Guitar Karaoke? Why?

[Acecrusher]

It’s a pain in the ass keeping a band going, is one reason.

Anything in life worth having takes work. if it were easy, everybody would be doing it. That said, having a band and keeping the band going is a lot of fun too. So it’s work but it’s fun work. There is a lot of satisfaction involved in collaborating with musicians that together make up a band.

That you can upload and reach a potential audience of millions without going anywhere rather than cart all your crap about and play for 5 people who won’t remember your name by the time the next band has started is another.

They aren’t mutually exclusive things. it’s not a choice between either upload some guitar karaoke and reach millions of people, or haul you gear to a nightclub and play for 5 people.

Other options come to mind. How about hauling your gear to a nightclub and your band playing for 200 people? How about uploading a video of your band and reaching millions of people that way?

The people in the audience will remember your band’s name by the time the next band ha started. Unless they don’t like your band, but what if they do like it? There is an energy a tight band creates that would be tough or impossible for one guy on stage by himself to match. regarding high energy performances, I’ve seen some of the best. I’ve seen Slayer, Motorhead. Metallica, Judas Priest, and many more. Can you imagine Tom Araya onstage by himself and trying to duplicate the energy and feeling of a Slayer show by singing and playing his bass to a tape of Dave Lombardo, Kerry King, and Jeff Hanneman (R.I.P.)?

I saw Pantera and what a tight, ferocious band! The whole was greater than the sum of the parts. They prove that when they disbanded ad released albums with other people instead of the 4 men who made up Pantera. If Dimebag were alive today, can you seriously imagine him being able to generate the atmosphere and feeling of a Pantera show by appearing onstage alone and playing his guitar along to a tape of Phil, Rex, and Vinnie Paul? That would not happen. He wouldn’t even be able to approach the level of intensity those 4 guys created together and Dime was an amazing guitarist with serious stage presence. Still there’s just no way it would be close to as good as the band performing together like when I saw them on their Great Southern Trendkill Tour.

I think there is a place for everyone but if the show was less important you might actually see more people out making live music who are just to introverted to to put on a show.

When you mention “introverted” are you speaking from personal experience or is that just a general statement? The reason I ask is that if you’re talking about yourself, try not to be hard on yourself regarding being introverted. Being introverted is something a man can conquer if he sets his mind to it.

If you want to be in a band that plays shows, and you feel that being at least slightly more extroverted would result in the band putting on a more fun show and the audience being entertained more, you can have that! The mind is incredibly strong, one which I kind of doubt medical science will ever be able to fully understand because it’s just so damn complex! The point I’d like to make is if you set your mind to being more animated on stage, having a stronger stage presence, you can accomplish that. You just need to put in the work. There will be failures from time to time, but do not beat yourself up over, say, trying something different in stage and it not working out the way you’d imagined.

Personal growth is a painful process! There are gong to be times when you;re going to fail and it’s gonna hurt like hell! That’s why so few people are into personal growth. However, if you dedicate yourself to it 100% and if you refuse to beat yourself up over every little mistake, you will notice a positive result. You absolutely, must believe in yourself! I hope this doesn’t sound too trite (it’s actually part of an Ozzy song) but I’m gonna repeat it here because it’s he truth and it’s something you have to know: “You’ve got to believe in yourself, or no one will believe in you.” If you keep telling yourself that you are going to strengthen your stage presence and you’re going to become more at home on stage, more comfortable, that is something you can achieve!

[charface]

I have an actual opinion on this also I guess.
I wish less focus was on show and more on just playing solid music. Don’t get me wrong I like shows but I also love Jim croce sitting however he feels comfortable.

I think there is a place for everyone but if the show was less important you might actually see more people out making live music who are just to introverted to to put on a show.

[Roverton]

True, true. In the end, the music IS the show. If I like the music, then I like it regardless of “showmanship” or absence thereof. If I don’t like the music, no amount of “showmanship” is going to make me like it.

[Acecrusher]

Wow, this has turned into such a cool discussion! I appreciate everybody contributions no matter what their opinion is on this subject. It’s the sharing of different opinions, the different points of view and the reasons for those different points of view that make it so fascinating.

Good job, everybody who participated in this

[Horganovski]

It’s funny - take any art form and after a short time some people will show up who claim to be the ‘old guard’ and fiercely defend ‘how it should be’. I read a book on improvisation recently and it talked about this happening first with jazz, then with free jazz. Which is kind of hilarious as the whole point of jazz was to be free in the first place to play what you like.

And the whole point of ‘rock and roll’ was to rebel against the status quo (your parents, the establishment… not the band…).

