Quote:
Originally Posted by Guitar Slim II
You act as if learning the songs you want to learn is trivial. For a player, it's kind of the whole point...
But when you say you "learned a song", did you learn it note-for-note like the guitar player on the record played it? And could you nail it?
If you can already do that -- that is, play just like B.B. or Hendrix or Clapton or Knopfler et al -- well, you're probably already beyond what most teachers can teach you.
But if you can't play it note-for-note, in real time, then you haven't really learned the song, IMO. That should be the goal: play what the cats are playing, right down to their signature licks and favorite chord voicings. And really play it: in time, with the record or with other musicians.
And even if you don't really want to play covers long-term, you master a style by mastering the masters. That's how you make a style part of your own musical DNA.
Styles like blues and rock are usually pretty basic, the harmony is pretty straightforward compared to jazz or classical. What can you do, then, but just try to be a better player? And the best way to do that is to learn from great players...they're the best teachers you'll ever have.
|
I'm always interested in how people learn. This certainly describes a way to become very skilled, but I wonder, when you learn this way, it would take a great deal of time, so when do you develop your own style?
I mean, none of the players you mention got great by copying others. Here's BB King's words on how he developed his vibrato: "So I always equated the bottleneck with that sound. I used to hear records from the islands, like Hawaii, and the guitar player would sound something similar to that, too. So what I would do is take the guitar, the neck of the guitar, and every time I played it, twirled my hand like this. My stupid ears were saying that sounds similar to what they were doing. And every time I pick up a guitar that's the first thing I try to do. I just trill my hand. It got better at it. I can't really show you, but holding the neck of the guitar, you grab a note and just trill your hand. It's just grab the note and you just hold it. But after I practiced for a while, you learn that you can sustain it. I could hold it until I get ready to turn it loose."
I guess it comes back to what others are saying... what's the goal?