OT paging guitaristi

Noooo! He was a *proper* virtuoso - he could play the guitar left-handed,
right-handed, with his teeth, behind his head, with the neck upside down and
everything ...

 

/an amateur musicologist writes/:

"polyrhythm".

/a less pretentious amateur musicologist writes/:

"groove".

 

Ah sorry, you misunderstand me. I'm talking about the regularly
occurring use (on guitar messageboards/etc) of the word "emotion" as a
simple measure of good/bad. The argument usually goes something like
"Gary Moore and BB King can put more emotion into one note than Yngwie
or Vai have managed in their lives". Which is like saying that
McDonalds puts more flavour in one burger than Heston Blumenthal has
ever made in his life, or that the Sun has more news in one headline
than... you get the picture.

What they're doing is defining emotion as "head back, eyes closed, big
screaming bend". All music contains emotion... it might be anger,
sorrow, fear, awe, bliss, ennui or whatever else you can imagine. It's
a good thing, but it's also an unavoidable thing, as long as music is
made by humans.


adrian

 

Could you point out in my post where I even suggested that?


adrian

 

But, but, but, it's all about the notes not how they're played ...
apparently...

--
Veggie Dave
http://www.iq18films.co.uk

"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim
that Jesus was not born of a virgin." Cardinal Bellarmine

 

Yeah, when Hendrix first appeared on the scene I was asked to copy
some of his stuff. Not *technically* at all difficult, but making it
*sound* like Hendrix was difficult/impossible!

 

He was pretty proficient, but there were many much better technically.

Which he freely admitted he stole from T-Bone
See famous picture of T-Bone playing his guitar behind his head while
doing the splits.

 

<Star Trek joke>

 

<Star Trek joke>
As in "The last thing I want to do is hurt
you.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................but
I can wait.

 

Pardon me. I thought when you wrote:
"Oh, and when anyone starts going on about the supposed presence or
lack of soul (or that other chestnut, "emotion") in a player, I
usually click the "delete" button pretty quickly "
you meant that presence, soul, and emotion are irrelevant/useless/
idiotic/(?) words when used to describe a musical performance. You can
denigrate people who use terminology wrongly ("head back...",) but it
doesn't mean the terminology is invalid.

 

No, I meant that the presence of, or lack of, "soul" and "emotion" are
all in the eye (or rather ear) of the beholder. On some guitar
messageboards, though, you see people using them as objective
measurements of a guitarist's abillity. Especially "emotion"... as I
said, it's often used as a lazy catch-all term for a certain type of
musical experience (eyes closed, head back, screaming rock guitar
solo) whereas there are so many more emotions that can be expressed in
music.

Of course, there's technical proficiency as well, but I'd find it hard
to separate that from emotion/feel/soul in most cases. You could
probably say that better technique removes physical barriers, allowing
you to express the feeling of the music more faithfully, but then I
guess feeling can often transcend lack of ability (as in plenty of
"back to basics" movements in music history).


adrian


adrian

 

I always feel you should have enough techique to play what you hear in
your head, and not be limited to what your fingers are capable of.

I think it's about playing the *music* not just the *notes*.
I learned a lot about that, and the art of performance, from watching
the cellist Jacqueline DuPre - that girl could drag more feeling out
of a simple melody line than anyone I've ever heard, and she was not
short of technique

 

I think you're setting up straw dogs - "you see people," "often used."
The first time the word "emotion" was used in this thread was when I
described two different performances by Canned Heat. It's one thing to
conflate technique with emotion in a single performance, but when
comparing two different performances by the same artist, and the skill
level hasn't changed, it should be obvious that there is another
factor involved. It may not be objectively quantifiable, but it's
certainly more than just in the ear of the beholder.

 

Nope, speaking from repeated experience... not just here, but on Music
Radar, alt.guitar... oh, loads of places. It's one of those standard
muso whinges! In fact, we were talking about it in the chatroom the
other day.

I think I've lost track of what you're actually arguing. You seem to
be talking about the "mojo" that makes us all play like a dream
(according to our own personal expectations) one day, and a butter-
fingered amateur the next. I certainly don't have any argument with
that... happens to me all the time.

What I was talking about (in response to the secondhand report from
the OP at the start of the thread) was the lazy categorisation of
Hendrix/Clapton/60s/blues as "good" and Yngwie/Vai/technical/80s as
"soulless" or "lacking in emotion".


adrian

 

Anybody got some paracetamols?

 

I've got some extra percosets. will they do?
(I told my ortho doc that my back hurt. He gave me a scrip for 100.
Gee, thanks, doc.)

 

Anything that stops me feeling dizzy after watching this conversation
go round in circles.

 

aka Rondo - ABA, (not to be confused with ABBA)

 

So, talking about emotion is wrong but voodoo is okay?

Er, okay.

--
Veggie Dave
http://www.iq18films.co.uk

"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim
that Jesus was not born of a virgin." Cardinal Bellarmine

 

The thread has been men *willingly* talking about emotions. That
strikes me as unusual, if not outright wrong.

Unless you're a Zombie.