9 ms·

It's incredibly easy to learn the four guitar chords and a few plucking techniques to play some pop music, like 3 days for strumming chords and a month or two f

It's incredibly easy to learn the four guitar chords and a few plucking techniques to play some pop music, like 3 days for strumming chords and a month or two for something like Green Day's "Good Riddance." Playing at Joni Mitchell's level with all of her alternate tunings is something that fewer than 0.01% of guitar players will ever achieve regardless of the hours invested.

Maursault 4y ago
No disrespect to Mitchell, who notably doesn't make many if any mistakes during performances, no small feat, but alternate tunings do not increase the difficulty of fingering 6 strings. In fact, alternate tunings nearly always decrease the difficulty of fingering, requiring less fingers per chord. Folk guitar is folk guitar, it is open chords and strumming, majors and minors, always with 4/4 signature, not much to it. Classical uses the same chords as folk but requires a rather uncomfortable form as well as odd timing signatures such as 5/4, while Jazz employs Majors 7th & 6th, Minors 7th, 6th, 9th, 11th, and 7th b5, dominants 7th, 9th, 13th, diminished 7th, and altered dominants with b9 or #9, b5 or #5, #11 or b13. Again, no disrespect to the artist, but Joni Mitchell is not Eddie Van Halen or Jerry Garcia or Pat Metheny. She is a folk artist that plays guitar, not a guitar player in the sense of Steve Vai or Carlos Santana. Mitchell's guitar is her accompaniment; her instrument is her voice.
- spoonjim 4y ago
  Yeah of course they don't make it harder to finger. They make the song harder to compose in the first place.
  - Maursault 4y ago
    The reason the classical guitar is tuned E A D G B E , known as standard tuning, is because it allows for the most possible chords to be fingered with as little movement as necessary, is more efficient, and each chord can be fingered in about 3 to 4 different ways in different positions on the neck. Alternative tunings actually limit what can be chorded compared to standard tuning, often biasing songs towards whatever key the guitar's open strum is. No matter how the guitar is tuned, it would not make composition more difficult, and it could be argued, because of the limiting nature of alternate tunings, that it is easier to compose in alternate tunings. But this is beside the point. I'm not even sure Mitchell often uses alternate tunings, but if she does, it is likely one of two or both drop D or open G, which are used for the lower bottom note to give more bass, but also to make songs in those keys much easier to play. What I suspect is that Mitchell uses standard tuning most often, and if she needs to transpose to a different key, she'll use a capo. I also suspect she composes, like nearly all folk music, using I-IV and I-IV-V progressions and in the keys of E, F, C, Am, G, or D, if the capo was actually at the nut (meaning, she might finger a song in D, but because the capo is on the 3rd fret, technically the song is in the key of F). I haven't listened to enough of Mitchell's catalog to say unequivocally, but I suspect the music itself is not necessarily what is original or so compelling about her work, but instead her poetries and rhythms are what makes her stand out among folk artists. And just because we like something doesn't mean we need to invent reasons why something is the best. That is more or less tribalism and kind of ridiculous.
    - spoonjim 4y ago
      LOL

Maursault 4y ago

No disrespect to Mitchell, who notably doesn't make many if any mistakes during performances, no small feat, but alternate tunings do not increase the difficulty of fingering 6 strings. In fact, alternate tunings nearly always decrease the difficulty of fingering, requiring less fingers per chord. Folk guitar is folk guitar, it is open chords and strumming, majors and minors, always with 4/4 signature, not much to it. Classical uses the same chords as folk but requires a rather uncomfortable form as well as odd timing signatures such as 5/4, while Jazz employs Majors 7th & 6th, Minors 7th, 6th, 9th, 11th, and 7th b5, dominants 7th, 9th, 13th, diminished 7th, and altered dominants with b9 or #9, b5 or #5, #11 or b13. Again, no disrespect to the artist, but Joni Mitchell is not Eddie Van Halen or Jerry Garcia or Pat Metheny. She is a folk artist that plays guitar, not a guitar player in the sense of Steve Vai or Carlos Santana. Mitchell's guitar is her accompaniment; her instrument is her voice.

spoonjim 4y ago
Yeah of course they don't make it harder to finger. They make the song harder to compose in the first place.
- Maursault 4y ago
  The reason the classical guitar is tuned E A D G B E , known as standard tuning, is because it allows for the most possible chords to be fingered with as little movement as necessary, is more efficient, and each chord can be fingered in about 3 to 4 different ways in different positions on the neck. Alternative tunings actually limit what can be chorded compared to standard tuning, often biasing songs towards whatever key the guitar's open strum is. No matter how the guitar is tuned, it would not make composition more difficult, and it could be argued, because of the limiting nature of alternate tunings, that it is easier to compose in alternate tunings. But this is beside the point. I'm not even sure Mitchell often uses alternate tunings, but if she does, it is likely one of two or both drop D or open G, which are used for the lower bottom note to give more bass, but also to make songs in those keys much easier to play. What I suspect is that Mitchell uses standard tuning most often, and if she needs to transpose to a different key, she'll use a capo. I also suspect she composes, like nearly all folk music, using I-IV and I-IV-V progressions and in the keys of E, F, C, Am, G, or D, if the capo was actually at the nut (meaning, she might finger a song in D, but because the capo is on the 3rd fret, technically the song is in the key of F). I haven't listened to enough of Mitchell's catalog to say unequivocally, but I suspect the music itself is not necessarily what is original or so compelling about her work, but instead her poetries and rhythms are what makes her stand out among folk artists. And just because we like something doesn't mean we need to invent reasons why something is the best. That is more or less tribalism and kind of ridiculous.
  - spoonjim 4y ago
    LOL