Danny Sapko discovers… (now including follow up vid that is worse!)

[Doctor J]

5 hours ago, BassApprentice said:

If he can note perfect play all these solos then he can definitely write his own stuff. Most musicians have enough creativity to write their own riffs and solos so it's all just so very odd that he's done this.

My experience differs. When we were kids, a mate of mine could play all kinds of widdly-widdly stuff, very technically accomplished, exceptional coordination. He couldn't create to save his life, however. He had absolutely no creative gift, everything he wrote was mediocre and, when he tried to solo, is was just a mish-mash of licks of the players whose material he had learned through reading tabs. He had no musical voice of his own. That well was dry. I used to know a clarinet player in an orchestra for whom the idea of writing or improvising something of their own was an entirely alien concept which did not compute.

 

Being a coordinated player does not correspond to being an interesting creative spirit and vice-versa. That this lad has taken the time to learn so much of other people's material and try to pass it off as his own suggests that he is not well endowed with a creative brain. At the risk of a generalisation, you'd expect creative people to spend their time... well... creating, rather than learning other people's material forensically.

Edited Tuesday at 18:15 by Doctor J
typo

[kwmlondon]

19 hours ago, BabyBlueSound said:

 

This is what got me thinking. He's obviously not bad at all. To me, he's way above the level where even if he doesn't have any musical imagination, he could still string together a lot of technics and building blocks from all the stuff he obviously practiced to death. He could have changed up rythm and stuff just enough that a Laney can't have anything against him.

 

But he choose not to, and thought if someone only got 200 views, none of that 200 people obviously interested in guitar stuff will ever stumble upon his socials campaigns... 😁 this is a very weird level of lazy stupid.

I don't know. I find it very easy to take a bassline or riff and vary it - it's usually just a case of working out what scale or mode it's based around and change the order or rhythm. I find it very natural, in fact, it's fun to learn a bassine verbatim then re-work it somehow (moving it from 4 to 5 string usually helps to shake things up). But... the way Giaccomo plays EXACTLY the same tempo, key, note-for-note is weird. When someone does that for a well-known song they're showing off thier ability to mimic and their technical virtuosity, but if it's an unknown piece why would anyone not put in some of their own signature, their own style - voicings they enjoy that kind of thing? No. I honestly think he's devoid of any curiosity (he's said he doesn't practise scales or know any theory) and isn't interested in what's behind a piece of music. It COULD be lazy/stupid but I still think it's as much down to just not having any kind of musical creativity and imagination.

[jonnybass]

wait he claims to write music that he's shared as his and has done this without any knowledge of music theory at all, and his fans believe this?  I mean i have only heard small snippets but i am not sure i'd find that claim in itself credible.  He seems like a very unsavoury character, and the way the worlds going with social media and music, he wont be the last.

 

Jonny

 

[kwmlondon]

6 minutes ago, jonnybass said:

wait he claims to write music that he's shared as his and has done this without any knowledge of music theory at all, and his fans believe this?  I mean i have only heard small snippets but i am not sure i'd find that claim in itself credible.  He seems like a very unsavoury character, and the way the worlds going with social media and music, he wont be the last.

 

Jonny

 

I don't know if he claims outright to have written music, but he's performed other people's work without properly attributing AND what's really bad is he's even monetised tab transcriptions of their music and charged for it. It's worth watching Sapko's video as he explains it pretty well.

 

I honestly don't think most of his followers know or care about guitar playing as such, he's a very attractive young man who looks great on camera and makes superb content that's watched by the general public.

[Hellzero]

Strangely nobody mentions what could be called the superstars live issue, which is full playback totally mimiced to supposedly not disappoint their fans.

 

I guess it's what he's been doing since the beginning, hence Danny Sapko's comment about his not so great ability to play live for real in real footage...

[BabyBlueSound]

19 minutes ago, Hellzero said:

Strangely nobody mentions what could be called the superstars live issue, which is full playback totally mimiced to supposedly not disappoint their fans.

 

I guess it's what he's been doing since the beginning, hence Danny Sapko's comment about his not so great ability to play live for real in real footage...

@kwmlondon said he was actually pretty good live tho!

[Hellzero]

2 minutes ago, BabyBlueSound said:

@kwmlondon said he was actually pretty good live tho!

I don't think you understood what I wrote...

[BabyBlueSound]

1 minute ago, Hellzero said:

I don't think you understood what I wrote...

Very possible. I re-read it and I'd still answer the same thing... 😅

[jonnybass]

2 hours ago, kwmlondon said:

I don't know if he claims outright to have written music, but he's performed other people's work without properly attributing AND what's really bad is he's even monetised tab transcriptions of their music and charged for it. It's worth watching Sapko's video as he explains it pretty well.

