How to Play Guitar, by David Fair

HAHAHAHAHAHAaaHAHAa

..and then also..
Can't Play Their Instruments
Alternative Tunings

P.S: Fuck you bitch, go suck Ben Fold's asshole.

In a way, it reminds me of what Robert Fripp told a friend of mine who attended his school... that it doesn't matter what notes you play or how many, what matters is playing the right note at the right time.

Yes, that's one of the more cliched bits of guitar advice around, but of course it's true. And it's nothing like what this guy is saying.

I feel very confident that no one has ever been moved to produce worthwhile music as a result of reading this article. The advice is completely worthless and can be entirely summed up by saying "think outside the box." Just like saying "What matters is playing the right note at the right time" or "it's not the notes you play, but the notes you don't play," it may be true in some sense, but it's practically useless.

The most fuck-you stupid parts are these:

"If you want to play fast, move your hand fast and if you want to play slower move your hand slower."

Wow, how insightful.

"You can learn the names of notes and how to make chords that other people use, but that's pretty limiting. Even if you took a few years and learned all the chords you'd still have a limited number of options. If you ignore the chords your options are infinite and you can master guitar playing in one day."

One doesn't "take a few years and learn all the chords." That isn't how music works; only a musical novice would conceive of it in those terms.

"I like to put six different sized strings on it because that gives the most variety, but my brother used to put all of the same thickness on so he wouldn't have so much to worry about. What ever string he hit had to be the right one because they were all the same."

The reason for putting 6 different sized strings on a guitar is that each one is meant to accomodate a different amount of tension so you can tune them to different pitches and create chords. Putting six of the same gauge string on a guitar, let alone tuning all 6 strings to the same note, is idiotic.

"If you have to wind the tuning pegs to just a certain place, that implies that every other place would be wrong."

No, it doesn't imply that at all. That's a ridiculous thing to say.

"it really doesn't matter what kind you buy as long as the tuning pegs are on the end of the neck where they belong. A few years back someone came out with a guitar that tunes at the other end. I've never tried one. I guess they sound alright but they look ridiculous and I imagine you'd feel pretty foolish holding one."

Again, it's really hard to believe that this guy is being serious. It's not just that the advice is worthless, it's the way it completely misunderstands the way music and guitars work and then tries to recast that ignorance as "stick it to the man" wisdom.

I guess? I mean, if you want to expand on that maybe we could reach some common ground. How do you figure any of the advice in that article would be helpful to anyone beyond repeating a cliche like "think outside the box?"

And I agree Curt1s, but my problem is more the fundamental misconceptions which underlie the article, like the idea that "tuning your strings to a specific pitch means that all other pitches are wrong." You can't get much more sophomoric. Tuning standards exist so that multiple musicians can play together. But hey, don't take my word for it, put 6 of the same gauge string on your guitar and turn the pegs until you feel like stopping. But I guarantee you it'll sound like shit.

And the notion that learning music involves some kind of rote memorization of chords. It's like saying "Yeah, you could learn English the normal way, by going through a dictionary and trying to memorize all the words, or you can make up your own words and master English in a day!"

is it?

i would argue that it's not faux anything. i've played guitar for 15 years and can't play a C chord. or i probably do play one but i don't know it.

he's being naive about traditional technical music language/notation.

but i agree that he's not naive about what rock/blues/folk sounds like.

the important lesson is to not constrict your music to the language with which you encode it.

knowing a C-chord doesn't make you any less likely to play something that's worth playing. art is about ideas though, and if you're stuck in languages and modes defined by someone else, you're always going to be underneath their heel. don't get locked up by blues scales, not unless those chains bruise you up good and you've got something to say.

m.

xpost: heh. nice.

Yes, I'm sure the latter is true. Anyone who says that learning terminology or notation is restricting simply doesn't know what they're talking about. I think the language analogy is a good one; is it better to be able to speak English but not be able to read and write it? Does that make you more unrestricted or creative? No, it doesn't.

Some people get by and manage to do great things without ever learning things traditionally, and that's great for them, but that isn't a good reason to celebrate/promote ignorance.

see, he's not talking about english, he's talking about Talking. if you have a language that you can communicate, then use it. fuck the standards and syntax.

sure, learn standards and syntax, but you can't keep people from being masters of their own personal modes of communication. a guitar = a mouth.
m.

mechanisms are restrictive. all languages are inherently flawed/inconsistent or incomplete. (Godel)

sure, some ideas can be communicated and communicated beautifully... that's why the academy/institutional system has so much power in our society... but there are blessed things we can only bark at in futility. thank the heavens for that too. mystery rules.

m.

m, that doesn't make sense. It doesn't matter if it's English, Spanish, C++, or music, we're talking about a language, and communication requires both parties to agree on meaning. If you don't know what chords or notes you're playing, you're going to have a trouble playing with other musicians. Likewise if you don't tune your instrument to standard pitches.

Like I said, there's nothing wrong with saying "think outside the box." Sure, be original, be innovative. It's just that all of the specific advice he offers is unadulterated BS and betrays a complete misunderstanding of the concepts at work, so I think that it's not just useless but would in fact be detrimental advice to someone trying to learn music for the first time.

learn english. learn guitar. but learn to also apply ideas outside of the rule book. that's his point. that's why i like it.

i understand where you're coming from, i just disagree.
m.

