Guitarists - How Do You Rate?

Subject: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 11:43 AM

How do you rate Guitar players? – Instructional books, videos and DVD's refer to three levels of Beginner/Intermediate and Advanced, but how do you define each category?

The author of one example of Tab I looked at recently stated that you needed to be an experienced/advanced player to play the song, but I'd rate it at no more than Intermediate. I assume there are properly defined grades, and I'd be grateful if someone could point me in the right direction, or tell me what those definitions are please.

(I'm considering some guitar teaching, so I probably need to know!)

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Wesley S
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 12:01 PM

Have you checked with the websites of the tapemakers ? I think they spell out what the different levels indicate.

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 01:10 PM

My banjo teacher told me what I take to be a good description, and it happened this way:

After I had studied with him for some time, I quit, for a couple reasons:
1. He taught basically by means of tab, and somehow I found I didn't learn that way too well.
2. The repertoire he was using in teaching me was old-time instrumental, and my use was and is to accompany my singing. I wanted to spend my banjo time working up my type of repertoire, of which he knew nothing.
I had developed far enough to be able to accompany myself while singing, although perhaps not in too sophisticated a way.

He told me, not too long after that, something like this: "What constitutes 'intermediate level' is very subjective, and different people have different meanings for it. One meaning, though, is that you can do what you set out to do on the instrument. You can work up an accompaniment, and accompany yourself singing in public, which is what you wanted to do. So to that extent I guess you're 'intermediate'."

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: GUEST,Sidewinder.
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 01:30 PM

Just go on proficiency i.e I can play "Stairway to Heaven" as on the record or I can play "Stairway to Heaven" in a fashion.

Regards.

Sidewinder.

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Mark Ross
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 01:56 PM

Hell! It's all done with smoke and mirrors anyway. It's all subjective, besides, I tend to tell people who ask how good I am,
"I'm competent", they can take it anyway they want.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 02:00 PM

I'm crap, that sums it all up for me, but there are some magic guitarists out there who never even get a name other than just locally. Some are as good if not better than some of the "names", Ian stephenson of 422, John Rawlings of Cara, Colin of Karen and Colin just to name a small number.

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Tinker
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 02:01 PM

Another discussion on playing levels can be found here. Two years later I'm a bit more solid in Level 3 but not at all ready to move beyond.

tinker

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Allan C.
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 05:49 PM

After more than forty years of playing I'm clearly not a Beginner and so I suppose I must be an Intermediate player. I would think that anyone who plays better (and there are MANY) must be Advanced.

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: GUEST,Obie
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 06:12 PM

Advanced:
JP Cormier
Dave Mac Isaac
Tony McManus
Roy Clark
BB King
Beginner/ Intermediate:
Everyone else
       ;=}

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Midchuck
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 07:32 PM

Guest Obie:

That makes:

Doc Watson
Tony Rice
Norman Blake
Jack Lawrence
David Grier
Brian Sutton
Chris Newman
Beppe Gambetta

Just to name the first few I think of, all beginner/intermediate.

Thank you! I would never have dreamed I was in such good company!

Peter

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Wrinkles
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 08:01 PM

personally I'd divide the ratings into two groups; accompanyment and instrumental.

Accompanyment;
Beginer = struming chords
intermediate = fingerpicking chords
advanced = fingerpicking with licks, bass runs, and "frills", harmonising with the singing.

Instrumental
beginer = airs and marches
intermediate = hornpipes/jigs and set dances
advanced = reels; with a seperate bass line and/or harmony lines behind the melody.

