and you too can be a lousy singer/songwriter. Sorry sorry sorry, mixing my threads. I was once at a festival and saw a really bad performer and the only reason I could see for her being on stage rather than anybody else in the audience was that she owned the guitar. On the whole though I see interesting people at festivals, she was an exception.

I sing a cappella and play recorder but I am now learning guitar because there are songs that simply sound better with accompianment, I do have to get someone else to play if its a recorder tune though. I've been frightened of trying to learn it because of a lousy experience years ago when I first tried. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that its actually not that difficult to play a simple back up for my singing. Slowly I will improve but I will always be someone who sings first and plays second.

Subject: RE: The guitar is a rotten instument
From: matt
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 07:46 PM

The therapist told me I better keep playin' my guitar, "cause that was the only thing working in my life. I sit down, start pickin, and the alpha waves start flowin'.

Subject: RE: The guitar is a rotten instument
From: FivenSeven
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 07:22 PM

Yes... it can be "Rotten"....but then again... it has saved my mind more than once on a cold and lonely night. AND.... it introduced me to my husband! What more can you say?

Di :)

Subject: RE: The guitar is a rotten instument
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 06:07 PM

Art, I thought Doc Watson once mentioned that it took him a solid year to master the thumb movement for that particular style of guitar playing--and let's not forget Old Ike Everly and Chet Atkins on the list of shady characters--

Subject: RE: The guitar is a rotten instument
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 06:01 PM

Frank,

You mention Barney in the past tense, but he is still with us--he had a stroke last year, and I am told that he lost movement in his right hand, but is still teaching, and showing his students how it's done on the left--

There seems to be a CD out with those cuts that he did with Julie London, though I haven't been able to find it--"Cry Me a River" was the hit they did together, but. according to Barney, they did many other sides with just the guitar and voice, all as good, some even better--

If anyone knows the name of the CD or the label, I would much appreciate it--

Subject: RE: The guitar is a rotten instument
From: Art Thieme
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 05:56 PM

Guitar is probably the most versatile instrument in the world. You can learn 3 (or 4) chords, "get by" and be perfectly satisfied with your progress, or you can study iy your whole life and not learn all the nuances and subtleties.

But it's ACTUALLY EASY to play rhythm and melody at the same time. Especially in the American traditional styles of the piedmont songsters----folks like Elizabeth Cotten and Mississippi John Hurt and Etta Baker. Similar to styles popularized by Merle Travis and Sam McGee. John Fahey and many others from the folk revival---me included---used the style almost exclusively as both backup and for instrumental breaks. In bluegrass and old-timey music, listen to Kenny Baker's work when he's not playing fiddle with Bill Monroe. Earl Scruggs is a monster finger-picker on songs like "Jimmy Brown The News Boy" and "You Are My Flower".

The style involves (basically) an alternated bass with your thumb to keep the beat, and melody played on the treble strings with your fingers. The syncopated sound of this guitar picking style mesmerized me when I was young. Tom Paley, doing Sam McGee's "Railroad Blues" at the first University of Chicago Folk Festival in 1961 just blew me away. I did it for the next 40 years---give or take a couple... That exceptionally traditional festival is still going strong---every February.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: The guitar is a rotten instument
From:
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 05:51 PM

I don't know how true it is, but I once saw the statement that there weren't any ancient guitars to compare with modern ones because guitars were too fragile to last.

Subject: RE: The guitar is a rotten instument
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 05:50 PM

The guitar was also the first instument to be broken over the teacher's head--and another thing, you classical guitarist also know that you can't play either loud or fast enough for dancing, unless it is some wimpy baroque dance, and even at that, the recorders can overpower you--and you die when there is a formata;-)

Subject: RE: The guitar is a rotten instument
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 05:49 PM

Tempted to use my granmothers saying "it's a bad workman who blames his tools" but let's be honest, any instrument is difficult.

The guitar is one, IMO, that is actually quite easy to learn to do something with (playing basic chords to accompany voice) but to master it - I'd guess is very hard.

