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On the playing side, having kept on playing and learning music reading when my semi-pro guitar playing dad got me my first flat top at 9 years old...
Was more interested in drumming as a teenager and never took back the guitar before 18 and to play metal...
Regarding gear, I would never have ignored my dad's 1973 Gibson Les Paul Signature He had kindly offered me to instead get a Randy Rhoads spiky slab as it was more MEEEETTTAAALLLL "idiot"
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04-16-2015 12:19 PM
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ID learn to play scales,arp's,picking ! and read music from day 1 ! and hands down hunt down the best guitar teacher i could find....then surround myself the best players !!! and play play play....id take a little CUBA in me as well !!!!
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I would take up the trombone.
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Originally Posted by edh
I would take up the trombone.
isn't that like saying I want to live on a deserted island.
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If I could do it all over again, from day one:
- Ear training!
- Develop good physical habits
- Learn music through reading
- Learn music through transcribing
- Write a lot of tunes
I think that would pretty much be it. That's what I'm working on now, but it took many years to realize that those are the important pieces for me.
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If I had all the money I'd ever spent on drink.........
I'd spend it all on drink.
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Originally Posted by pubylakeg
""I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars – the rest I just squandered" -- George Best
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I've posted this before elsewhere, but here's what Tuck Andress has to say about the matter:
"If I had known then what I know now... I would have sat down and learned how to make every sound that Wes Montgomery made. I would have just started off with that, just the way he started off with Charlie Christian. I wouldn't have thought about it, I wouldn't have tried to understand the harmony, anything. I would have just learned to make those sounds, and that would be the most direct path. Then I could expand and eventually understand, but it would be like a native language."
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I appreciate the comments. A lot of them we're insightful, and some we're just funny/confusing
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I agree there's no magic pill but there are real mistakes one can make. Like not learning how to read because it seems boring. Or not realizing that the habits you develop early on may cause you grief later on. Originally Posted by larry graves
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That is a fascinating comment. If you can DO it---make all those sounds---it is much easier to figure out the theory of it. As Hamlet almost said, "The playing's the thing...." Originally Posted by Jehu
Last edited by MarkRhodes; 04-17-2015 at 07:25 PM. Reason: spelling
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Nothing...
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Lucky you. How did you figure things out so perfectly? Did you had a Mr. Miyagi-like mentor from the age 4? Originally Posted by eddy b.
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How would learning to read music make you a better jazz guitar player? Most of the greats in this business couldn't read music, and those that could, were they any better than those that couldn't?..
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""If I had known then what I know now... I would have sat down and learned how to make every sound that Wes Montgomery made. I would have just started off with that, just the way he started off with Charlie Christian. I wouldn't have thought about it, I wouldn't have tried to understand the harmony, anything. I would have just learned to make those sounds, and that would be the most direct path. Then I could expand and eventually understand, but it would be like a native language.
These words are good because they show one important thing: the natural languge is the one you cannot choose to learn... it is natural because it was yours before you could choose it...
it shows also what jazz was and what jazz is.... Maybe...
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How would learning to read music make you a better jazz guitar player? Most of the greats in this business couldn't read music, and those that could, were they any better than those that couldn't?..
- Well.. he just thinks it would have been better if he learnt it earlier... what's the problem with it?
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Like who? Originally Posted by larry graves
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1 - Start playing in my early teens (only really started in later life post college & not really concentrating till now)
2 - Rely less on TAB in the begining and learn to read music
3 - create a structured plan to learn the guitar.
I would have saved a ton of time and learned to play better and move past the intermediate level
ohhh & did I say turn back time?
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looks like the last thing to say: If I could go back I would have been born Wes Montgomery...
in this cas I even need no peraniluty, nothing to worry about... Wes would have done all what's needed ans when it's needed...
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I'd say that learning to read music can have a lot of benefits. You can get a lot of gigs/work by knowing how to read. You can also share your own tunes quite easily. A lot of positives.
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Don't you know?, I thought you knew everything!...
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It's all so long ago that I can't remember!
Actually I don't think I would change much. I learned by listening and copying stuff off records, initially Wes, Joe Pass, Dexter Gordon. I'd already had classical guitar lessons for a few years so I knew scales, could read music, knew some theory. I learned all my jazz chords out of the Joe Pass chord book. Those still form about 95% of the chords I use now!
I think it would have been useful to know some key concepts earlier on, e.g. 2-5-1 progression, importance of chord tones, learning arpeggios properly. There was no internet then and I couldn't find many books. But I sort of figured most of it out for myself anyway, probably it just took longer.
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Originally Posted by Jonah
Is that come crazy jazzcat word? I googled it and found this page!
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Got off my alternative high horse, gone in for some kind of better music education even at high school, so that I wouldn't be playing catch-up 40 years later. And yes I'd have learned to read music.
Quite probably, I'd have stuck to playing bass. And tried to become killer at it. Which would, in all honesty, have meant a lot more gigs.
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I wish I had understood the importance of drive and persistence when I was young. I was very much a "go with the flow" kind of kid, and I think that hurt me. I also wish I hadn't let my introvert personality type keep me from learning how to pester people for opportunities. I wish I known as a kid that jazz was where my heart really was, instead of wasting years just riffing around on the blues scale, thinking I understood music.
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