Red Hot

Hey, I recently watched Red Hot in Moscow and I was really amazed. I mean John played really sloppy, he missed strings and his soloing was far from virtuoso shredding, but WHO GIVES A F#UCK ABOUT THAT? It was fact that the band played with a great feeling and emotion and the crowd enjoyed to the max the performance. I think that only guitarists are paying attention to technique and perfection of performance and the other people who are not that much into guitar do not care at all about wheather the guitarist missed a note here or there.
The same goes with Nirvana, Kurt was a terrible player, he did not even always manage to turn his distorsion on time, but nobody cares about that, except other guitar players.
These things made me think a lot of about playing guitar in general. As I have been always very meticulous about my technique I become to realize that it is not at all the most importanat thing. I think that players like Kurt and John are cursed mainly by guitarists who have wasted their lives playing scales at 1200 bpm and find it offensive and perverse people who hardly have plyed any scales in their lives to become stars.
Remeber, music is not made only to be listened by musicians.
What do you think, should one waste his life, just to please the guitar professors at Berklee and Git or should he spend his time figuring out original stuff at the expense of perfect technique?

Part of what you're saying does make some sense, because it is true that guitarplayers are very critisizing about other guitarplayers, but the fact remains, that the people on stage shouldn't screw up a lot, they're on that stage to make music and entertain, not just stand there and try to play on of their songs and screw it up, when you go and see a band, you don't just go there to see the band, but to see them play the songs that you like.

Guitarplayers only critisize other guitarplayers, because that is what people do, just like football players get critisized by people who have no idea what they're talking about, if you play the guitar, you're a musician. If you're a musician you will get critisized by other musicians. It's the way things work an you can't stop it, nor should you, otherwise new musicians wouldn't get inspired when seeing their favorite band play.

Yes I know that that is the way things work, but I think that some people are over-obsessed with the idea of having a pefect technique. I'm not talking about doing major blunders such as playing a wrong chord or something, just some people would consider guitarplyers who play sloppy bad players. And my point is that only guitarists care about such details.

I agree with you. It's impossible to have perfect technique, and for someone to worry too much about there technique is going to waste their time. But you should have some good technique, no one goes to see a band that just strums or bangs out notes without a care. Nor is anyone going to turn away if you miss a note or accidently bump a string, so on so on. If they do, F*** them. As long as you are playing the basic idea of the music correctly, your ok when you miss a string or whatever. No one can be perfect 100% of the time, so your bound to mess up somewhere. Now if you keep messing up, or if you think thats ok, I'd say thats a extremely low standard to have.

Other guitarists will point out mistakes of another player, because I think we have some pride in what we do. I do it too. I can't speak for anyone else but myself, but I don't think it's done to curse the other guy. Just the fact that I can notice that, doesn't mean I'm saying, "haha, you messed up, so your a horrible player". I could play the same song and someone else will notice where I would mess up somehow. It's an endless cycle like evil sheep said, it's going to get noticed (criticized) by someone because your going to make mistakes.

The guys you were talking about are still on rhythm, even if it's not exactly precise. Their is just alot of feeling in it, and if your playing by feeling; there is going to be some kind of rhythm to it if your on with the drumbeat behind it. Any musician can appreciate feeling and emotion in music.

Well, yes, that was actually my point, if you mess a little its not a big deal. Because it seems to me that many of the guitarists think you suck when you screw something a little bit. I do not have low standards, just the opposite, when I am on stage I am so concentrated on playing with perfect technique that a lot of the feeling and the emotion gets lost. Now I have changed my understanding -- now my live phylosophy is "ok I'll do some mistakes, thats ok, it is inevitable but I will enjoy more the music and it won't be like I am taking an exam or being auditioned"
However I'm not talking about the other extreme which would be: comming stoned on stage, messing severly the song, forgetting the notes and stuff like that. That is showing disrespect for the people who have come to the show.
Btw do you guys drink before playing live. i have found for myself that two beers work fine before playng live, because I don't feel drunk but at the same time I'm kind of a little dizzy and more relaxed.

Do I drink before playing? Not anymore! :D Last time I did that, I ended up playing a completely different song from the band. I didn't stop either, I did it through the whole song. I was pretty wasted! Since then, I save drinking until after the show.

lol
it can get really messy when you are drunk on stage...and it gets really dangerous when there is a microphone in front of you. :D

hey I am a senior member
wow
big honors

Haha.. :) Yes, leave the drinking to the guy in the crowd screaming, "Play some Skynrd". Anybody else get that? I hope it's not just me.

