observations about guitar playing

[Endrik]

Is guitar playing easy or hard?

I've been thinking about this lately.

People generally think that guitar is a good easy instrument to learn.

I belive that it's pretty easy to become a decent/average player.

Percussion/drums are the hardest to learn, horns, keyboards, other string instruments etc. also seem to be harder to learn than a guitar.

But

once you master the drumming you are awsome pretty much all the time, same thing with the other instruments.

In PRO bands/ensembles PRO mucicians are almost always dead on and sound perfect.

Pro drummers sound great, bass players sound great, keyboardists sound great, the violin and saxaphone players sounds great etc.

But PRO guitarists ALWAYS sound the sloppiest compared to the other players.
Even the most accoplished players have problems with precision, intonation etc. when playing live.

I'm talking about Greg Howe level guitar playing, where you need great rhythm and lead skills, versality and all the other things.

People seem to give a free pass to guitar players but are very bitchy when the drummers or bass players are sloppy.

I too don't care if the guitarists are sloppy in a rock band but I'll go apeshit when the other players don't play well. Look at Zeppelin videos, Bonzo and John Paul are playing perfectly but Jimmy is kinda sloppy, I'm 100% sure that people would hate Zeppelin if it would be the other way around....the rhythm section is sloppy.

Guitar seems to be the ONLY instrument wich sounds cool when there's some slop. Does anyone like sloppy drumming, piano, violin, trumpet playing etc.? I don't think so.

That being said, even the guitar players who don't want any slop in their playing still aren't perfect. In some music styles you just need to be perfect...jazz, flamenco, bluegrass etc. But only a few are always dead on.

So I think learning to play the guitar is real easy but to be a pro player who is consistently nailing everything to the T is one of the hardest things you can do.

Just my thought

[Guitardude86]

Some guitarplayers have seriously big egos. They think they're so freaking amazing, but most of them would not stand a chance in hell in an orchestra..
If all guitarplayers were as dedicated as the people who play in orchestras/big bands the world would be a very different place.
And those people don't brag about it either, cause in their world they HAVE to be that good if they want to keep up. Respect to those who deserve it..

[Endrik]

"but most of them would not stand a chance in hell in an orchestra.."

you got that right....or in a kickass jazz ensemble
just because someone can play fast scales and arpeggios in heavy metal band doesn't mean he has the ability do play with some serious big band.

[Guitardude86]

It's definitely important to be "tight" rhythm wise.. I know I'm a Pantera fanboy, and I'm not saying that Dimebag should or could join a jazz-ensemble (god forbid), but that was one tight player! Him and Vinnie, their minds must have been syncopated or something.. He's just dead on.. I love it

[Endrik]

Dime and Vinnie had seriously good meter, they are from texas where groove and rhythms are important.

That being said if you have played rock'n'roll and heavy metal many many years and are pretty badass, then it's pretty easy to jam in rock/metal enviorment. But when you have to jam with Glenn Miller orchestra, then what are you going to do? I would shit my pants There's no common ground you are used to playing rock music. Or what if you suddenly have to play with Vienna Philharmonic orchestra where is no room for mistakes at all. Funny is that those jazz/classic guys don't have any problems jamming in rock enviorment.

[Guitardude86]

I guess you have a point.. Again

[Special-K]

Whatever

[Endrik]

going back to my original point, even such monsters as Al Di Meola make mistakes, more than his band bembers (drummers, percussionists, bassist, keyboardist or whoever he is playing with). It's pretty fucking hard to play guitar on that level.

btw. when I was in Finland a couple of years ago with my Canadian friend who is a seriously badass progressive metal shredder. There was this jam situation. My pal started playing all these crazy riffs and leads and there was this young alto sax player who nailed EVERYTHING wich my pal played and improvised some awsome shit over all those metal riffs....with a saxaphone. Then the sax dude started playing some crazy classical piece...I think it was a Rahmanovic symphony part....and my friend started playing all random chords and scales to figure out wich key the sax player is in....I laughed my ass off I was in a little bit better situation when we jammed some Buddy Rich big band tunes, luckly I've playd jazz otherwise I would have embarassed myself, but it took some time to find the same language with the sax guy, but he didn't had any problems playing Zz Top tunes wich I wanted to do.

[Guitardude86]

I guess you really have to let your inner ear guide you, eh?
Don't get stuck thinking scales and keys.. Break out

[Endrik]

well my friend has an awsome pitch/ear but still was pretty helpless because he didn't know what to play and how to play.....no experience... but in metal he can keep up with the best.

still my point is players who can play everything, jazz, blues, classical, rock, metal, bluegrass or whatever and posess mostern technique are still sloppier than the other musicians...because it's pretty fucking hard to play guitar on that level.

[Guitardude86]

Yep, it is hard.. But why? Is there an exact answer to that?

[Endrik]

I appriciate everyone who can play all kinds of music and jam in any kind of enviorment without any preparation. With preparation any decent player can sound OK, you analyze the tune, you figure what kind of stuff you have to play for it...what suits and what doesn't. But it takes mad skills if you are on the stage with badass musicians and start to jam some random unknown tune and wich style is something you don't play and listen to every day...you know sounding great with the first "take". Those musicians who can do all that crazy shit get my respect but the guitar players amongst them always sound less precise.

[Newc]

The problem with guitarists is they usually learn from a recording, from musicians who aren't dead-on with their timing, and they learn it that way.

To me it's like how kids learn to speak, what accent they have (i.e. Boston vs Mississippi), and how clearly they speak (i.e. mushmouth vs clear).

If a guitarist learns from the very beginning with a metronome, they tend to retain a better sense of timing, but good timing does not go well with rock and roll. Prog, Fusion, Thrash, Speed, etc etc, your timing is crucial, but Pentatonic-based rock sounds like crap if it's too tight.

It don't mean a thang if it ain't got that swang

[Endrik]

Yep, it is hard.. But why? Is there an exact answer to that?

I guess it's the nature of the instrument....the fretboard, the space between the strings, the string tension, the way how you have to make the strings sound, the style/feel you have to use etc. etc. etc. and of course DISTORTION. Dudes who are very good on a bass AND guitar usually shred on the bass with total precision but on the guitar there are some minor mistakes. Different approach, style, string size and space between the strings etc etc.
Guitar is just an instrument wich is very hard to play on a high level.

[thetroy]

At least as far as electric guitar goes... For one thing the strings are really close together and at stage volumes also start feeding back a lot if you're not muting. To mute perfectly while playing already hard music is damn near impossible.

The other thing is that it's (nearly?) impossible to intonate a guitar such that every single fret on every single string is exactly at the desired pitch.

Rhythm there is no excuse for. Most guitarists just don't practice it enough to be really tight. I definitely include myself on that list.