Worth a look - Just Ask The Axis: Jimi Hendrix unpicked - Milton Mermikides

[g00pyd00]

Milton Mermikides does some great vids on the gresham college channel.

His latest is "Just Ask The Axis: Jimi Hendrix unpicked"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejKfMlDkTAA

[amanise]

Yup. That's pretty much how it was. Imagine a child's brain marinaded in that from the age of 6. Far out!

[Martin Walker]

Wow - I've only just started watching this, and to me it's mind blowing!

As a keyboard/synth player, yes of course I knew that you could find the 'same note' at different places on a guitar fretboard, which I'd always assumed was chosen to make a particular lick or chord sequence easier to play without excessive jumping about.

I hadn't cottoned on to this also being a way to choose different timbres, or the use of two or more strings in a chord playing the same note simultaneously for more jangle.

Ironically I was only last night watching a TV documentary about Keith Richards, who I discovered regularly uses an Open G tuning by removing his lowest string and tuning the remaining five to a G chord, which ends up with three strings tuned to D, two to G, and one to B.

It's like having three oscillators on your synth for extra fatness!

Thanks for the link g00pyd00

Martin

[Matt Houghton]

Well, it took you a fair few years, Martin, but at least you eventually saw the light: guitars>synths

I love the Keef open G stuff. 'Wild Horses' is probably my favourite Stones track... His timing and feel on that, where he chooses to pull up rather than strum down is fascinating etc. Its' just wonderful... one of my favourite tracks to 'cover'. Elsewhere, he used Nashville tuning a fair bit too IIRC. He's a seriously underrated guitarist IMO.

[g00pyd00]

To me the wierdest tuning is all strings tuned to D.

Tom Strahle demos it in this vid:

https://youtu.be/Vmz-yFfkgdU?t=219

[Philbo King]

A lovely class. That said, I've always felt that once a musical art is taught in college, it is the beginning of the end for that art. Examples: bebop jazz and classical music. I guess maybe the fringe of art thrives best in the fringe.

[amanise]

I was kind of thinking that to start with myself, with the Hendrix thing, but as I watched more of it I was glad someone had managed to pick it apart so well and respectfully. That said, I doubt Hendrix ever thought very much more deeply about it than any of the rest of us when he was in the zone. What's happening with him is the result of years of session work and gigging playing crappy venues with big and small bands at a time when you could get work doing that three times over, any day of the week. We got the benefit when he came to the UK and did his own thing. You can't teach that in college. It's a feral kind of thing, which you just hope is still there next time you need it.

[Arpangel]

Well, it took you a fair few years, Martin, but at least you eventually saw the light: guitars>synths

Guitars/synths, for me, all that mucking about with strings, holding frets down and plucking, all too much trouble, much easier to just press a note on a keyboard.

[Martin Walker]

Well, it took you a fair few years, Martin, but at least you eventually saw the light: guitars>synths

Guitars/synths, for me, all that mucking about with strings, holding frets down and plucking, all too much trouble, much easier to just press a note on a keyboard.

But then I spend all that extra time tweaking multiple MIDI controllers in real time to add that extra expression that I often find lacking when just pressing a note on my keyboards

[amanise]

Well, it took you a fair few years, Martin, but at least you eventually saw the light: guitars>synths

Guitars/synths, for me, all that mucking about with strings, holding frets down and plucking, all too much trouble, much easier to just press a note on a keyboard.

But then I spend all that extra time tweaking multiple MIDI controllers in real time to add that extra expression that I often find lacking when just pressing a note on my keyboards

There's no two ways about it - you have to really want to play any of the stringed instruments if you want to get past all the barriers they throw up to learning. But that lovely graphic in the Hendrix video which mapped the finger board note opportunities against the written stave, and then compared that to a piano key mapping really shwoed up how different the thinking as to be. I liked his explanation that "this is clearly why guitarists can't read music".

[Martin Walker]

Agreed.

I'm going to watch that Hendrix video again in due course, as to me it contained so much inspirational stuff about music that got bypassed for me during the nine years of classical piano lessons I had, which seemed to consist solely of learning increasingly difficult pieces, studies and scales for each annual grade exam.

Looking back, there were plenty of certificates, but little enjoyment

[amanise]

Agreed.

I'm going to watch that Hendrix video again in due course, as to me it contained so much inspirational stuff about music that got bypassed for me during the nine years of classical piano lessons I had, which seemed to consist solely of learning increasingly difficult pieces, studies and scales for each annual grade exam.

Looking back, there were plenty of certificates, but little enjoyment

I felt exactly the same about my early classical guitar lessons. After 3 years of it, though I could sight read music and play in the classical style, I still didn't feel able to express myself. It felt like I was being strapped into an ill fitting straight jacket. So I gave that up and went back to Electric Ladyland. Then bands as soon as I could get in one. Musical career over at that point, but journey of fun and enlightenment just beginning.

[Sam Spoons]

I’m another one who balked at reading music. I guess if my parents had been into blues I might have got into playing piano but classical guitar was so far removed from blues, folk and rock guitar that I am only just making some effort to read after 60 years.

[awjoe]

For the first years at least, studying classical music means playing from sheet music, which means everything is focussed on 'playing the right notes'. I enjoyed that experience, but it was so prescriptive. As soon as I switched to guitar and started writing my own stuff, the focus flipped wide open to 'what sounds and feels good here?' Discovery and experiment rather than prescription. No competition.

[Arpangel]

Well, it took you a fair few years, Martin, but at least you eventually saw the light: guitars>synths

Guitars/synths, for me, all that mucking about with strings, holding frets down and plucking, all too much trouble, much easier to just press a note on a keyboard.