So to me the guys doing their own thing on youTube are more ‘rock and roll’ than the guys doing the traditional thing…

Each their own but this thread kinda read to me as ‘old man shouts at (video streaming) cloud’.

[Brendan]

Hi @Acecrusher, I recall you posted a very similar question a while back here: "YouTube" Stars

I think we covered a lot of similar ground on the topic there, not sure we need a new separate discussion on this. I may close this topic and/or merge into that previous one. Always fine to continue an older conversation if you really feel there’s more to discuss, but this very much feels like a repeat.

I know I may be stating the obvious, but not everyone has the same conception of music, both in terms of how it’s “meant to be played” or “meant to be performed”. We’re fortunate there exists such a huge variety of different ways of making music and I don’t think we can point to one (e.g. playing in a band) as necessarily better / more desirable than another.

Not only do people approach making music in all sorts of ways, people post videos on YouTube for all sorts of reasons. Whether to share things you’re learning, have fun paying homage to your favorite songs, making original art, chasing after fame, random experimentation…all fine, and certainly plenty of scenarios where someone may neither want nor need to play with a band.

There are also entire genres of music (e.g. hip-hop, electronic) where live instrumentation is rare and “backing tracks”, along with vocals, are kind of the whole point! I know you’re talking rock guitar specifically but really for any genre there are all sorts of ways of making / performing music. I’d even say it’s totally valid for someone to want to make music and not care one whit about performing live at all.

[Acecrusher]

I think we covered a lot of similar ground on the topic there, not sure we need a new separate discussion on this. I may close this topic and/or merge into that previous one. Always fine to continue an older conversation if you really feel there’s more to discuss, but this very much feels like a repeat.

Just out of curiosity, why did you post this right after I thanked everyone who has participated in this discussion, which has been a lot of fun and educational as well? To post that you may close this thread directly after I posted how much I’d appreciated everyone;s contributions and points of view comes across as more than a little…mean spirited, don’t ya think so.?

BTW, I rarely discuss personal stuff, but charface brought up how some people may suffer from introversion and it may inhibit their stage presence and ability to put on an entertaining show. I was moved to the point I shared some personal, and frankly quite painfful memories because I believed telling my story could help others. Charface liked my response and clicked the "like"button so apparently not everyone feels this is the useless thread you’re strongly implying it is. That even one person appreciated that personal story of one, to think that it might help somebody is very rewarding. It might not mean much to you, and I guess it doesn’t or you wouldn’t have threatened to close my thread but I’m glad that what I wrote was meaningful to somebody. That’s one thing you can’t take away from me or everyone who got something out of that personal life lesson.

This is far from being a repeat of the thread you mentioned. About the only thing they have in common is that they mention people who are trying to make a name for themselves with YouTube. That’s where the similarities end.

Speaking of similarities, you can’t tell me you don;t see any similarity between the phenomenon which I described in this thread and karaoke. hence the name, “Guitar Karaoke,” I coined that phrase. It’s original. It’s also highly appropriate. Now, do I think people who enjoy karaoke are bad people? NO! Do I think they’re evil? NO! However, do I think that singing along to a karaoke track is very similar to singing in a rock and roll band? NO! That’s the main point i’ve put forth in this thread and I assure you, you won’t find that in the thread you mentioned which you claimed is so similar that you might merge this with that… Please don’t merge them together. They’re different. Can you honestly tell me that there aren;t other threads on this forum which are far more similar, which for some reason, you dn;t threaten to merge, or worse, close? I’m sure I could find some exiles of some incredibly similar threads, threads whose creators you didn’t take to task for having created something which is similar to an already existing thread. You know that too, Brendan

I know I may be stating the obvious, but not everyone has the same conception of music, both in terms of how it’s “meant to be played” or “meant to be performed”.

That’s a good thing, isn’t it? The world would be a pretty boring place otherwise, wouldn’t it? I knew hen I started writing my OP that some would agree and some would disagree. Great! I find the various points of view offered here to be fascinating. I’m very glad that everyone doesn’t think exactly the same way regarding music, or even regarding Guitar Karoake. The American people have a long history of enjoying discussing things and sometimes debating things. A wise man one said “I may not agree with what you have to say but I shall fight to the death for your right to say it”! I feel the same way.

I take pride in the fact that whether somebody completely agrees with me or strongly disagrees with me regarding this subject, I have treated all of them with respect and appreciation. I went out of my way to make sure everyone knew their contribution to this thread was appreciated, regardless of whether we agreed regarding Karaoke Guitar. In every reply I’ve been polite, appreciative, and that you just now threatened to close this thread really makes me feel like no matter what I do, you’ll always manage to find a problem with it.