Back to the technique discussion, I think the only time you should worry about that is when your recording. Especially if your planning on giving it out for any type of promoting. Another than that, have fun when you play. That's what it is all about, stress can kill you!

Senior member? I think it makes you sound old. Slow diver, You should change your name to muff diver, I would. :D

[Edited by noticingthemistake on 01-11-2003 at 08:59 PM]

:D
muff diver sounds good and mature, appropriate for a senior member ;)

And yeah sure technique should be the best you can show for the moment because it stays there forever. And you can perform the stuff as many times as you like which is not possible in a live situation, so for a lousy recording there is no excuse.

:D yeah I think I was alittle high last night when I wrote that. You should always practice forth good technique. That way, even when your in a live situation your technigue is molded in your mind so you don't have to think about it. Also when you record, you got your stuff down pat.
You shouldn't rely on technology to save you. Since now if you mess up it's easy to punch in and punch out where you messed up. It's not good to rely on that, you should be able to get through a song perfectly. Maybe a few bumps depending on it difficulty, and but anymore than 1 or 2. Keep practicing!

What I ususally do when recording is to record the different riffs seprately so that I can apply different fx and stuff to them. Also when I have to change from clean to distosion or when I change the prsets on my processor. These are the cases in which I record things seperately. Is this right?

Yeah you should, if you have enough tracks available and you know how you would want the final mix to be. Distorted guitar on one track, clean guitar on a seperate track. Added effects on the guitar should be done seperately too, even if it's apart of the main guitar. Then if you have to bounce all the guitar tracks down into two tracks, so its stereo.

Originally posted by aiwass
I agree that one shouldn't criticize other guitar players (unless they really suck, like for instance the dude in Green Day:) ), but I'm fed up with people saying "Oh, only a guitarist can think that you need good technique! You only need chops for Yngwie-style wanking, and Yngwie is bad, cuz my personal hero, the guitarist in f*cking Linkin Park told me that solos are just for showing off, and that you don't need skill to be famous!"

If classical musicians were like today's guitarists, there would be noone who could play Chopin, Vivaldi, etc.

Did anyone say Vivaldi was a showoff?

I think what people are getting at when they say things of that sort is that people will allow the demonstration of technique to interfere with the song itself. Nobody says that Vivaldi was a showoff, but by the same token that's because his instrumentation made the song. The same with Zappa - look at how complex The Black Page is vrs many of his other compostions. It's a matter of knowing what to play and when. I mean, there's a reason why I can't listen to Dream Theatre but love Symphony X; the Taste Factor.

But I'm a bassist, what do I know?

Originally posted by Raskolnikov

I think what people are getting at when they say things of that sort is that people will allow the demonstration of technique to interfere with the song itself.

Exactly. Well the way I think anyways. Solo technique is cool but at least make it have something to do with the main part of the song. Guys like Hammett, King, and Malmsteen are too busy with showing off. The over-all music should be good, and within the context of an original idea. Like Vivaldi's "spring", the whole thing is based on one concept. Beethoven was the master of this, the easiest example is ode to joy. One small idea made the whole thing happen. Alot of classical music is basically the same principle, so I wouldn't consider them showing off. They were just getting the idea, feeling, expression, whatever acrosst. They did what they had to do, and sometimes that dictates crazy little things in music.

Aiwass, I'd say you'd have to have some skill to be famous. Along with other things that really have nothing to do with music, like looks and garabge like that.

Originally posted by aiwass

[i]Originally posted by noticingthemistake Aiwass, I'd say you'd have to have some skill to be famous.

Hell no. [/B]

Name someone who is famous who has no skill at what they do to become famous? Even the simpliest things on guitar take some skill. Or whatever instrument you play?

Yeah I guess you could say that. But go ahead and try to teach a hamster to play a D5 chord. The skill would be in you trying to get the hamster to play a guitar. You will soon give up because that would be almost impossible. If you managed, you would probably become famous if you sent a video of it to America's Funniest Home Videos. That's not the point. A skill is something you have to learn how to do, now if the vines don't have any skill. Then someone like me who can't play drums should be able to play all their songs without learning.

Now if your talking about talent, thats just the level of the skill acquired. I wouldn't say the guitarist from linkin park has much talent. From what I've heard anyways. The overall band has talent, but I wouldn't point it on one person. Their are alot of famous people without talent, especially in music. The Vines, yes and pretty much everything else on MTV is pure sh*t. Talent is in the eye of the beholder. I'm not going to get into a endless agruement about who has talent and who doesn't.