"Play Me Something On The Guitar" - What Do You Play?

[Little Jay]

I just play Johnny B. Goode when someone asks me to play something......

[morroben]

I observe a funny thing: no matter what and where you play, some smart ass always ask you "to play some Slayer" .
Learn some Slayer dude, the only thing that shuts them up, trust me!

I'm not sure they're being smart asses. Just last week I went to a hockey game up in San Jose with a friend and two of his friends, a very nice couple, that I had never previously met. We all rode together. My buddy mentions that the guy in the back just got back into playing guitar, and that I play guitar. A bit of a conversation starter for the 2.5 hour drive to the game.
First words out of the guys mouth were, "Want to play in a Slayer cover band?!"
And thus began the longest conversation I've ever had regarding Slayer, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Metallica (who my buddy had just seen at the Fonda in LA), and pretty much every other metal band you forgot about 25 years ago.
It was kind of fascinating. Not the actual discussion of the bands, but that there are people my age that are still that into old metal. They knew every detail. It was cool to see how excited they got about it. Everyone's got their thing, I suppose.

[Thumpalumpacus]

That's just it, they love familiar tunes :-)

But only for encores, otherwise you degrade the performance. Anybody can play old faves and get the audience on their side but that's for pubs, not serious musicians and musicianship.

I don't know how many club gigs you've played, but it takes musicianship to get people dancing. You know you've got it going on if they're voting with their asses.

And if you don't, you'll know that, too. "Anybody can play old faves" ... but lord help you if you don't nail it -- it's their favorite, they want it done right.

[henryrobinett]

I don't know why it's important to play something that people know. Play what you play. Introduce whoever is listening to what you're playing no matter what it is. You are playing the music FOR an audience, even if it's a audience of one.


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[fep]

I say, here's something I wrote... and play an original tune. Original tunes are what I want to hear the most, so maybe others appreciate it too. (If you don't have any original tunes... Why not? Write some)

[WillMbCdn5]

I often sit on my front porch in the summertime guzzling wine and enjoying my guitar my " hey play me something" from passerbys is a Bireli Lagrene style - " Isnt she lovely- Stevie Wonder" most folks know the tune and it's fun to play

Will