Originally Posted by: quickfingersthe whole "i want to be famous for my ablity, not having girls jump on my d*ck" thing kindof bugs me in the respect that thats a totally unrealistic dream, 100 times moreso than being in rolling stone. you could be the best in your whole damn city and still be a nothing talentwise. i mean, look at all the steve vai wannabees who play amazing. no one really gives a ****. yea, thats really cool you can play that fast. but i would give up all the talent in the world to keep writing songs, and thats usually what i do. yea, i love shmabbing it up just as much as the next guitarist. thats usually waht i do when i play guitar. but to say you want to be famous by being an incredible musician is the most farfeched of all. theres always going to be a 100 guys better than you, always, that are playing the same thing youre trying to play, but better, and it doesnt have a thing to do with "style", it has alot more to do with that they can play a hell of a lot better than you can.

on a side note, i get annoyed by how music is less about music and more about money, clothing style, attitude, ect...but you cant go so far as to say that you would want your fan base to be lonely nerd guitar players who want to know how to play what licks in what songs. that **** would be more irritating than girls asking if you can play acoustic AND electric guitar...music cant always be about theory and bla bla bla, sometimes its good to have fans that dont give a **** how to play your songs, and just enjoy it. notice how players like joe satriani dont have fans like that? thats because to people who dont want to play like satriani, its not very interesting. it turns to elevator music. sometimes its good just to listen to music not trying to say "ooooh, i can play better than this dude and hes famous!" and more about just enjoying music.

Sorry for sounding like I"m on the offense, but I partially am. Did you think about anything you just said? To say that a guitarist with the dream of being famous by his own talent is far fetched is like saying a guy that is going to college to become a doctor that hopes to discover new medicines because he wants to heal is far fetched. I mean, not everyone in the world just wants to get laid and show off and yes, people (myself included) do pay attention to the talented guitarists aside from Vai. Yes, there always will be someone better than you, that's a fact. But it's not like it's a competition, so who cares about who's better than who?

On the second paragraph, music isn't always about image or money. You have to look for yourself to find the pure music. If you just turn on the radio or television, then yeah you're going to be force fed something that's completely full of it. But if you really look for it you can find worlds of music that are just made because some guy wanted to make something a certain way. Music isn't always about theory. What it is always about is feeling. And it varies on how much is there from artist to artist. Furthermore, not everyone learns what they listen to. I personally can play maybe 3 songs on 2 instruments combined. I don't learn other peoples' music typically because it's just not interesting to me. I don't know a single bit of Satriani's music, but you can bet your ass I appreciate every last song he makes simply for the feeling that's gone into it. Not everyone is worried about who's better. There are, simply put, just people out there that really appreciate the art and heart that go into music. And there are several of them here at this forum.