[krissovo]

Hi all, I am interested in a discussion on this subject

I was chatting to some old school twangers tonight over a Guinness and I was arguing that without the web I would still be playing only CAGED chords very simply with not much direction. The response they came back with amazed me and I am still in a bit of shock.

They told me I was a lazy new breed of player! The cheek of it was my reaction but once they they explained I kind of think I am and I blame the internet.

Why you ask?

Ok, if I want to learn a song here is my process:

• Go on itunes and download song
• search for guitar pro tab
• pick up the rhythm
• play song
• learn solo following tab

Ok say that takes me an hour to learn a very easy song no problem!

Now here is how the old school did it:

• Record song off radio
• Spend ages exploring fret board to find chords
• spend even longer finding out the solo
• play song

Took them up to week or even longer to try and get the song even after a year or two of playing.

So what is my point, well I know very little theory and I cannot grasp the fret board but am I bothered.......not really as I can find a tab in seconds or go on a message board and ask a question to a problem with out researching or even thinking it through properly. Do I have to train my ear? Again not really as I can ask a question on a site like this and be told what the answer is.

Will I change my ways.....NOPE! Well probably not anyway.

So will there be internet era of guitar players like me that will lower the general quality guitar playing as a whole?

[eXperiment63]

I don't know why you think it would lower the quality of the player. The quality of the player is in his hands, not his ears. Some people are born able to play by sound and find it on the fretboard, some are not. Either way, you are getting to the same end; being able to play the song. And over time you will develop your ear to where you don't need to go find the tab because you'll recognize it soon as you hear it.

[fly135]

I think the internet is doing two things. One, it's helping to rapidly create hoards of guitar players that are pretty good. Two, it's making it painfully obvious to all those who put their dues that the rising ranks are diminishing the uniqueness of their talents. Unfortunately the internet hasn't made me good yet, but it has helped keep my enthusiasm up.

[solidwalnut]

Originally Posted by krissovo

...So will there be internet era of guitar players like me that will lower the general quality guitar playing as a whole?

Well, the best players learn to develop their ear to understand what it is that is being played and then try and translate that to the fretboard.

I'm definitely an old school player. I've spent alot of hours picking up the needle of a record player and ff and rew tapes! The 'net and other digital tools has made the process alot easier, but.....

There is just no substitute for developing the ear. And I've never learned a song from viewing TAB. I'd rather listen to the song and figure it out.

Once you can 'hear' and 'see' in your minds eye the shape of a chord and the notes of that chord, then you can begin to hear and understand what other guitar players are doing. An open G chord will always sound the same, and you can recognize the succession of notes being played.

There are only so many ways to play a G chord on the guitar, and the forms that are mostly played number about 3. Once you hear the succession of strings being played and get that in the mind's eye, you can begin to reproduce what you hear.

Soon you begin to realize that you can not only hear what other players are playing, but you soon realize that you can play that stuff too! Even if you can't always reproduce everything, you begin to adjust your playing style to what you can do; ya learn to celebrate your limitations!

So I think the answer could be yes. But just because the new gen doesn't have to press ff and rew a bunch of times doesn't make them lazy. It's just that they have so many different tools to choose from that some are beginning to believe that you can learn how to play guitar by tools only! As if there is some magic elixir out there than can make one a player! Because the old school didn't have so many tools in the way of learning, the ear was more quickly developed.

PlaneTalk is, seriously, a tool that very much helps develop the ear. There aren't very many tools out there that can say that.

Ear training is king!

Steve

[cshude]

I think it's probably somewhere in the middle. I enjoy the challenge of hearing a song and trying to figure it out from time to time, but on the other hand, I'm not going to sit down and try to figure out a Tommy Emmanuel tune either. There is certainly value in developing listening skills to be able to identify chords and intervals, but if it keeps me from enjoying playing, then I'll hop on the net and see if I can get the chords. I rarely use TABS- the chords are enough and I'll play it the way I want to play it.

[chuckswood2001]

I've been sittin here thinkin of how to reply to this for half hour, i think ur buddies should get their heads out of the dark spot they been hiding in and come up for air, just because they learned the hard way doesn't mean the learned the rite way.

The internet is an information highway, it can give u all the info u need but it can't take the place of practice, practice, practice,and as for the quality of pickers, i think it is comin up because of the internet and sites like this one, there are hundreds of people here that give help to those of us that need it, and they teach us to do it the rite way instead of the wrong way, they had recorders to record off the radio, some only had a record to ware out tryin to learn, so they had their tools and we have ours,not much diff as far as i can see

Chuck

[peterm]

whenever and however you learn you do it with the best resources at hand, and the net just happens to offer an easily accessible and cheap resource.
Does it make us lazy? well If you count the hours spent looking for and using learning aids found on the net I don't think so.
Does it stop us from developing ear and listening skills quicker than if we had to work it all out for ourselves? YES definitely
Does it stop us from becoming better guitarists? hmmmmm, perhaps with out the easy access to the wealth of info and support from sites like this on the net, I might have given up long ago but instead I have persevered and just want to keep on learning which includes developing ear skills, so NO way, I am getting better everday


Cheers

Peter

[Bennett]

Every generation will be inherently lazier than the next.

