Guitarists who don't know what they are playing

[peteb]

This old chestnut again!

I have been playing in bands and gigged for more than 30 years and have played with many musicians who are generally considered to be very good, including quite a few who have been ‘pros’ at one time or another, some who read music and some who don’t…..

The new keys player in a band I’m playing in now has been in the touring bands of a couple of household names, played world tours, Wembley Stadium, etc. I assume that he can probably read music but I couldn’t say for certain because in over 30 years of playing I have never had anyone try to put a chart in front of me or suggested that I needed to read music…!

[ziggydolphinboy]

well ive had some experiences over three weekends that actually at one piont last weekend nearly brought me to tears!!!!!

heres the deal
11 piece band playing , towerof power, incognito, brand new heavies, all sorts of funk stuff,soul ballands,jamaraqoi ,steveie wonder ....
5 star hotels all around the world everything paid for! get the picture .....

we all come from all over the country and reherse in cornwall, so the whole weekend is tied up.

1st rehersal
girl singer (main singers wife) and guitarist (who ive known for years) havent learnt a bean... to it being a tad embarrasing,,,
i didnt care as all my parts were nailed

2nd rehersal,
girl singer , guitarist had forgot what they learnt in first rehersals and also didnt learn anything new.

i nailed all my parts and was constantly being asked by the band (except for the horns who can read ,i cant)
what i had written down as i had made notes throughout the two rehersals.

3rd rehersal.
5 days before we are due to go down to cornwall the guitarist wants to pull out (1st major gig in june to 500people!)
so as im kind i went to his house told him his good (he is a blinding player) and he had 3 days to learn the tunes.

drove down with him... 1st,2,3,4,5,tune was dreadfully embarrassing, and then the day and his playing got worse to the piont where i had to keep asking to play my part with vocals and drums only to prove that my playing and notes were right(guitarst conveneintly put his amp directly next to mine), as the day drew on i got even more pissed with him when he was reading my notes playing my root notes and i had to piont were we were in the tune with my right hand while still trying to finger the notes with my left hand!!!!!!!!


then he asked if before the next rehersal i could pop round his so he can write my hand written notes out!!

sunday was even worse and i at one piont wanted to cry when he was complimented for 1 solo that he got right!!!!!!

so im absolutely gutted and am very cross but above all that dissapionted that he himself/girl singer hasnt put thier hands up and admitted that he hasnt listedne to the tunes ( all the middle 8s and brigdes of the tunes he didnt even know, and kept telling me how to play the tune)
whereas i saidas there are 3 tunes out of 26 that i admitted i needed to work on .
gutted everyone really am.


... guitarists eh!!

[RhysP]

[quote name='Bilbo' post='1205203' date='Apr 19 2011, 08:58 PM']But the world can always use another honest man [/quote]


Seriously, your "work ethic" comment got me thinking earlier; I know lots of musicians, and a lot of them are really good players. The two people I know that I really admire for their drive & the sheer amount of work they do as musicians are both excellent sight readers & possess an incredible amount of theoretical knowledge.

[Bilbo]

Can I stress one partifcular point that I have made in other threads but not here.

Reading, for me, is not about gigs. I do no more reading gigs that anyone else (6 last year out of 50 odd). For me it is about efficiency and spending less time going over and over the same old same old (ziggydolphinboys story is a familiar one) and about getting the most out of practice time. I keep getting accused of being an elitist but I keep saying to people 'its not so hard to do'. Spend half an hour a day on it and, before you know it, it starts to come together. Then everything starts to open up. Its not actually that much harder than tab and, in the long run, a lot more useful. And its fun to play stuff. When I got my double bass last year, I was playing Bach Cello Suites and Paul Chambers transcriptions immediately, very badly and no arco but the learning I got from that was so much greater than learning a few riffs off Blue Note cds or just running scales (not that that is not useful). I could access various method books, Simandl, Sevcik etc and use them immediately without having to figure them out note by note. Much better use of time and a lot of fun.

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='Bilbo' post='1205501' date='Apr 20 2011, 08:49 AM']ff. When I got my double bass last year, I was playing Bach Cello Suites and Paul Chambers transcriptions immediately[/quote]
...but you want to play that kind of stuff. Dare I say most people don't...?

