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I listen to some guitarists out there, (who's names I won't mention, because I don't want to offend anyone), and their playing just doesn't connect on a musically emotional level at all, and that's for one reason, and that reason is, they ain't got no soul. Oh my gosh, it's sad because they ain't got no soul, so their playing is just kind of "blah, blah, blah" And they obviously ain't got no clue about what having soul even means, LOL. It's not only jazzers I can say that about, it's also some of those wannabe shredders out there in other genres. Some of those guys and gals have some chops, I’m not saying they don't have any chops, but their playing just lacks that beautiful emotive connection that the best players playing styles have; and for one reason, and that is, they ain't got no soul. And furthermore, when I listen to their playing, it becomes quite evident that they don't even have a clue, LOL, about what that even means.
The thing is, you can teach someone all the theory and technique required to play guitar, but how do you teach someone to play with soulfulness? I'm not sure if that is something that can be taught, other than listening to a lot of music by artists who have a lot of soul, and then trying to play the way they do. I mean, I don't care how prestigious of a college of music you attend, Berklee or whatever, I'll bet you last week's pay that there is no class titled "playing your instrument with soul 101" or 201, or 301, or 423. However, having that soulful quality in your playing is absolutely crucial if you want your playing to really connect with listeners on that vibing emotional level. Having some of that quality in your playing is really what separates the men from the boys, or the women from the girls, when it comes to playing guitar extremely well, and really connecting on that vibing emotional level.
You won't find "playing guitar with soul 101" at Berklee because I really don't think you can teach that per se. The best way is to listen to a lot of artists who have a lot of soul, and then incorporate that into your own playing as best you can. If someone asked me about how to learn it, I probably wouldn't even suggest listening to guitar player's at first, I would point them in the direction of the great bastion of soulfulness, soul music itself. Listening to a lot of artists like Earth Wind and Fire, or Anita Baker's "Rapture" album, or some old Luther Vandross, or SADE, or anything by Mary J Blige or Alicia Keys. I would suggest that first, because if you don't even understand what it means to have soul, you won't ever be able to effectively put it into your playing style.
Can playing with soul be taught? Does anyone have any other constructive ideas?
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06-25-2023 09:46 PM
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Define “soul”.
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The point is, I think, is that you don't have to to define it - just express it... If you need a definition (and I hope you don't and are just trolling), then maybe you'll never get it... ?
Originally Posted by Jazzjourney4Eva
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People have abandoned faith in christ, and the church, which was the great progenitor of "soul". Most of that type of music you are talking about, and the feeling it gives, is borrowed from the church/gospel realm. It's not sensible to expect people who deny man has a soul, or spirit, to produce soul infused music. There are atheist bluegrass artists cutting gospel songs for an audience they don't actually share any values with. That's bullshit music even if it has great guitar picking. There is no point if the meaning is lost to the performer.
Heck most top 40 music now is actively filled with satanic, witchcraft, and dark occult themes you would've previously only found in black metal music. You have some of the biggest name artists along with their record companies actively promoting that kind of symbolism and imagery to the youth as cool and trendy. What they share in common with the bluegrass artist is they are all doing it for the money. You cannot serve God and money both....
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I did explain that, if you were paying attention. I could come up with some words to try and explain it to you, but in reality, it's impossible to describe sound with words. Words just won't do it justice, the beautiful, vibing thing it is. The ONLY way to truly understand what it is, is to listen to the music, just the way I wrote in my post. Do that enough times, and you'll start to understand what it is. Originally Posted by Jazzjourney4Eva
That paragraph is essentially an abbreviated summary of what I wrote in my original post.
