Learn the piece, spoil the magic?

[Vass]

Spivonious said something in the Metallica thread that I have felt for a long time. Thought I'd throw it out there.

Do you ever feel after learning a beloved song note for note that it kind of "ruins" part of the song in listening to it? Do you find that you are picturing what the player on the album was doing, instead of simply listening to it on a more primal level?

Or, conversely do you feel like you appreciate it all the more?

With music played with "feel" (Gilmour's solo on Time, for example), the physical act of playing that solo makes me enjoy it more. It's mostly speed technique stuff that I learn and go, "oh. So that's how he did it.

Wondering if it's just me.

Vass

[quiksilver]

I've had it ruin the experience.

[Number Of The Priest]

With learning magic tricks, it spoils it for me. Anti-climactic to the max.

With learning music, I gain an appreciation of the playing style and the skill needed to perform it.

[demeyes]

To be honest I think learning an instrument has robbed me of listening to a song as a whole. Now I tend to dissect what guitar,drums and bass do most of the time. Its not intentional but I'm pretty much unable to just hear a piece of music as a single entity.
As for learning how to play a piece of music, I find it makes me appreciate that more as I am more familiar with the song then.

[emperor_black]

It makes me appreciate the song more. I am learning Arch enemy's Dead eyes see no future song and eventhough I've listened to Amott's solos some countless times, when the song plays on my Ipod, I still appreciate it.
As a teenager, I used to listen only to drum parts in songs cause I wanted to be a drummer. but I never got to own one cause I live usually in apartments. I Now I hardly listen to the drumming. So, in a way, I have ruined the experience by listening only to the guitar parts.

[nsubulysses]

Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad.

Examples:
Good - Learning a guitar part or solo then being like, "Oh, that's not that hard. I can do that." Lots of the time crazy solo parts sound insane ONLY because they're so fast. When you learn them, you learn that it's not some impossible to conquer technique, it's just what you always do but a little faster so it sounds different.

Bad - When you try to learn something that sounds like 4 notes, then you realize it's a crazy 10 note sweep that's so fast you didn't even catch the other 6 notes with your ear. Then you just feel like you want to hang it up and flip the switch off on your amp.

Generally though, I usually learn stuff and it makes me like the songs more.

[T@rgetDrone]

It's definitely both for me. Sometimes it's more of a "WOW! I can do that, kinda thing. Other times it just puts a wet blanket on what I simply enjoyed listening to.

There are going to be songs that once you learn them you will probably like them less than before you learned them. Others you'll probably like more. And some you may never figure out. Those are the ones you will most likely appreciate the most, along with the frustration that comes with it. That seems to be a fair blanket statement.

I don't get tired of playing or trying to play any song that I "feel." I guess that's the short answer for me. As long as I'm feeling it, it isn't going to get tired. Those being the ones that have stood the test of time.

[Special-K]

For me, not...
But, in the last years of playing guitar I noticed I listen more to the
guitars in the song...and then later I go on to the whole song

[Newc]

I've tried for years to learn to play Rhoads' stuff from Blizzard and Diary. I can do some bits and pieces of bits and pieces, but unlike the other 99% of rock guitarists out there, I can't play one of those songs from beginning to end.

I still listen to them as a fan more than as a student.

By the same token, although I can play tons of Sabbath note-for-note, I still enjoy the songs as a fan as well as enjoying the knowledge that "I can do that". If a guitar is available, I prefer to play along to songs I know I can play (that casual playing-along - where you'd normally do Air Guitar, but you've actually got the guitar) when I listen to them.

[GodOfRhythm]

+1 on Matt's post.

Especially the casual playing-along. I've got the reverse effect of that as well. Nowadays when I'm playing airguitar at a party or whatever and it's a song I know I'll actually start playing it as if I had a real guitar, fingermovements and all. It's looks seriously ridiculous but it's stronger than myself.

The only songs I find it sometimes ruins are songs that sound fantastic on the record (probably due to mixing and effects) but when you play it and it's just a simple arpeggio or something played over and over again. (Every U2 song ever made comes to mind.) Or really complex songs (from a sonic point of view) that you just can not reproduce faithfully on your own, thus having to settle for playing along with the main melody or whatever best as you can.

[tseegert]

To be honest I think learning an instrument has robbed me of listening to a song as a whole. Now I tend to dissect what guitar,drums and bass do most of the time. Its not intentional but I'm pretty much unable to just hear a piece of music as a single entity.
As for learning how to play a piece of music, I find it makes me appreciate that more as I am more familiar with the song then.

Wow, my sentiments exactly.

[CharvelRocker]

To be honest I think learning an instrument has robbed me of listening to a song as a whole. Now I tend to dissect what guitar,drums and bass do most of the time. Its not intentional but I'm pretty much unable to just hear a piece of music as a single entity.
As for learning how to play a piece of music, I find it makes me appreciate that more as I am more familiar with the song then.

+1 On other note, it IS funny how certain pieces of music lose there magic once you figure them out. An example of this is Sweet Child o Mine. I still appreciate that song, but now that I play it, something doesn't feel quite the same about it.

[Robert Burns]

What bothers me, is when i find out that something that sounded insane,
and super technical...really was not hard, and simple. Then i imagine
looking back to 72' and wondering why i didnt come up with that lick in
HS so i would be the famous Rock Star! Damn it! I think i enjoy
it more, finding out the fretboard pattern for a certain favorite song.
Just the last few days, ive mastered "Back in Black".
Now i knew it was E/D/A.. but i never went further into the entire song.
Now im impressed with Angus, for his sheer Rock attitude! And then
seeing him run around the stage, and do the Chuck Berry..while not missing a single note in the middle of a solo...just kills me! Talent?
Angus is a Monster! To me, he defines "rock guitar god".
So learning the licks in Back in Black dont ruin it for me, but actually make it
more of an experience to see what a genius he was for coming up with it?
Or did Malcomb do it? :-))

[tanpsi]

This may sound silly but I think it's different if you learn and memorize from written music or play by ear.

Also if you look at the fretboard vs not looking at the fretboard

I've done both, if I'm thinking "Ok E flat coming up" and looking at the fretboard to find it, it looses some of the magic.

On the other hand if I'm playing in the dark drunk I can get with the emotion that I origionally got from the song

[Subvamp]

I've had some songs "ruined" once I've learned them , but it was always the more technical stuff....things I used to listen to and LOVE to hear over and over, but once I learned it, it lost it's "cool" somehow. Things like the solo in Symphony of Destruction, Sails of Charon by the Scorps, and the intro harmonic tapping to Women in Love by VH.
On the other hand, songs that aren't technical that I've learned I still love to play because they didn't lose any magic, like Do You Feel by Frampton for example. I play that everytime I pick up a black les Paul Custom, and still enjoy listening to it. But Women in Love by VH? I haven't listened to it since I learned it. Weird.