8 ms·

As a guitar player for over 30 years now, it's fascinating how quickly you can teach something like Smoke on the Water or Whole Lotta Love in the span of a few

As a guitar player for over 30 years now, it's fascinating how quickly you can teach something like Smoke on the Water or Whole Lotta Love in the span of a few minutes to someone who has never picked up the instrument... sure the timing/fretting is off but it's close enough that their face will light up. To underscore your overall point, I took lessons in 2 phases: 1) At 10 years old, had a cheap classical guitar. Did 8 'proper' lessons, went home on the 8th one crying after being sent home to learn Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. 2) At 14 years old picked up a guitar mag with a tab for Living Colour's "Type", which is almost as simple as something like Smoke on the Water. After learning a couple dozen more songs like this my parents purchased a Squire strat and signed me up for lessons with a dude who looked like Jerry Cantrell. Practiced 5 hours a day, and after 9 months stopped going as it appeared I had outclassed my instructor. As to your #1 point, I'd humbly disagree. I was in a guitar center with less than a year under under my belt noodling and some guy walked to compliment my playing and see if I was in a band he could check out. My practice partner was similar, went on to win our battle of the bands and dropped out his freshman year of college to helm a critically acclaimed jam band for several years (at their height they spent 3 months touring w/ Phish). Nowadays with the power of online tools kids can get frighteningly good very quick, and some within a few years to session pro level playing in a myriad of styles. Bedroom guitarists that become obsessed with the likes of Guthrie Govan and Tim Henson.

darkerside 4y ago
Do you appreciate those 8 lessons from where you were 10? In a way, you'd played guitar for 5 years when you strolled into that Guitar Center and started noodling.
- brandall10 4y ago
  Unfortunately I didn't touch the guitar again until picking up that mag, so it was all lost, including my nascent ability to read music.
  - darkerside 4y ago
    Musical and muscle patterns that form in your mind at a young age don't disappear, they just wait for their time
    - jamincan 4y ago
      Would 8 lessons be enough to build that muscle memory though? It is pretty remarkable, though, how long muscle memory can last. I haven't played piano seriously since university except for occasionally noodling on my mom or sister's piano when visiting, and old repertoire seems to flow out of my fingers. Maybe a bit more rusty than when I was taking lessons in my teens, but still there somehow 20 years later.
      - wccrawford 4y ago
        If nothing else, being exposed to something for a short time has the effect of removing some of the fear of the unknown, at least. You might not be able to repeat any of the stuff you learned, but you'll go into it with a lot less fear the second time, and that's incredibly helpful. And I'm sure some of that stuff will come back to you, too.
    - brandall10 4y ago
      We’re talking a sum total of possibly 20 hours playing as a child over the course of a couple months. As a lefty, I recall I was still in an awkward enough phase that when shopping for an electric I couldn’t decide on getting a left or right model, they both felt equally awkward, so just continued using right. Pretty sure I wasn’t able to barre chord. Things ramped up quickly once I started with the 2nd instructor.
JKCalhoun 4y ago
Agree: TABS == good, sheet music == bad. (For beginners, anyway.)
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  A lot of people fluent in sheet music don't appreciate how incomprehensible and information-dense it really is. If you just want to play a song, it's the wrong way to go.
  - analog31 4y ago
    I'm a fluent reader, and I agree with you. Conventional notation has its use cases, but if you don't fall into one of them, then you're better off without it. Playing "classical" music is the most familiar use case. I belong to a 19-piece jazz ensemble, which involves a hybrid of composed and improvised music, and everything we play is from sheet music. I'm the bassist, and my parts are a mixture of conventional notation and chord symbols. In this environment, tabulature is actually useless -- no arranger knows how to write it, and nobody can read it at performance speed. On the other hand, there's very little sheet music in rock and contemporary genres except in some situations such as studio / commercial work. A complaint I've read about tabulature is that a lot of tabs found online are inaccurate. There's also a school of thought that relying on tabs is an impediment to learning how to play by ear. Learning to read from day one is how I was taught, but it's no longer the preferred method. For instance, the Suzuki method has kids start out playing entirely by ear. Reading comes later.
  - mathieuh 4y ago
    I can sight read tab to a pretty high level, e.g. I was able to sight read my way through most of Capricho Árabe at first glance if that means anything to anyone. I just started teaching myself classical guitar in August and I've completely fallen in love, it's all I listen to and I practise hours per day. But I am now teaching myself standard notation because I am running up against the limit of tab. I keep having to go back and forth between someone actually playing the piece and the tab so I can get the rhythm, and sometimes I'll find I internalise a rhythm incorrectly and then one day when I'm listening to the piece played by a pro it clicks and I realise I've been playing it wrong this whole time. There are sites like https://www.classtab.org/ https://www.classtab.org/ which try to add this rhythmic information to tab, but I don't think it works all that well. Honestly at this point I wish I'd started with standard notation, or at least learnt both at the same time.