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Dude, I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Learning to make music requires learning the theory and the art of playing a musical instrument to make musical notes, just like learning to code on computers requires you to get educated on how to code. I really think you should sit down and have some long chats with someone who has the letters PhD after their name. They should be able to shed more light on your hypothesis than I can. Originally Posted by DawgBone
It may have originated there, but other than that, it has nothing to do with any of that, It gets credited as starting there, but really it started with gifted African American artists and their soulful music. There is so much totally secular, very expressive, and even sexually explicit soulful music, that you do not have to go there to hear great R & B/Hip Hop/soul/and blues music, and get a feel for what soul in music really is. Many artists in completely different genres have learned from that example and put some of that kind of feeling into their own music, with great success. That came from listening to and appreciating the music, though.Last edited by James Haze; 06-26-2023 at 06:20 AM.
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With all due respect, I think you're both talking out of the sides of your neck, or you know absolutely nothing of our own musical heritage (i.e. everything labelled as classical music). There's both religious and secular music from a few centuries ago that can give me the same goosebumps when played right and under the right circumstances as the most mojo-infused blues song can. Some of that music may have african influences, the interpretations may even have afro-american influences but definitely not all. Originally Posted by James Haze
I'm a militant atheist but I can definitely appreciate most religious music from my preferred eras, I just don't actually believe the lyrics any more than I actually believe the lyrics of a random love song. I'd still play it too if I hadn't hung up my violins. Heck, even I cannot deny that there's something you could call soul - I just know there's no justification for believing it could be immortal (and hope I'm not wrong about that).
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I'm going to leave this thread from the Steve Hoffman forums here: "Soulless" music | Steve Hoffman Music Forums
As someone posted there, saying something lacks souls is most often just a meaningless descriptor people use for music (or art in general) they don't like (or sometimes get). Soul, as applied to art, is a social construct. It's what we come up with to explain something we have an emotional connection to, which in itself is extremely contingent on social factors. Something we describe as soulful would be considered the resepctive cultural equivalent of soulless in a completely different culture. The problem arises when people use it as a justification for the value of a piece of art, because it's most often (and by that I mean 99.9% of the times when it's used outside of analytical philosophy) ill-defined while carrying a lot of weight for the person using it and connotations.
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Talking about bluegrass Darrell Scott offers some kind of explanation
Now, me and Delia singing every Sunday
Watching the children and the garden grow
We listen to the radio to hear what's cookin'
But the music ain't got no soul
Now they sound tired but they don't sound Haggard
They've got money but they don't have Cash
They got Junior but they don't have Hank
I think, I think, I think, the rest is
A long time gone
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Sure, i believe playing with "soul" can be taught. Just play music with people, and play for people, and it will happen.
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The "simply a word for music you don't like" thing doesn't fly: I love certain pieces of music, but only played by certain people. I've seen MANY youtubers with high technical skills play pieces of music I already love (and in all genres), and very few of them do it with any soul. Perfect execution of the notes on the page has nothing to do with the emotion a human being puts into those notes. I've seen people play a Mozart piece without emotion. It stinks. It's music alright: boring music.
But that's the world we live in: learn to play an instrument by going to YouTube and being shown how to play it, practice it until it's technically perfect, then put on your best cocktail dress and film it for the world. Nowhere in the formula is letting the piece of music affect your being so much that you pour your own emotion into it. You know when I want completely un-emotional work? When someone is designing a DSV I'm going to be riding in. But music? I'd rather hear a sloppy-but-emotional rendition of anything (let's say Mississippi John Hurt) than a technically-perfect-but-soulless something (many many youtubers)
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Of course you don't have any idea what I"m talking about,. You were the one asking the questions,. And btw what's with your backhanded cheap shot "go see someone with a PHD", now edited to tone down your apparent beef with what I said? Your hostility about a discussion like this is unnecessary. Originally Posted by James Haze
You said "it may have originated there but it has nothing to do with that". What? Yes, it did originate there. But it has nothing to do with that? You're in denial. The "gifted black artists" you referenced will almost 100 percent across the board tell you that they grew up in the church and that's where the exposure to music began, and for some, also ended. Some were actually sons and daughters of christian preachers or choir leaders. Bobby Womack, Curtis Mayfield, Whitney Houston, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and on and on....these people all started out singing gospel for the church. Some like Al Green and Johnny Wilder returned to gospel music later in life. That's where all their techniques were lifted from. It did not come from another source. Some of the most soulful artists that you've no doubt never heard of just never left the church. There are whole families of gospel singers touring the church circuit to this day. People outside the black community generally do not take an interest in what is going on in the black church for obvious reasons so it's no surprise you're in the dark.
