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When I used to teach guitar I had to constantly remind students that "Music is not a sport, it's not a race, it's not about how fast you can play your scales - it's about telling compelling stories with your instrument..."
It never made any difference - there was more often than not some competitive streak fuelling their practice. "Ah well, at least they're practicing" I'd think to myself, but I always tried to steer their natural competitive urge towards a more artistic end, as in "yeah, player X plays fast, but listen to player Y, listen to the cool note choices, phrasing, expression etc". I'm pretty sure all the guitar teachers on this forum would relate to this, it's just directing students' competitive nature in a more musical direction.
Another thing I definitely noticed is how much faster students progressed if they had close friends or siblings they felt they needed to impress. It was no surprise of course, I was no different coming up.
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03-09-2023 10:31 AM
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
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Sonny Stitt was a ferocious ‘cutter’ by all accounts. There is a great passage in Art Pepper’s ‘Straight Life’ where he describes being challenged to play Cherokee by Stitt when he (Art) was in his usual terrible state, and having to summon up every last resource to get the better of Sonny.
There’s also a story by Ronnie Scott about when Sonny played at his club, and challenged Ronnie to play Cherokee (again!) in all 12 keys. Fortunately Ronnie had coincidentally been practising just this, so he kept up ok (somewhat to Stitt’s surprise!).
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
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Originally Posted by grahambop
https://www.bluenote.com/artist/tina-brooks/Last edited by princeplanet; 03-10-2023 at 06:29 AM.
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
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Was Pat Martino playing too fast and too many notes?
I loved and respected him for that.
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Originally Posted by kris
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Of all instruments, the guitar is the most marked by competition. Faster... Louder... Longer... Bigger... The most notes...
Guitards or Gunslingers...?
Of course, you'll rarely play in a group with two bassists or two drummers or two pianists. They exist, of course, but they are the exception. So, any competing egos are rare. And two dueling banjoists will probably be thrown out of the club before anything gets started, so the Star Complex has little chance to take root in non-guitards.
While two singers can sing in harmony, and whole brass sections play their parts together, and two organists can trade 8's, but get two guitarists in a room and it's a testosterone driven cat-fight... Like a Buddy Rich vs Jerry Lewis exhibit.
Oh, they buy gaudy, pay big, and show off their lustrous finishes, gold trim, mother of pearl inlays, and the luxurious cutaways of their instrument (Florentine or Venetian!). The frustrated trumpet players can't compare. You rarely see pianos (pianni?) with the guy's name on it...
Why, they even compete for how low they can strap their gitters and still play. (They pray for long arms and short legs.) This is most telling as it shows the mental connection often exhibited, but unspoken, between the phallic guitar and their nether regions as the race around the stage soloing wildly with their necks held up vertical with ecstatic facial spasms. All very competitive.
Even a self-description will include juvenistic terms such as "Lead-Guitar or Rhythm-Guitar...". As if there were two instruments instead of one Whole-Guitar. Piano players don't say, "Oh, Bobby is our Lead... the other dude is Rhythm..." No guitarist claims to be the band's Whole.
And then the first thing they do at a session is turn the amp up to 9 to destroy your hearing and ruin any chance you might hear their mediocrity afterwards. Of course, any guitarist will deny all this. But the rest of us know... we know.
::Last edited by StringNavigator; 03-11-2023 at 11:51 PM.
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Potter sounds fantastic here. Yeah, he's 14 and has a ton of chops and facility. That's what most 14-17 year old musicians are concerned with. But there a ton of great ideas in his solo. It's not a bunch of fast, meaningless BS.
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Originally Posted by StringNavigator
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
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How does this make you feel about your own guitar?
Carved and carved again.
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Doesn't change a thing, I already know I'm not that good of a guitar player.
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There are a lot of guitarists playing at the world level. Their playing makes young people buy guitars and try to imitate their idols.
This is a very positive and valuable phenomenon.
But will you find another guitar genius like Joe Pass, Pat Martino, Wes Montgomery and many other guitar geniuses. They simply have great artistic achievements and are simply legends.I love all genius guitarists - this is the real world of art.
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How does this make you feel about your own playing?
It makes me want to THROW UP and KILL MYSELF! ALL RIGHT? HAPPY NOW???
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Originally Posted by ragman1
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Originally Posted by ragman1
"We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars..." etc
Strings comparable to TI Bensons without the...
Today, 07:57 PM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos