What I Hate About This Site

cabro
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Sun Aug 16, 2009 1:03 am

Do you know how hard it is to unlearn a song? Some of the stuff on here I have been playing for 20 years or better except that I've been playing them wrong! For example: From The Beginning. I have been playing this song for ages, just not the right way till recently. It took me days longer to unlearn the wrong way than it did to re-learn it the right way. Just as a courtesy (and to spread the misery around) I taught it the right way to someone last night that had been playing it wrong even longer than I have. And my fingers hurt. I have played more acoustic guitar since I plunked down the money for 1 month than I probably have in the last year. Speaking of years, expect my payment for a full year to follow soon. My thanks to all at TG and to the rest of the guys and girls of the forum. Did I mention that my fingers hurt?

Chris


dragondog
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Sun Aug 16, 2009 1:10 am

I nominate this for post of the year so far..

I was ready to come in swinging...then smiled...


Chasplaya
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Sun Aug 16, 2009 1:20 am

Lol I had the safety of the cannons and the rockets armed...

Although it does raise the point what is the right way? or is it just a better/different interpretation?

Good one though cabro! Certainly one way to attract attention


cabro
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Sun Aug 16, 2009 1:35 am

Chasplaya wrote:
Lol I had the safety of the cannons and the rockets armed...

Although it does raise the point what is the right way? or is it just a better/different interpretation?

Good one though cabro! Certainly one way to attract attention
The right way being the way Greg Lake plays it which, although subject to occasional variances, remains basically the same since ELP originally recorded the song back in July of 1972 and not incidentally, I think, the way the song is presented on TG. I know of at least 5 different chords that are passable substitutes for different ones in the song but aren't technically right. Some may even be different voicings of the "correct" chords although I haven't taken the time to dissect more than 1 or 2 of them.

Chris


haoli25
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Sun Aug 16, 2009 1:35 am

Thanks Chris. I have had those very thoughts many, many, many times!!! :laugh:


BigBear
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Sun Aug 16, 2009 2:35 am

Hey Chris, why would you "unlearn" a song? Did you not like the way it sounded? As far as I'm concerned there is only one right way to play this song, the way Greg Lake wrote it and played it, all the rest are just imitations. I just got done 3 minutes ago playing that song on my 12 string to see if I liked the sound better. It's pretty cool on a 12!! The harmonic is tough because of the string height but it sounds good. But I ain't no Greg Lake, that's for sure!

I loved your post! It sums up what we are all are going through and the enjoyment we get from this program (programme for Chas! If I spell the word properly we may have to retrain him! LOL!)). :cheer:


map4242
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Sun Aug 16, 2009 3:01 am

Hey Gang,

Great comments. There obviously are many interpretations of the "right" way to play a song. Is it the way the original artist plays it? My answer to that is maybe, or even probably not. Most artists are not really schooled in music theory and technique and play by the seat of their pants (to borrow a phrase that may not really describe my thoughts very well).

When I decide how I will teach a song, there are many factors I have to consider. Something that is very natural and easy for Greg Lake, or Paul McCartney, may not be really applicable to many other situations. Most guitar students want to be able to play songs by many different artists. Could Paul play From The Beginning just like Greg? Could Greg play Blackbird just like Paul?

I will leave these speculative answers open to debate but my job as a music teacher is to help my students progress to the point where they can play like Paul, Greg, Eric, and even Jimi, if that is what they want to do. And if that is what they want to do, the path may not be by trying to imitate exactly what they did, it may be by learning more general techniques that will eventually take them down the right path.

I learned many things from the likes of John Fahey, Leo Kottke, Jorma Kaukonen, and John Renbourn, to name just a few, but then took their styles and techniques and incorporated them into my playing. Learning to play exactly like any one person is a bit counterproductive, but applying concepts learned from Jorma and Leo to songs by Paul will lead to becoming a better guitar player. This is what I want my students to be able to do.

Sometime this means taking bits and pieces from a song and incorporating them into your playing without learning the song note for note (Landslide for example). Other times this means trying to nearly replicate the original artist's performance. I usually look at From The Beginning as one of these- a lot to be learned by something that is very easy for Greg. Make it easy for you and you have become a much better guitar player.

One of the reasons I can play songs pretty accurately by many different people is by adapting their techniques and making them part of my own. This is what I would like students to be able to do. Sometimes this means learning a song pretty accurately, other times it just means extracting a few specific things and getting just general ideas of others.

As you might surmise, this can be very subjective. The real point is do you want to just learn to mimic the song, or become a guitar player who is good enough to play it just like the original artist, or any other way you might see fit at any given moment?

Sorry to be rambling on with the philosophy but I really want every guitar player to be able to express themselves musically, and that frequently boils down to working on what you can't do, rather than what you can do. Sometimes this entails learning someone else's tricks and mastering them, and other times you can take a more general approach and just learn bits and pieces from a song.

Unfortunately, if you really want to progress, you have to be willing to undo serious damage from time to time. Believe me, I have done this more than a few times.

Checking out for now...

Neil


cabro
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Sun Aug 16, 2009 3:07 am

BigBear wrote:
Hey Chris, why would you "unlearn" a song? Did you not like the way it sounded? As far as I'm concerned there is only one right way to play this song, the way Greg Lake wrote it and played it, all the rest are just imitations. I just got done 3 minutes ago playing that song on my 12 string to see if I liked the sound better. It's pretty cool on a 12!! The harmonic is tough because of the string height but it sounds good. But I ain't no Greg Lake, that's for sure!

I loved your post! It sums up what we are all are going through and the enjoyment we get from this program (programme for Chas! If I spell the word properly we may have to retrain him! LOL!)). :cheer:
I had to unlearn the song the wrong way to re-learn the song the right way. That muscle memory thing can be a problem at times. You know how after you've been playing a song for so long the left hand has a tendency to automatically go where it knows it is supposed to be or in this case where it used to supposed to be? That's what I mean about unlearning a song. BTW this is just one example of retraining my hands. I know of at least 1 more song on here that I'm going to have to retrain my left hand, at least, to play properly. I'm pretty sure there are going to be more.


wrench
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Sun Aug 16, 2009 8:24 am

Chris, I can appreciate your disappointment at discovering the need to re-learn things. Others here in the forum have mentioned trying to break bad habits such as hand position, and I, too, found it amazingly difficult to do.

I do hand exercises directly aimed at independent finger motion to help with muscle memory, and I don't try to un-learn stuff, because you are quite right about un-learning - it is difficult. I approach everything on TG as new stuff to learn. For example, I have two versions of House of the Rising Sun in my head, the 1967 hack I learned wrong as a kid, and the 2009 TG version. I just don't play the 1967 version any more.

I look at TG as all new and all fun; I resist using what I learned previously because most of it was wrong. This approach helps me with the disappoint factor.

Thanks for sharing your observations, and thanks to Neil for taking the time to detail his thoughts about it. It really makes it easier to figure out how to get to your goal when you know what that goal is.


Lavallee
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Sun Aug 16, 2009 8:28 am

Very good post Cabro since there are songs that I have played with the wrong technique for years. Undo the memory muscle is really relearning the song as now (for a while anyway) you have to think about what you do.An example is Romanza. I was using the wrong fingers on the right hand (using only T, I,M) there was no thinking. Now I have switched to T,I,M,A and it is quite difficult.


Marc


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