[Bilbo]

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='1205505' date='Apr 20 2011, 08:55 AM']...but you want to play that kind of stuff. Dare I say most people don't...?[/quote]

The material I use is irrelevant to the argument. It is the potential to access sophisticated music immediately and to spend time playing that music instead of just knobbing about with scales and riffs and stuff. 'Standing In The Shadows of Motown' would be just as good, a book of trombone solos, any transcribed lines or any conventional method book. It all opens up. When I hear people pick up their saxophones, guitars and basses, in my experiences, they generally all play the same few licks they always play. Written material is often great for pushing you into new territory which is where the learning is.

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='Bilbo' post='1205583' date='Apr 20 2011, 10:16 AM']The material I use is irrelevant to the argument. It is the potential to access sophisticated music immediately and to spend time playing that music instead of just knobbing about with scales and riffs and stuff. 'Standing In The Shadows of Motown' would be just as good, a book of trombone solos, any transcribed lines or any conventional method book. It all opens up. When I hear people pick up their saxophones, guitars and basses, in my experiences, they generally all play the same few licks they always play. Written material is often great for pushing you into new territory which is where the learning is.[/quote]
Fairy nuff. I rarely sit down and work stuff out for the sake of it... but my ears are always open to what I'm listening to, and I get new ideas from that. I'll remember it, and work it out from my head whenever I'm having a plunk.

[Bilbo]

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='1205586' date='Apr 20 2011, 10:24 AM'].. but my ears are always open to what I'm listening to, and I get new ideas from that. I'll remember it, and work it out from my head whenever I'm having a plunk.[/quote]

That'll work too

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='Johnston' post='1205595' date='Apr 20 2011, 10:38 AM']Sounds a bit like music lessons in school TBH where they teach you to play recorder just so you can play some French song about Jack in front of the whole school.[/quote]
Innit?

I'm constantly astonished at the pomposity of a lot of what is being said here - I'm trying my best to ignore it and concentrate on the nuts'n'bolts of the debate.

TBH, it's canny funny. It's like trying to humour conversation with a stuffy, opinionated old uncle...

[Bilbo]

Up yours, sunshine!

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='Bilbo' post='1205609' date='Apr 20 2011, 10:50 AM']Up yours, sunshine! [/quote]
Charming - you're supposed to offer me a Werther's Original.

[Bilbo]

[quote name='Johnston' post='1205595' date='Apr 20 2011, 10:38 AM']Learning to do it just so you have access to music you have no interest in seems to be a bit of a dumb reason to learn.[/quote]

'Thunk' (Bilbo's head hitting the desk again)

[Gust0o]

[quote name='Johnston' post='1205615' date='Apr 20 2011, 10:57 AM']That'll be that sophisticated music you have access to boring you to a coma [/quote]

You speak, of course, of Jazz?

/cue Bilbo-shaped ire

[Doddy]

[quote name='Johnston' post='1205595' date='Apr 20 2011, 10:38 AM']One mans sophisticated is another mans sh*te. So is anyone who plays covers or originals without the use of notation just "Knobbing about"?[/quote]

No,and no one said they were.

[quote name='Johnston' post='1205595' date='Apr 20 2011, 10:38 AM']Learning to do it just so you have access to music you have no interest in seems to be a bit of a dumb reason to learn.[/quote]

What about the access to the music you are interested in?

[Gust0o]

[quote name='Johnston' post='1205655' date='Apr 20 2011, 11:44 AM']Just had a nosey around the WWW.

Seems Tab was in use from the 1300's and Modern notation for the 16th century.

doesn't that make Tab older [/quote]

Someone should edit that Wikipedia entry to note that you can only access sophisticated forms of music via a deep and un-erring understanding of modern musical theory and notation.

[RhysP]

By "Sophisticated" I'm assuming that Bilbo means harmonically and/or rhythmically complex.
A large number of musicians don't play complex music, they play 12 bar blues & fairly simplistic rock or pop music, which is pretty much just two or three different riffs strung together in predictable sequences.

(Apologies Bilbo if my assumption is wrong).