For example:
- Did you brew that Guiness you or your friends were drinking?
- Did you breed/grow your last meal?
- Did you weave your last shirt or build you last house?



Seriously though, I think it's both a blessing and a curse. But as was stated, nothing will replace serious practice. Learning to develop your ear is just another string in the bow -- and it will help with guitar/musicianship immensely -- but it is not a mandatory requirement.

In my situation having the information available is most certainly a blessing since I only play for my own enjoyment; it is not ever going to be a source of income in my life. And given the serious lack of free time I have available I am still able to move forward and enjoy playing without the need to spend hours upon hours trying to nut out a single tune (though developing my own ear would most certainly be a boon).

A lot of the time comments as was made to you simply comes out of jealously to a degree; and we're all guilty of it. For example, for those that learnt computer programming in Assembly instead of lovely programming environments we have today.

[lorispencer]

I think that the internet allows people to play very quickly with very little technical information and without a great deal of ear playing. I think that it's a great tool. Most don't want to spend all of them time wading through theory or spending years with trial and error ear work. They can be up and running and having the joy that they wanted to have from guitar in months instead of years. For those who want, spend the time on theory and ear to really be able to improve beyond a certain level. i learned how to play the hard way with the needle on the record over and over again. I wouldn't expect computer programmers that worked for me to program in the same style that we did when programming was in it's infancy, i wouldn't expect musicians to continue learning the same that was done in the past. with that said, every guitar player should eventually learn to hear an out of tune guitar and be able to correct in case that tuner battery goes dead.

[lorispencer]

. For example, for those that learnt computer programming in Assembly instead of lovely programming environments we have today. [/quote]

We were answering at the same time along the same lines

[peterm]

Originally Posted by Bennett

Every generation will be inherently lazier than the next.

For example:
- Did you brew that Guiness you or your friends were drinking?
- Did you breed/grow your last meal?
- Did you weave your last shirt or build you last house?

1) i used to but It making a decent brew was eating into my practice time
2) partially
3) What?? build a house AND find time to practice???

For example, for those that learnt computer programming in Assembly instead of lovely programming environments we have today.

Hmmm those were the days.... Yup

Now I'm confused, I should be programming but all I can think of doing is practicing


Cheers

Peter

[lorispencer]

Originally Posted by peterm

Now I'm confused, I should be programming but all I can think of doing is practicing

I had the same problem so i quit the programming job so i could play all day....

[Kirk Lorange]

I must say, when I got online I had no idea that tab was such a popular means of learning guitar ... I don't even think I knew what it was. It did, and still does really, seem like a bad way to learn, but then I realized it was pretty much the same as standard notation. I think we all go through the stage when we want to sound exactly like someone else, and if the tab/notation is accurate, it's not a bad way to achieve that, especially for those who haven't got a good ear for music. I use it all the time in my lessons, but I always do try to emphasize the basic theory too ... the related chords, the Roman numerals, the 1-3-5 construction of chords, etc., and the idea of LISTENING ... the idea that there is no one way to play anything.

I agree that there must be a whole lot more mediocre players out there than before, people with no real gift for music but who can convey a tune or two ... that can only be a good thing though. Better to be twanging than to be just watching TV, or hanging out at the shopping centre ... or car-jacking or ram-raiding. Playing music is good for the soul no matter how you learn it, or how deeply you delve into it.

[CanuckTodd]

krissovo,
You and your pals make an interesting point.
The Internet gives us instant gratification, and I think that tends to be the way many people are hard-wired. We are all part of the "I want it now, I get it now" generation. I was trying to learn a Pink Floyd solo, and typed the song name in You Tube and watched more than a dozen people playing it. I learned a bit from each of them. Is that lazy? I don't know, maybe it's just more research! (I still can't play it, but I at least know what I should be trying to do!)

[Lcjones]

I may be over simplifying things. However, regardless how things are learned, they are learned by using the tools available.

I used a slide rule. My kids used calculators. My grandkids use computers. What tools will my great grandchild have? ( not too sure I want to know)

But in answer to the original question. The Internet is just one more tool in the arsenal of tools for the guitar player. Not to be slighted in the least and to be used as best it can be. Ala, GFB & B.

As far as mediocre players.... There were and always will be those, like me, who do not put 110% into guitar playing. With the Internet, having the tools and ability to do what 20 years ago was unheard of is what has allowed us to not only hear and see the best players in the world but also the less performance driven players as well.

Internet = Lazy? No. Sedentary.? Yes.

**
Les