But this is the crux of it, I think (although I wouldn't use the word "rule book," because that doesn't eflect reality - there is no musical rule book) - I say you have to learn the language, study the traditions, and then decide to go against them. This guy seems to be saying don't bother with that stuff, it isn't worth your time. Which is bad advice. That's not how it works. Picasso learned to paint in a traditional style before he invented cubism. Beethoven studied the classical style before he developed his own idiom and segued into the Romantic era, etc. I'm confident that the vast majority of the great pre-20th century musicians would've found the sentiment here risible. It just strikes me as both anti-intellectual, anti-collaboration, and useless in any practical sense.

So how exactly do music and guitars work?

http://poisonpie.com/sounds/haino/

I've explained the specific misconstruals in several posts now, Chris. Let me know if you need anything specific clarified.

The goal of learning guitar is so that when you hear something in your head you can put it out there for people to hear, and to be able to do it in that split-second between when an idea pops into your head and the part of the song where you want to use it comes up. You can't do that if you don't know what note is going to come out when you finger a certain string at a certain fret, and you can't know THAT unless the answer is the same as it was yesterday. So you can tune it to whatever, but you have to tune it to something.

As for theory, you need to learn the theory appropriate to the music you want to play, which could mean gobs of theory of none at all. If you want to sound like Green Day, you have to learn standard tuning and the most common chords. If you want to play jazz, you have to learn a bit more. If you want to sound like 1/2 Japanese, apparently, you don't have to learn any. Whatever.

I don't think the piece is really about playing the guitar or music theory.

"Then don't play the guitar" would be my snarky answer.

I think the piece is about guitar playing and music theory, though. But I don't think it's really worth talking about this much, despite how much I already talked about it. It seems kind of like one of those "have you ever really looked at your hand, man?" kind of things.

He does speak to a certain approach towards music-making that can be freeing for some people, and valuable even to those who know music theory, e.g. the Eno quote above, where Robert Fripp was not even willing to try something because, according to music theory, it wouldn't work.

But see, I don't know Robert Fripp and I wasn't in the room when that anecdote took place, but no musically-educated person I know would think that way. There is nothing that music theory says "won't work." This misunderstanding is at the heart of a lot of these discussions.

OTM.

I think part of the thesis though is that you don't need to sound like anybody.

The electric guitar has been played by millions of people for more than 50 years. You're going to sound like somebody.

xpost:

I think the Fripp think sounds reasonable.. by "won't work" he meant "I think that'll sound like shit and I don't even want to try it." and Eno said, "Just try it you pretentious fuck." and then Eno said, "See? I was right, ya bastard. Wait until I tell everyone at Guitar Player magazine what an ass you are."

I don't get it. Do you mean you don't need to try to sound like anybody? True, but you're going to anyway, and I'd rather know who I sound like and where he/she took it from there.

So I've lost the point in all of this.

Anyway, I play the guitar - I play what I want to play, and I play whatever sounds good to me. I'm not doing it for anyone else's enjoyment. I never tune to standard tuning. I tune to how the strings sound good together. That may be a tuning, and it may not be - I don't know/care. I sometimes play along with records and I like the way it sounds most of the time. But I don't relative-tune to them - I adjust which frets or strings I use to make the sounds I want. I never play the same thing twice.

Would this be easier or more enjoyable if I "knew" how to play the guitar? Maybe.
But I can continue doing it the way I'm doing it because, as David says, it's my guitar.

File under irony, irreverence.

I don't understand - what distinction are you trying to point out here?

please, please, don't...

I'd rather listen to a 3 year old child experimenting with an electric guitar than listen to a Belle and Sebastian record

-- Chris Bee (noaddres...) (webmail), May 29th, 2006 3:01 PM. (Cee Bee) (link)

I'd say Half Japanese sound more like the former than the latter!

I have a moustache too, suuuckas!

― Steve Goldberg

Note to self: every time I get intent on making a "point" on ILM, I'll return to it less than six months later wondering what I was on about.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Wednesday, 4 October 2006 01:20 (4 years ago)

man i missed this thread. that david fair article is <3 and makes me :)

wisest words spoken

god steve goldberg was just the fucking worst, huh

http://songs.stevegoldbergmusic.com/album/steve-goldberg-and-the-arch-enemies

yes

omg i'm listening to that song, god what a shitty song

ctrl-f my username no results :D

omg i'm listening to that song, god what a shitty song

― in my world of Hmong ppl (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 6:45 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

P.S: Fuck you bitch, go suck Ben Fold's asshole.

― squirlplise

http://songs.stevegoldbergmusic.com/album/steve-goldberg-and-the-arch-enemies

yes

― in my world of Hmong ppl (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 6:44 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

kinda mad at you for linking this because otherwise i never would have heard it

I liked your posts on this thread, Hurting 2.

kinda mad at you for linking this because otherwise i never would have heard it

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, December 15, 2010 7:13 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

I liked your posts on this thread, Hurting 2.

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 8:16 PM Bookmark

thx -- I mostly just think I got a little too serious and stuck on it, especially since I think the article is a bit tongue-in-cheek.

BTW, sup. Don't think I've seen you post in a while.

thx

thx
― St3ve Go1db3rg, Thursday, December 23, 2010 11:09 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Hurting 2: Hey, hope you're well. That's a good sign if I don't seem to be on ILX too often since I do have a dissertation to get done.:P I still feel like I'm on here more than I should be...