darkerside 4y ago

Do you appreciate those 8 lessons from where you were 10? In a way, you'd played guitar for 5 years when you strolled into that Guitar Center and started noodling.

brandall10 4y ago
Unfortunately I didn't touch the guitar again until picking up that mag, so it was all lost, including my nascent ability to read music.
- darkerside 4y ago
  Musical and muscle patterns that form in your mind at a young age don't disappear, they just wait for their time
  - jamincan 4y ago
    Would 8 lessons be enough to build that muscle memory though? It is pretty remarkable, though, how long muscle memory can last. I haven't played piano seriously since university except for occasionally noodling on my mom or sister's piano when visiting, and old repertoire seems to flow out of my fingers. Maybe a bit more rusty than when I was taking lessons in my teens, but still there somehow 20 years later.
    - wccrawford 4y ago
      If nothing else, being exposed to something for a short time has the effect of removing some of the fear of the unknown, at least. You might not be able to repeat any of the stuff you learned, but you'll go into it with a lot less fear the second time, and that's incredibly helpful. And I'm sure some of that stuff will come back to you, too.
  - brandall10 4y ago
    We’re talking a sum total of possibly 20 hours playing as a child over the course of a couple months. As a lefty, I recall I was still in an awkward enough phase that when shopping for an electric I couldn’t decide on getting a left or right model, they both felt equally awkward, so just continued using right. Pretty sure I wasn’t able to barre chord. Things ramped up quickly once I started with the 2nd instructor.

JKCalhoun 4y ago

Agree: TABS == good, sheet music == bad. (For beginners, anyway.)

pclmulqdq 4y ago
A lot of people fluent in sheet music don't appreciate how incomprehensible and information-dense it really is. If you just want to play a song, it's the wrong way to go.
- analog31 4y ago
  I'm a fluent reader, and I agree with you. Conventional notation has its use cases, but if you don't fall into one of them, then you're better off without it. Playing "classical" music is the most familiar use case. I belong to a 19-piece jazz ensemble, which involves a hybrid of composed and improvised music, and everything we play is from sheet music. I'm the bassist, and my parts are a mixture of conventional notation and chord symbols. In this environment, tabulature is actually useless -- no arranger knows how to write it, and nobody can read it at performance speed. On the other hand, there's very little sheet music in rock and contemporary genres except in some situations such as studio / commercial work. A complaint I've read about tabulature is that a lot of tabs found online are inaccurate. There's also a school of thought that relying on tabs is an impediment to learning how to play by ear. Learning to read from day one is how I was taught, but it's no longer the preferred method. For instance, the Suzuki method has kids start out playing entirely by ear. Reading comes later.
- mathieuh 4y ago
  I can sight read tab to a pretty high level, e.g. I was able to sight read my way through most of Capricho Árabe at first glance if that means anything to anyone. I just started teaching myself classical guitar in August and I've completely fallen in love, it's all I listen to and I practise hours per day. But I am now teaching myself standard notation because I am running up against the limit of tab. I keep having to go back and forth between someone actually playing the piece and the tab so I can get the rhythm, and sometimes I'll find I internalise a rhythm incorrectly and then one day when I'm listening to the piece played by a pro it clicks and I realise I've been playing it wrong this whole time. There are sites like https://www.classtab.org/ https://www.classtab.org/ which try to add this rhythmic information to tab, but I don't think it works all that well. Honestly at this point I wish I'd started with standard notation, or at least learnt both at the same time.