I once read an article by Eddie Van Halen about how he learned guitar. He would listen to the guitar greats like Chuck Berry on his dad’s phonograph. Because the solos were so fast, he’d play the records at a slower pace, and then he’d finger them on his guitar. He would painstakingly sound out the music and work it until he could reproduce it. This was back in the day before they sold sheet music with guitar tablature, the diagrams which shows the exact finger positions on a guitar fretboard. When tab came out, it made the budding guitarist’s job a lot easier.
Eddie wrote his article before Youtube. Now that Youtube is here, it’s even easier. A guitarist can read the tab, put his fingers in the right positions, AND see how it’s played. The wonders of technology! I, for example, thought I knew the difference between a lead guitarist and rhythm guitarist, but it looks different when the camera focuses on one instrumentalist and places the others in the background.
On this song, for example:
The lead guitarist does this:
and the bass player does this:
(I looked for footage of the drummer and rhythm guitarist, but it’s a bit harder to find.)
I had no idea that the lead guitarist actually rests for a noticeable chunk of the first part of the song, nor did I know that some of those deeper notes come from the guitarists rather than the bassist. Youtube shows everything. I think we’re going to be amazed by the talent that will emerge as people learn from each other through the web.
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to be in a band and be good, you have to learn to listen. too many people get into bands and thrash away and they sound terrible! why? because they’re not listening or paying attention to what their band mates are doing. i once picked up a book on music and it discussed what is known as “active” listening as opposed to “passive”. passive, for example, is what you do when you have the radio on just as background noise; you’re not really paying attention to it. active listening means you’re scrutinizing and hearing what the bassist is doing, or what kind of drum fills of cymbal crashes the drummer does, etc…
once you start “active” listening and paying attention, you’ll hear things you’ve never heard before. If you ever hear some live Rolling Stones tunes, you’ll hear this interplay between Ron Woods and Keith Richards. Keith is primarily a rhythm guy and Ronnie is the lead, but you’ll hear both of them trading off, or filling in gaps in the music with guitar licks…and it’s amazing.
even more amazing to know how these musicians learned their craft before things like youtube!
Mojorider,
You raise a VERY interesting point. One concern of Eddie’s was that modern guitarists might get lazier since they didn’t have to sound things out. I imagine that sounding out each phrase and riff would be instructive to students on how to listen and feel. By listening to these vinyl records, old school people learned to listen and feel.
In another book, I was reading another guitarist lament that some people can’t even tune a guitar since they rely on electronic tuners. He wondered how people could play when they couldn’t even tell whether or not their instruments were in tune.
Man, the old school deserves all of our respect. Back then, they just did it, technology or not. Amazing people.
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