I "play" a variety of instruments and am master of none. I think that a lot of this depends on where you want to be with your instrument. I do believe that there is such thing as natural ability but even those who have it probably have to work very hard to make the most of it and the rest of us (like myself) at best can only expect to acheive a reasonable degree of competence... Fun all the same.

Jon

Subject: RE: The guitar is a rotten instument
From: Frank Hamilton
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 05:49 PM

P.S. You really should hear Barney's fabulous jazz accompaniments on Julie London's recording. Not many pianists could equal that.

Frank

Subject: RE: The guitar is a rotten instument
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 05:45 PM

And if the ship sunk, so would the piano, brass and banjo, but I bet the guitar would keep on floating. Or would it?
You could hop onto a piece of plank wood and use the guitar as a paddle to get you a shore.

Little Neo has been honored with a new name.

Banjo Bonnie

Subject: RE: The guitar is a rotten instument
From: Frank Hamilton
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 05:45 PM

M. Ted, I think that guitars that are left out overnight in the rain tend to become rotten unless they are made of metal in which case they become rusty. I don't know which sounds worse, a rusty guitar or a rotten guitar. :)

Barney sounded much better with just one guitar than any mediocre pianist I ever heard. That's of course why he was Barney Kessel. He could swing, play rhythm and lead, and propel a band better than many pianists who were technically proficient.

Barney had a kind of modesty about him. He tended to low-key his abilities. It was a mark of excellence that he got to play with Bird since he was an entirely different personality, rather conservative and not into drug use. But Bird thought enough of his musicianship to record with him. That is significant as to his ability in my opinion.

I worked for Barney in Hollywood as a guitar teacher for his "Music World" store and on a sound track with him.

The guitar is a hard instrument to play well. You are right. It's more subtle than other stringed instruments because it's quieter and less geared for single string solo work than the mandolin or fast exciting Scruggs style fingerpicking but it is one of the most versatile instruments in the world.

But as an accompaniment for the human voice, I don't think any instrument is any better.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: The guitar is a rotten instument
From: Mbo
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 05:32 PM

Us Classical guitarists know that you don't have to be a Flamenco guitarist to play melody and rhythm at the same time. Just a little Villa-Lobos will change your thinking for ever about the subject. Sure the guitar is tempermental, but it's better by a long shot than a piano in my book. I've had so much trouble with midis and such, because they're all based on the piano, and incapable of strumming. Also guitar chords are set up better than how they are played on the piano. A friend of mine, after hearing me talk about how much I love major seventh chords, play one on the piano. She said it sounded really dissonant, but when I played it on the guitar, it all made sense. Also, the guitar is responsible for many musical firsts, e.g the first anthology of music for for guitar, the first method for instrument playing was for the guitar, the first music with dynamics written in the score was for guitar. I could go on and on. Why did the guitar lose it's huge popularity? Because somebody had to go and invent the piano, and everyone was so interested in that, everyone forgot about guitar. Now we can't even play in orchestras because we're not loud enough. Sorry, the guitar, both Classical and folk, have been a major part of my life for the past six years. LONG LIVE THE GUITAR! Even after a nuclear holocaust, I bet the guitar would be the only instrument not to perish!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: The guitar is a rotten instument
From: Allan C.
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 05:19 PM

But consider: A guitar is a little easier to carry than a piano. It is difficult to sing while playing a trumpet. A good guitar takes up a lot less space in your back seat than a good drum set.

See, it does have some good points.

Subject: The guitar is a rotten instument
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 18 Nov 99 - 05:12 PM

I just got back from California, and I visited with Uncle Albert, my old mentor, and we got out the old axes and played a bit, and a lot of the time, it just barely held together--

He mentioned that Barney Kessel told him it takes two great guitarists to play what one mediocre pianist can play, which was some consolation, but not much--

Why is this blasted instrument so hard? And, given that such a touchy thing, how did it get to be so important for so many different kinds of music? And why is it so hard to play bluegrass leads on guitar when banjo players can throw them off like nothing, and mandolin players can't even stop playing them?

And how come only Flameco guitarists can play lead and rhythm at the same time?

Inquiring minds want to know.