When asked about my own playing I respond; "no one cringes" ;-)

Wrinkles

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: harpgirl
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 08:43 PM

Advanced:

Bonnie Rait
Elizabeth Cotten
Joni Mitchell
Maybelle Carter
possibly Lucinda


Intermediate:
most of the rest of the girl country singers

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Mudlark
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 10:27 PM

While I understand the yen for rating, I question its need. Rating seems beside the point to me somehow. In folk music--or any kind of music, really--I respond to the entire presentation. There are some technically very advanced players of all instruments that play without passion...and since feeling rather than technique is more important to me, their performace as a whole tends to leave me cold. Sometimes very simple instrumentals, let alone simple accompaniment, can be devastatingly moving.    If I were looking for a teacher, I'd look first for smiliar tastes in music, then a like sensibility, and only then figure out if the teacher was "advanced" enough to teach me what I wanted to know.

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 11:12 PM

Beginner: Doesn't know jack..

Intermediate: Knows all 1st positions major chords and can switch from one to another with some ease. Can play 10 or songs well...

Advanced: Everyone above intermediate...

Bopbert

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: GUEST, Hamish
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 04:10 AM

Wrinkles said:

"Beginner = strumming chords
intermediate = fingerpicking chords"

Which I guess to be a generalisation. Good strumming's way ahead of poor picking.

For my own part I consider myself a good accompanist for my own voice: the arrangements suit the songs and have something to add without dominating. (Whereas people like Martin Simpson (advanced!) just plays Too Many Notes. Naw - only kidding: I wish I could play like him. But if I could I wouldn't always choose to.)

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 05:14 AM

Incompetent
Competent
Interesting

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 09:02 AM

I'm rubbish I am.

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Justa Picker
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 11:45 AM

Prop Artist
Beginner
Hack
Intermediate
Advanced
Serious
Sickening

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: M.Ted
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 11:48 AM

These labels really have no meaning, because they are too vague--there are a lot of different elements in guitar playing--each a quantifiable, qualifiable skill, scales, melodies, chording systems, rhthm patterns--which you either know or don't know--and some styles of playing use different elements than others--so an "advanced" classical player may not have many of the skills needed to play Bluegrass--and then, there is expressiveness--a lot of technically advanced players aren't much to listen to, because, though they know a lot, they don't put a lot of zip into it--then there are those that can draw huge crowds and sell millions of records using only three or four simple licks--

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 11:58 AM

If someone tells me they are Grade 8 violin, then I can get some sort of handle on that - there must be some meaningful grades for Guitar too

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: English Jon
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 12:16 PM

like grade 8 guitar?

EJ

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 12:28 PM

Thanks EJ - and back to my original post:

"I'd be grateful if someone could point me in the right direction"

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Dr. Guitar
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 12:38 PM

Dear Colleagues,

You all know am sitting here patiently waiting to be consulted on such matters! But I digress....

Why not use my patent "guitar excellence" (GE) formula to derive this value. In brief:

- count the number of guitars that you (or the subjectee) possesses
- multiply this by the number of strings present (one must subtract 10 for each missing string
- divide the total by the number of notes in an Ab minor scale that can be played during the period of 1 second (+/- 5 milliseconds)
- multiply by the force (in Newtons) required to bar a Bmaj9 chord at the 4th position
- divide by the Ebbie factor (i.e. the number of times that dear Ebbie has looked at the forbidden jazz guitar sites)
- add the tastefulness constant tf expressed in blue notes per minute squared
- multiply by 8.132
- find the square root of the total

This will provide a compltely objective value of excellence.

Glad, as always, to be of service and rember that my surgery is always open (and pro bono in deserving cases.

Yours most sincerely,

Dr. Guitar

P.S. Mr Eric the Viking is not "crap"... he actually scores 7.9548 according to my GE formula

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 01:13 PM

There may be grades indicating proficiency on the "violin," but I don't think there could be such a system for the "fiddle," or for the folk guitar either.

Playing a classical-type instrument is a matter of duplicating written music as exactly as possible, and there are established sequences of progressing from one level of competance to the next. Easy enough to "grade." (Certainly easier to grade than to play!)

In stark contrast, folk music (in the broadest sense, including not only blues but also jazz, garage/punk rock, etc., etc.) involves many more different approaches and usually includes a personal element of improvisation and/or interpretation. Nobody plays every possible different style, and nobody who is able to play several styles does them all with equal facility.