But then I spend all that extra time tweaking multiple MIDI controllers in real time to add that extra expression that I often find lacking when just pressing a note on my keyboards

This is interesting, I now appreciate and enjoy all guitar styles, but when I first got interested in music Robert Fipp appealed to me a lot, his playing was very precise, with none of the typical Blues riffs and ways of playing that most guitarists used at the time, another person I liked was Mike Oldfield, he also had this very precise way of playing, a bit like the rigidity of playing a note on a keyboard, I know a few people that dislike these two because they sound too rigid and accurate for them.
But, their playing is not emotionally dead, it has emotion but it’s a different type to the Jazz or Blues guitarist, I'm not a particularly physical person when it comes to music, I can't dance, I can't feel music in that way, the emotion I get out of Fripp and Oldfield's music is the type I get when I listen to Bach, or Messiaen, it's there, but it's about different things, it's head music, rather than body music.
When I listen to Jazz or Blues my brain is in a different place, but I'm still listening for the emotions to move me, and I get it, I like it, but for me personally it’ll always be that precision and the ability to choose notes very carefully, like a sniper who takes his time, with one bullet that's guaranteed to hit the target rather than use a shotgun, that's how I see people like Fripp, it’s precise, intense, and the effect when it works will always be my primary inspiration.

[Martin Walker]

Yes, Bob Fripp is an interesting case, and I LURVE his guitar work!

However, to me he gets his expression not from finger-bent notes and whammy bar excursions (that style is superbly catered for by Adrian Belew from 'Discipline' onwards), but via the intricate and somewhat unique way he puts his phrases/riffs together.

That to me is his signature and very recognisable sound.

I'm not so keen on Mike Oldfield (while still admiring him), finding it a bit too 'precise'.

It's good that we're all different in our tastes though - the world would be a boring place if we were all the same

[Sam Spoons]

For the first years at least, studying classical music means playing from sheet music, which means everything is focussed on 'playing the right notes'. I enjoyed that experience, but it was so prescriptive. As soon as I switched to guitar and started writing my own stuff, the focus flipped wide open to 'what sounds and feels good here?' Discovery and experiment rather than prescription. No competition.

I have friends (and one son) who play classical music professionally and most of them couldn't improvise their way out of a wet paper bag or busk a standard or pop tune. I know these guys can be creative, they all compose some brilliant music but it seems to be that, for them, 'if it ain't written down it doesn't exist'...

I know there are people who can both read and improvise, I have friends who do (gypsy jazz fiddlers seem to be a case in point) so it can be done but I don't understand why we don't teach both approaches to playing music from the very start rather than treating them as separate art forms...

[Arpangel]

via the intricate and somewhat unique way he puts his phrases/riffs together.

That to me is his signature and very recognisable sound.

Well put, and no need to understand him further.

[Martin Walker]

I have friends (and one son) who play classical music professionally and most of them couldn't improvise their way out of a wet paper bag or busk a standard or pop tune. I know these guys can be creative, they all compose some brilliant music but it seems to be that, for them, 'if it ain't written down it doesn't exist'...

I know there are people who can both read and improvise, I have friends who do (gypsy jazz fiddlers seem to be a case in point) so it can be done but I don't understand why we don't teach both approaches to playing music from the very start rather than treating them as separate art forms...

I heartily agree with your final sentiment - definitely a 'if only' approach

[amanise]

... I don't understand why we don't teach both approaches to playing music from the very start rather than treating them as separate art forms...

I heartily agree with your final sentiment - definitely a 'if only' approach

Well... I reckon the classical teaching world would argue that they already do teach their proteges to engage with their passionate urges as they gurn their way through Elgars cello concerto, or whatever an equivalent emo classical piano piece might be. Further, that they teach their students to disengage their more animalistic urges when hurtling their way through a major Bach organ piece or something. Can't listen to 'stirrings' down below when perfect precision is required, at flight speed. Concentrate boy!

But proper good steaming mojo is very hard to fake, or even write down. I think. From memory.

[merlyn]

Classical guitar is getting a bad press in this thread. For anyone considering trying classical guitar, despite what you might read here, classical guitar is not actually a medieval torture practice.

One of the first pieces I learned was Romance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aazYwcjYPdQ

You don't get much easier than the first section of that. Melody on the first string and the arpeggios are open strings. Maybe not enough bends and screwing up of faces for you guys.

[Drew Stephenson]

Maybe not enough bends and screwing up of faces for you guys.

Easy way to fix that: https://mymodernmet.com/slug-solos/

[BWC]

...but I don't understand why we don't teach both approaches to playing music from the very start rather than treating them as separate art forms...

Some teachers do, mine did, I do. I often (on more subjects than this one) have a hard time understanding why people think you have to choose one thing or the other. I just wasn't taught / raised that way.

Classical guitar is getting a bad press in this thread.

Agreed!

For anyone considering trying classical guitar, despite what you might read here, classical guitar is not actually a medieval torture practice.

Yeah, I think, possibly, increased risk of a repetitive strain injury is about as bad as it gets, definitely not "medieval torture" territory.

Learning (anything) is only a chore when you lose interest, a good teacher knows how to manage this, IMHO.

[Sam Spoons]

I'll just leave this here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeGdJgWXJ6Q

[Arpangel]

Maybe not enough bends and screwing up of faces for you guys.

One thing that fascinates me about Robert Fripp's playing is that it isn’t physical, no expressions, no movements, apart from what's absolutely necessary, and he sits down when he plays, motionless.
I think he does this to focus his mental and physical energy on where it’s needed most.