 

I honestly don't think most of his followers know or care about guitar playing as such, he's a very attractive young man who looks great on camera and makes superb content that's watched by the general public.

I've watched Danny's videos, but if hes not claiming to have written the music he was releasing on spotify, who is he stating has written it?  Also how do you transcribe tunes with no musical knowledge?  According to the video its not the composers.

 

Jonny

[Hellzero]

3 minutes ago, BabyBlueSound said:

Very possible. I re-read it and I'd still answer the same thing... 😅

Ok, let's make it simple, what @kwmlondon saw may have been a playback live performance where all the musicians where mimicking.

 

Better this way? 😉

[kwmlondon]

11 minutes ago, jonnybass said:

I've watched Danny's videos, but if hes not claiming to have written the music he was releasing on spotify, who is he stating has written it?  Also how do you transcribe tunes with no musical knowledge?  According to the video its not the composers.

 

Jonny

Doesn't take any musical knowledge to write up tab you just have to know where your fingers went on the fretboard. I doubt he was notating it as a musical score but I'm just guessing. Having said that I get really confused writing out tab but then I'm a dufus. I'd forgotten that he'd actually released someone's tune on spotify as his own. I don't know how it works though if you are covering someone else's music and correctly attribute it. I've never put anything on spotify.

 

11 minutes ago, Hellzero said:

Ok, let's make it simple, what @kwmlondon saw may have been a playback live performance where all the musicians where mimicking.

 

Better this way? 😉

 

Er. Well. It could have been. I guess. If so that'd be even more impressive than if they acutally played it! Good grief - imagine having to learn it so well you can mime every note on the fretboard but you're not actually playing it. With a live drummer!

[fretmeister]

If you can write tab then you can use an app that will then generate the notes on the stave for you.

It will then also flag if anything written is incorrect for the key and time signature.

 

It's not difficult anymore.

 

And there are now at least a dozen AI based transcribing apps - they actually transcribe from the audio.

I suppose it was just the natural evolution of spoken language computer dictation.

[kwmlondon]

55 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

If you can write tab then you can use an app that will then generate the notes on the stave for you.

It will then also flag if anything written is incorrect for the key and time signature.

 

It's not difficult anymore.

 

And there are now at least a dozen AI based transcribing apps - they actually transcribe from the audio.

I suppose it was just the natural evolution of spoken language computer dictation.

I feel so old.

 

[jonnybass]

I did think AI would be able to do this but why would you pay someone else to have AI do it for you, my point was if someone tells me they have no music theory knowledge, then they cant be transcribing anything, they must be using someone/something else to do it.  Its like me saying I have never had a flying lesson, then showing you footage of a plane flying, i clearly cant have flown it as I dont know how to.

 

Jonny

[jonnybass]

8 minutes ago, kwmlondon said:

I feel so old.

 

me too

[Beedster]

He’s the Talented Mr Ripley of guitar, no taste, no creativity, no morals, just a talent for mimicry 

[Hellzero]

You couldn't be much right Chris, and he's living in Italy... Quite right again.

[chriswareham]

9 hours ago, kwmlondon said:

I find it very easy to take a bassline or riff and vary it

 

That's a common technique used by the kind of composers who have to write songs to order, but it's skating very close to plagiarism. It reminds me of a bassist I knew when I we were both teenagers. Unlike me he came from a very well off family, had a top of the range bass, Hartke amp stack when that was considered the gear to aspire to, and had attended the Bass Institute in LA. Could play Living Colour and Red Hot Chili Pepper bass parts flawlessly. But by his own admission he couldn't write an original bass part, let alone an actual song. Giacomo isn't even on that guy's level, as the few videos of him unquestionably playing live are mediocre at best and several are downright terrible.

[kwmlondon]

1 hour ago, chriswareham said:

 

That's a common technique used by the kind of composers who have to write songs to order, but it's skating very close to plagiarism. It reminds me of a bassist I knew when I we were both teenagers. Unlike me he came from a very well off family, had a top of the range bass, Hartke amp stack when that was considered the gear to aspire to, and had attended the Bass Institute in LA. Could play Living Colour and Red Hot Chili Pepper bass parts flawlessly. But by his own admission he couldn't write an original bass part, let alone an actual song. Giacomo isn't even on that guy's level, as the few videos of him unquestionably playing live are mediocre at best and several are downright terrible.

Well he seemed okay when I saw him. Bit uninspiring but the band was super tight. I definitely went away thinking he was a decent musician.