There are a slew of good vocalists and musicians still coming out of that realm. Some of them are studio musicians, others refuse to play anything other than church music. Erick Walls, Isaiah Sharkey, Jonathan DuBose are some great gospel guitarists for example and more adept than most guitarists in terms of both chops and soul. Or go check out the sacred steel movement. Maybe to your dismay, and maybe you'll be in denial about this as well, but most of the best black musicians out there are not working in the field of secular music but rather for the church. Blacks have not abandoned their churches or faith to the same degree other groups have. It's still core to the community and still the source of the "soul" you are talking about. Anyone outside that world with "soul" either grew up in the church or is just borrowing the devices developed within black gospel music.Last edited by DawgBone; 06-26-2023 at 07:26 AM.
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I don't think "black church music" is the "source" of soul. Altho it certainly HAS soul.
Mozart had soul. Not a "black church" in sight? Now, I'm not arguing with the faith/religion point of your argument, as I think there's a very good argument to be made there. I'm simply saying "soul in music" far predates the American black southern Christians.
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I would agree with your claims but we are talking about techniques and devices in modern music more so than classical and that means black music. All good music has "soul" but the vocal and instrumental techniques in modern "soul" music mostly stem from the church and the people writing the material found there. Originally Posted by ruger9
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Really? Can you give examples? Originally Posted by DawgBone
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Again, I'll disagree that it's *only* the church, even when limiting it to "modern black" music. A deep dive into early black music in America includes both blues and jazz, and while many of those folks certainly were church-goers/Christians, I would also argue that the circumstances of their lives played a large role in the emotion that was produced in their music... it didn't just come from "the church", it came from the individual souls' life experiences. (and yes we could say God created the soul, etc... and I don't disagree, but that's going into an extremely esoteric area that isn't really a guitar forum thing). Originally Posted by DawgBone
I think music can have soul, even if an atheist (or someone who believes they are an atheist, again... another discussion LOL) plays it.
And for the record, if it matters, I'm a Christian.
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Maybe the thing you think they lack is not a thing they want to achieve. Maybe emotional connexion is something you do not experience when listening to these unnamed guitarists, but other listeners do experience it. Maybe the thing you call 'soul' takes different forms in different cultures. Originally Posted by James Haze
I experience emotional connexion listening to Scandinavian guitarists who ain't never sung in a Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship choir, or eaten grits. But maybe that is just me.
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Yes, many. But that would hijack a thread about where soul comes from. So how about something pleasant for the morning instead. Pastor Johnathan Dubose playing some soul gospel guitar. Originally Posted by Litterick
And Erick Walls
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If Satanic verses were to be found in the music of Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift or Boygenius, I am sure we would have heard about them.
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I'm going to listen to some Robert Johnson. He had soul.
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The black church existed before blues and jazz were even able to be recorded. It all stems from there and the fields and flows outwards to the house parties, juke joints, etc. All the basic elements are a cross of African and European influences and existed before the church but that was the main source of music at that time for that community. Blues was a pariah to much of the church so the amount back flowing into the church at that time was likely minimal until later. Originally Posted by ruger9
Anyways, I got chickens to care for and a 10 a.m recording session. Have a good one.
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No. He sold his to the Devil. Originally Posted by A. Kingstone
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I don't know nuthin about soul, but the art of drawing the bullseye around one's own arrow to exclude all others lives on.
Ima just go listen to some music.
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Or it's indeed only and exclusively the christian church that's responsible for the existence of afro-american music if they're the main institution responsible for the transplantation of unwilling Africans to the Americas. Originally Posted by ruger9
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