[Doddy]

[quote name='Johnston' post='1205646' date='Apr 20 2011, 11:31 AM']Actually Bilbo did . It has the potential of accessing sophisticate music . To me it is implied that if it's not learnt from notaion or whatever "sophisticated " music is it's knobbing about.[/quote]

I didn't take it that way. I didn't see anything offensive in the term knobbing around. I knob around with scales all time time.
As far as sophisticated music-I took it to mean that if you can read to a degree,you have instant access to read and play music that is more complex-be it 'Donna Lee' or Jamerson or whatever. Sure you can do it by ear,but it takes a lot longer. Again,I didn't see it as being derogatory.

[quote name='Johnston' post='1205646' date='Apr 20 2011, 11:31 AM']Thats fair enough but for the vast majority the music the want is accessible without notation. Proven by the fact the majority don't read yet of all play music I would assume they would be interested in so reading is not a necessary skill for the majority.[/quote]

Every kind of music is accessible without notation if you want to listen to it and spend time learning it.
But again,we are back to the 'necessary' bit. Reading isn't necessary for the majority of my work or for a lot of the music that I want to learn for my own amusement,but that doesn't mean that it isn't/wasn't worth learning and helped me.It isn't necessary that I use a 5 string all the time either-often it just makes things that little bit easier.

Just out of interest(and going from the Roy Vogt quite earlier),I'm guessing that some of the non readers have probably bought some method books or whatever. If so,how do you play the material in them?

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='Doddy' post='1205684' date='Apr 20 2011, 12:11 PM']Just out of interest(and going from the Roy Vogt quite earlier),I'm guessing that some of the non readers have probably bought some method books or whatever. If so,how do you play the material in them?[/quote]
I never have.

Most useless post ever, I know.

[Doddy]

[quote name='Johnston' post='1205655' date='Apr 20 2011, 11:44 AM']Just had a nosey around the WWW.

Seems Tab was in use from the 1300's and Modern notation for the 16th century.

doesn't that make Tab older [/quote]

Doesn't make it right though.
Try giving tab to someone who doesn't play a fretted string instrument
Notation is universal.

[RhysP]

I have to say, nothing has ever made me want to put the work in & learn to read music & swot up on some theory more than some of the attitudes displayed over the last twelve pages.

[icastle]

[quote name='Gust0o' post='1204282' date='Apr 18 2011, 11:23 PM']I thought there was a new law that we all had to have hot women, to cover up for being burly men?! [/quote]

Ive not got the hang of pretending to be a burly man yet, hiow the hell am I gonna cope with being a hot woman?

[kerley]

I took the time to learn how to read a few months ago. I am a bedroom bassist who likes to learn a lot of new material.
So for me the big advantage with being able to read is that I can access any material and then learn it. I am not reliant on finding tab (which is largely incorrect anyway!) and I can also play things I haven't heard before (pretty impossible with tab)

Another advanage is it forces you into actually learning the notes of the instrument your are playing

So been practising here and there for a couple of months but can now sight read basic stuff work through the more complex stuff so it really doesn't take much but I feel I have improved in many areas by doing so.

If you are interested in bass/music why wouldn't you do it?

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='kerley' post='1205746' date='Apr 20 2011, 12:53 PM']If you are interested in bass/music why wouldn't you do it?[/quote]
Personally, I just don't have the appetite for it.

[Gust0o]

[quote name='kerley' post='1205746' date='Apr 20 2011, 12:53 PM']If you are interested in bass/music why wouldn't you do it?[/quote]

Oh, lots of reasons:

- Because I'm not interested
- Because I don't need it for what I'm doing
- I only in my bedroom or on Youtube
- I am doing it, I just don't intend to be fluent
- I'm not into Jazz and don't own any knitwear
- Because I'm not a pro
- Because I'm on a salary and this is just a hobby to me

I don't think anyone is [b]anti[/b] here, which was a comment which cropped up probably a couple of pages back. I just think that most of us are resisting the idea that a single learning style and direction will suit all abilities and ambitions.

[tauzero]

[quote name='ziggydolphinboy' post='1205352' date='Apr 19 2011, 11:14 PM']so im absolutely gutted and am very cross but above all that dissapionted that he himself/girl singer hasnt put thier hands up and admitted that he hasnt listedne to the tunes ( all the middle 8s and brigdes of the tunes he didnt even know, and kept telling me how to play the tune)[/quote]
Which prison were they recruited from?