Someone could be an excellent self-accompanyist, an advanced fingerpicker, a pretty-good arranger/copier able to "hear" most basic chord progressions, and a mediocre flatpicker, all within the context of the four or five "easiest" keys in standard tuning.

The same player might be a rank beginner when paying in open tunings, be hopelessly inept (without a capo) in any standard-tuning key except for his few favorites, and be completely unable to "hear" and duplicate complex and/or unfamiliar compositions and chord progressions.

Would this player be in grade 1, 8 or 12? Depends on what he was playing when you heard him, wouldn't it?

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 01:18 PM

Dear Dr Guitar. Thankyou for your wonderful comments. I am reassured of my position in the guitar world.

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 04:31 PM

From my experience of singing with MCP - can play / accompany in any key without a capo.

Kitty

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 09:45 AM

Some very interesting observations you Mudcatters - but I suspect more use of heart than head here. I'm well aware of passion, expression and 'grab you by the balls' performance etc, but I was looking for some objectivity in assessment of guitar skill levels. Now I hate target-setting/SAT's as much as the next ex-teacher, but I need to be able to set some reasonably defined grid onto which I can place my own set of competences and provide some progression strategies for students.

I'm quite capable of going the creative route and setting my own, but I've no intention of re-defining the wheel.

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: greg stephens
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 10:38 AM

I rate guitarists as follows.
1) Guitarists I like listening to.
2) Guitarists I dont like listening to.
This classification has always suited me fine. Come to think of it, I think they all come into Category 1. I'm easily pleased.

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 11:09 AM

Guest Jim does this desire to classify your performance invade EVERY aspect of your life?

I think you are showing a naively empirical attitude to something(which for most of us) is essentially spiritual.

Try looking out to sea without working how much water there is. Like Bob Marley said, break free from your mental slavery.....

All the best

Big Al Whittle

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: greg stephens
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 11:15 AM

Good question, Al About how much water is there in the sea, would you think? And it depends what what you mean, too. Is it just the amount you can sea from the front at Blackpool? Or would it include the bits you can't see, including(they do say) the stuff on the Other Side of the World.

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 11:36 AM

Hey WLD - I love your laid back approach to life - (and you'd be surprised by mine I'm sure). I'd love to be able to adopt your style in my approach to students - something like:

"Hi guys - let's take today's session like all the rest - just chill out strummin' a few chords here an' there - see'f they fit now and then; throw in some random bass notes along the way"

I know it works occasionally too 'cause I do it myself. Might not attract too many folks willing to open their cheque books though eh?

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 12:57 PM

GUEST,Jim ~ I understand your desire for a classification or "grading" system has something to do with teaching, but I still don't think there's a easy answer available for you.

There's good reason that instrumental music lessons are so commonly conducted one-on-one. As long as a teacher is dealing with each student as an individual, there's no pressing need to set up hard-and-fast classifications. Each student's combination of stengths and weaknesses can be addressed individually.

If you're trying to set up group classes, a certain degree of trial-and-error is probably inevitable. No matter how much effort you put into prior evaluation, there will be students who prove to belong to a more advanced (or less advanced) class than the one to which they are first assigned.

You'll find yourself saying "Hmmm, you could use a better background in theory; maybe you should start coming on Tuesday nights, instead, at least for a while," or maybe, "You were much too modest when you decribed your abilities to me; you don't belong in this beginners' class. Why don't you try my Thursday intermediate class instead?"

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: GUEST,HipflaskAndy
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 12:58 PM

I always think of guitarists in one simple phrase....
'Hands, head and heart'.
I forget who I first heard coin it (can anyone enlighten me?)

Most guitarists that are 'well respected' fulfill any two categories.
How many TRULY fulfill all three?
There stand the 'great' ones.

HFA.

