The only guitar lesson that I will ever need!

[Robin, Wales]

I love this. Such a wonderful approach to the instrument, that I now realise I have followed myself. Four years into playing this style (although 50 years into guitar playing on and off) and I have still not finished exploring the possibilities within those first few frets beyond the nut or capo, and I doubt that I ever will.

Mind you, I would just LOVE that $50,000+ Loyd Loar Gibson L5 he is playing. There's something about the archtop timbre that really appeals to me for flatpicking song accompaniment. I seem to spend more time playing at home and performing with my cheap plywood acoustic archtop than I do with my lovely D-18.

[JonPR]

That takes me back too. I started in 1965, and taught myself the same kinds of tunes to start with - with the help of one song book and a friend or two. It was easy, and making stuff up and learning by ear from records was all part of it. It's kind of how everyone learned back then, if you didn't take lessons (and very few did).

But, to be fair, music was a lot simpler in those days! Not just the folk and country George is talking about (which was just as cool in the UK in the mid-60s), but blues, rock'n'roll, pop and the infant rock music just being born. (Almost no one paid attention to jazz or classical back then.)

Now there is an insane level of technical accomplishment, seemingly everywhere. Child prodigies all over youtube. Shredders going crazy. It's a whole lot harder for any kid starting out today, with way too much info out there to try to choose from, and what seems like a mountain to climb. The hills were a whole lot smaller back in the 60s...

[DCCougar]

Originally Posted by JonPR

....But, to be fair, music was a lot simpler in those days!.... Now there is an insane level of technical accomplishment.... The hills were a whole lot smaller back in the 60s...

Hmm. I'm not so sure that art is judged by its level of complexity.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by DCCougar

Hmm. I'm not so sure that art is judged by its level of complexity.

I agree, absolutely! That wasn't really my point. But it's quite natural for young learners to be wowed by virtuosity, and to believe you need to be that good to actually play anything at all.

I think if I was a teenager starting today, I'd be simply intimidated by it all. If I could find my way to some simple music that expressed what I wanted - that was "art" in the sense we both mean - that would be great. But that seems a lot harder today. That music is out there, but often outshone (purely in technical terms) by everything else. I suspect it can feel "uncool" to prefer something simple (especially in an old-fashioned way) to something awesomely skilled and new.

Back in the 1960s, most of what we heard was simple and cool. Three or 4 chords, no fancy production (overdubs, effects and so on). There was virtuosity here and there, of course, but not so much as to make you think you had to be that good. When Eric Clapton was called "God", he wasn't really playing anything that awesome from today's perspective. But back then he was practically the only one doing anything like that!

Moreover, the simple music was exciting! That was why you wanted to play! Basic blues and rock'n'roll felt thrillingly new, not like the archaic sub-genres they can seem like today.

In the mid-late 70s, punk was mostly an atrempt to grab back that sense of exciting simplicity that characterized pop/rock before it became AOR, MOR or prog. Nirvana did something similar in the 90s.

Of course, I'm talking electric guitar here, and I know I'm on an acoustic site! But there wasn't really that compartmentalizing back then. I started on acoustic because it was cheap and accessible (the music as well as the instrument). But I was a rock fan as much as a folk and blues fan.

[Brent Hutto]

I've spent so many hours playing acoustic and then electric guitars over the past 15-20 years and I know a lot of scales and modes, some interesting chord voicings and ways to do double stops, etc. For actually playing a tune (melody) I've gotten a certain facility with where to "find" it on the fretboard in whatever key I like.

But I've never learned how to move quickly between chord shapes. So I can't for the life of me sit there in cowboy position and strum C-F-C-F-G7-F-C or whatever at the speed most people would sing a typical folk song. Just too easily bored to sit there are put in the 100 or so hours over a few weeks it takes to develop that kind of muscle memory, I'd rather be off playing fiddle tune melodies all up and down the neck instead.

What's funny is, the first day I got my first el cheapo acoustic guitar (don't even recall what kind it was) I sat there that evening and the next morning for quite a while and within 24 hours I could do Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain about like Willie Nelson. Playing the alternating bass, the fill runs between chords, even singing along while I played. Maybe not 100% cleanly and maybe just a few BPM slower than normal speed but it was a song and I could play and sing.

I showed off that song to everyone who would listen to it over the next couple weeks. I think I learned 2-3 other tunes in that same vein (maybe in that same key) eventually and then got obsessed with learning 2-octave major and minor scales, plus their modes and their pentatonics.

Then the final blow was I decided to switch to nylon strings and take classical guitar lessons which was the first of my many, endless tacks and jibes all over the musical waterfront. Classical guitar, playing fingerstyle arrangements (from TAB books) in all sorts of altered tunings, playing mandolin, returning for quite a few years to the piano I'd played as a kid, eventually even electric guitar.

But to this day I can't play that darned Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain chord strumming thing. I ought to sit down one rainy Sunday afternoon and woodshed it on my acoustic guitar until I can do it again.

[Mr. Jelly]

I believe that what he taught is the perfect starting point to learning guitar. And that guitar sounded awesome! Wow .....

[Brent Hutto]

Originally Posted by Mr. Jelly

And that guitar sounded awesome! Wow .....

Yeah, I believe she's just about opened up.

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by Brent Hutto

Yeah, I believe she's just about opened up.

Here's George talking quite passionately about his L5. Does anyone know what tune he is playing before he breaks into Red Wing? I sort of know it but can't put my finger on it!