[Clancy]

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

I do need some help on this as (as most of you know) I'm not a guitar player or a music expert by any stretch of the imagination.

But it seems to me, some of the styles mentioned here are guitar syles - for example "slide guitar" and thumbpicking or Travis style (is that the same thing?) while rock, jazz, blues, metal are styles of music. Can we mix the two and does it make sense to do that? Just wondering as I really have no idea about this and the best people to ask are the members here.

Thanks again for any feedback.

Clancy

[Chaotic Kittie]

Mixing styles of music and styles of guitar seems to me as a bit contradictive, it wouldn't really change anything. If there would be forums for styles of music and for styles of guitar playing, they should be kept apart.

[coldethyl]

Being that this site is geared towards the guitar and guitar playing etc, whatever we end up with should reflect that because if I'm understanding correctly what Clancy is trying to come up with, if a guitarist is into the blues, then he/she would have the appropriate blues category to relate to. Same would apply to classical, country, metal, rock, and folk guitarists.

[Chaotic Kittie]

Yes, but then metal, rock, folk and so are just musical styles, they differ mainly in musical ways. In slide guitar, fingerstyle, fingerpicking, etc the technical difference is more noticable. That's why I think musical styles and guitar styles should be kept apart.

[coldethyl]

Originally Posted by Chaotic Kittie

Yes, but then metal, rock, folk and so are just musical styles, they differ mainly in musical ways. In slide guitar, fingerstyle, fingerpicking, etc the technical difference is more noticable. That's why I think musical styles and guitar styles should be kept apart.

Yeah, I see what you mean! I think it would be obvious that someone into metal guitar wouldn't necessarily go for fingerstyle, just as a classical guitarist wouldn't necessarily go for the slide guitar style.

There again, I might be wrong! It does happen to me occasionally lol!

[Chaotic Kittie]

Well, there are some metal genres that rely heavily on fingerpicked classical guitars in the verses and go for heavier riffs in the chorus and so on.
It's just that slide, fingerstyle, fingerpicking etc differ only in technique, not so much in musical ways! Yes, some techniques are more applied in some genres than others, but the differences between genres are mainly musical. Just as there is one "Playing the guitar" forum and one "The workings of music" forum!

[coldethyl]

I think the old adage of "keep it simple" has definitely got some merit in coming up with style categories (or whatever you wanna call them)
Sometimes I think we can over analyse and over complicate things more than necessary.

[Clancy]

Ok, so if we had two separate forums -
one Guitar Styles and the other Music Styles what would you like to see as subforums under each?

Guitar Styles
Slide guitar
fingerstyle (fingerpicking) is that the same?
thumbpicking or Travis style (is that the same thing?)
which others?

Music Styles
Country
Folk
Rock (should Metal be separate from this?)
Classical
Jazz
which others?

[Chaotic Kittie]

That would be a pretty good way of setting it up. IMHO there is no real need to separate metal from rock, there are ENDLESS variations of rock, and the same rules apply to all of them, so rock is good on it's own.

Oh, and no, finger style and finger picking is not the same thing.

Originally Posted by Kirk

Finger style is a way of orchestrating a piece of music on a guitar. You weave bass line, melody and chord fragments into one arrangement. There is nothing symmetrical about it, not much repetition of patterns, since it's all based on a tune ... the three elements combine to become the tune. Each section of the piece is different from the others, all must be learned and pieced together to form the whole.

Finger picking is more of an accompaniment. It usually is a pattern of fingers hitting certain strings at certain moments no matter what the chord is. It doesn't need to follow a melody line -- something else is doing that, ie vocalist, another player. So what you need to learn for finger picking are the basic patterns which you use for the whole tune.

[skinnybloke]

Originally Posted by Clancy

Ok, so if we had two separate forums -
one Guitar Styles and the other Music Styles what would you like to see as subforums under each?

Guitar Styles
Slide guitar
fingerstyle (fingerpicking) is that the same?
thumbpicking or Travis style (is that the same thing?)
which others?

Music Styles
Country
Folk
Rock (should Metal be separate from this?)
Classical
Jazz
which others?

Could you fit "Blues" in there somewhere? It never ceases to amaze me how complicated three chords can get! Having a dedicated Blues subforum would make GFB&B...........PERFECT

[Clancy]

Originally Posted by skinnybloke

Could you fit "Blues" in there somewhere? It never ceases to amaze me how complicated three chords can get! Having a dedicated Blues subforum would make GFB&B...........PERFECT

I can definately add blues in for a skinnybloke.

Clancy

[coldethyl]

Under "Guitar Styles" how about Flatpicking?

[Chaotic Kittie]

A Tapping forum too perhaps.. though that one might be unnecessary, dunno how popular it is.

[randomaire]

Well you gotta think also in Acoustic and Electric I would think. Electric is pretty self explanatory. But Acoustic includes...steel string guitars, which includes the flat top, or "folk" guitar, the twelve string guitar, and the arch top guitar, acoustic bass guitar, renaisance(baroque), classical, russian, resonators etc.

Both do include the different types. Should it be broke down seperate for say acoustic, bass and electric with sub genres for lead and rythym and then genres for the Rock, Country, Folk, Jazz, Classical, Electronica, Blues, Steel. And maybe Picking, Slide, Fingerstyle, and Strumming as genres of that? ... wow lol.

i.e. Acoustic->Lead->Country->Slide
or Electric->Lead->Rock->Picking

And metal is just basically rock with more distortion and heavier use of power chords and sometimes faster.

Its actually a tough question.

[Chaotic Kittie]

Splitting it up in Lead/Rhythm sections sounds to me a bit overkill. Those two could be mixed up in 1 part, and then only worry about splitting stuff up after how they are played. Even though there are lots of different kinds of guitars as you mentioned, it's also a bit overkill to get a forum for each of them... as stated, forums for the playing styles is IMHO a lot better, since they actually CAN be applied to as good as any guitar.
That also covers Acoustic/Electric... the difference is really only that one gets it sounds from the pickups. Most techniques are appliable to both.