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: GUEST,Spice Boy.
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 01:51 PM

Don't you find that the people who turn up to Shindigs without an instrument then borrow one are by far the better musicians? The ones that turn up with all the bits and pieces are usually just average in my experience.They sit there with tuners and pitchforks and metronomes etc, and when they play the song you think "my god what a travesty".Then some scruffy upstart, with an annoying habit of chewing gum incessantly, is arm-twisted into stepping up and performing a "quick one" and you're transfixed by Nick Drake and Django Rheinhardt and Julian Bream rolled into one!

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 06:47 PM

Spice Boy, you've really got something there.

It may not always be true that earnest fully-equipped players are going to be mediocre, but it's a pretty safe bet that the guy with a modest and casual attitude is going to deliver straight, pure music ~ not ego!

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 06:58 PM

Perhaps you need to be more specific. I am getting confused. What do you want this grading system for.

When you are a guitar teacher it pays to be honest - either you can help somebody, or you can't.

Last year I gleefully reminded Steve Hicks (yairi's star player)when he was playing acoustic avalon of the time way back when this kid come round for his first lesson and said,....I wanna be like Alien Sex Fiend.

i heard Steve say, Well its all the blues you know, you could start off with this Big Bill broonzy thing.....

No wonder he had to become a virtuoso, no doubt he has virtuoso students nowadays.

what i'm trying to say is, that if somebody meets you they know within a very short time if they are going to learn something - benefit by spending time with you.

i think you are looking for something just ain't there. Its a sort of mystical thing, people just know if you have truths to tell them. And the real pisser about this business is that some people achieve more with a couple of chords, than those of us who sweat our socks off trying to work up our technique. who knows what your students will achieve..........

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 07:54 AM

An anectdotal quote from a couple of hundred years ago, when one of the great violin masters** was asked by his royal student, "how am I doin' teach."

There are many people who cannot play the violin at all.
There are many people who can play a little, but badly.
There are a few people who can actually play the violin.
Your highness has progressed to the second rank.

** I believe it's attributed to Baillot (1771 - 1842)

There's your standard three steps of achievement.

John

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Midchuck
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 08:00 AM

John, was it 1842 when he said it?

Peter.

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 04:24 PM

Peter -

1842 was the year he died. His book - still used quite a bit - was published sometime after he died.

The quote gets repeated pretty often, so it can be found quite a few places. I'm pretty sure it's buried in some of the intro/discussion either in Baillot's book or in Auer's, but I didn't find it to quote exactly with my quick-look. (It's possible that the quote was Baillot about Auer, or t'other way 'round, or either of them telling on themself.)

I also don't immediately recall which of the two pronounced that "orchestra quality" mastery of the violin required the ability to sight read unfamiliar music at 220 notes per minute. That's been, and still is, an informally observed standard for symphony players, although I don't know how often they actually "put a stopwatch on them." I can't listen to 220 notes per minute comfortably...

John

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 10:03 PM

Until one humbles themself - and realizes - they are still a BEGINNER - even after 20-30-40 years of playing - they cannot begin.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

The best advice I recieved after 30 years - was take lessons - and this from another, much older man who teaches, records, and still takes lessons.

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: Midchuck
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 10:16 PM

John, what I meant by my question was, I would expect anyone who said something like that to a King, to die quite soon afterward.

I've seen orchestral violinists in a fiddlers' jam, try to play along from sheet music, and unable to do it. Maybe they weren't at that level, though.

I hate it when Gargoyle's right. Not saying so is unfair and dishonest, and saying so encourages him.

Peter.

Subject: RE: Guitarists - How Do You Rate?
From: GUEST,Auggie
Date: 19 Mar 05 - 12:55 AM

"And the little white boys with their shiny guitars,
Would follow right along at their heels.
They learned all the words and they learned all the chords
But they never did learn how it feels."


Steve Goodman, on his relationship to Carl Martin in "You Better Get it While You Can".
Sounds to me like he thinks he's just an "intermediate player" .







In that case I'm somewhat lower than snake s_ _ t.