Inclosing, I will not apologize for feeling passionate about the rock music industry. I’ve dedicated my life to this industry, I love this industry, and I want to see good things happen to it! Just don;t mistake my passion for anger. I’m not the least bit angry. Unfortunately the internet, being the primitive tool it is, doesn’t reflect my tone of voice, my facial expression, my body language and a myriad of other non-verbal cues which where they visible here would ensure that there would be absolutely nobody saying I’m liken old man shouting. At clouds no less! Don’t believe someone write that? Well, here it is:

Each their own but this thread kinda read to me as ‘old man shouts at (video streaming) cloud’.

Did I respond to the poster i an impolite manner though? No, I didn’t. “Old man shots at clouds” isn’t something I expect will lead to an intellectually stimulating, thought provoking discussion… I’d rather talk about other things. It’s too bad that because I’m passionate about rock 'n roll and want to see good things happen to the rock 'n roll industry that somebody equated that with shouting at clouds. It doesn’t upset me that someone posted that - that isn’t what’s too bad. What’s too bad is that even though I’ve received several “likes” in this particular thread, all you seem to notice is the negative response I got. There are people in this world who choose to ignore the positive and instead focus on life’s meaner bites. I’d like to think you’re not one of them though, Brendan. I really would.

[Drew]

Bedroom warrior checking in here too - I enjoy writing music, I enjoy playing, and I enjoy performing, but my job doesn’t really allow me the late nights needed to rehearse with a band or gig, and I’m not interested in quitting to pursue music full time. I mostly focus on studio music rather than performing videos on youtube, but if I do do a live performance of one of my songs, playing around with pre-recorded backing tracks, I don’t really see it as “karaoke.” I’d love to gig, but that doesn’t really jive with being at my desk clear eyed and ready to go at 8AM the next morning, you know?

And, when other people do it sometimes with original music and sometimes by performing covers, I don’t really see that as much different. If people are having fun, who cares? About the only time that bothers me is when they’re clearly miming along to a pre-recorded performance rather than actually performing live, or clearly copping a performance together out of so many different takes and camera angles that it’s unclear how much of it was actually live, but that’s about as curmudgeony as I get.

To your second point… I won’t speak for Brandon, but this thread may have evolved in a different direction than your first, but it started off in essentially the same point and there was no way to know at that time where it was going to go. Idunno. Speaking personally, you make a lot of threads knocking “the state of music today” and talking wistfully about “the way things used to be,” and frankly just because this one happened to go in a positive direction doesn’t justify continuing to tread tired ground.

Bare minimum, I’d have just bumped your old thread. :2cents:

[Drew]

Idunno. If you’ll forgive some flippancy and humor, I think this is probably appropriate here.

[Brendan]

Hi Ace! Sorry for the timing; I’d already started writing that reply when you posted thanking people for participating, and I’m not trying to personally attack you here. I think the fact remains the OP on this topic feels very similar to the prior topic I linked to, and I will note that we have merged topics into existing ones many times when something seems a continuation of an existing discussion. That was not meant as a threat, apologies if it came off that way.

But look: both this post, and the previous “YouTube stars” one, come across to me as denigrating players on YouTube who don’t fit the sort of mold you have in mind. If that’s not your intent, fine, but I am telling you it comes across that way. I agree the “old man yells at cloud” thing is uncharitable and doesn’t add anything positive to the conversation. That said, your posts have prompted this reaction on multiple occasions — you might take a moment to consider why that is. I do enjoy a lot of these discussions, and appreciate the diversity of perspectives, but to be honest I think you sometimes frame things in a way that feels more dismissive or argumentative than necessary.

[Acecrusher]

@Drew

Idunno. If you’ll forgive some flippancy and humor, I think this is probably appropriate here.

There’s nothing to forgive Drew. I have no desire to prevent people from enjoying things. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to do so anyway, would I?

I mentored it before but I think it bears repeating that the internet, at least a forum where our words are strictly in black and white, doesn’t supply us with the majority of a person’s message. When I was in college I was taught that when people speak to each other, about 90% of their message is nonverbal. That’s huge! If I were speaking instead of typing, if people could see my face, hear my tone of voice and see my body language, nobody would think I’m angry.

I love a good discussion. I love a good debate. When I was living in Florida I met a lawyer who was on a local, weekly public access TV show named “First Freedom” and it was about First Amendment Rights. They also spoke a lot about the Founding Fathers of our nation and their principles, the things they stood for. I believe it was Thomas Jefferson (if I remember correctly) who said people should question everything, even the existence of God, because if there isa God, certainly he would approve more of people actively questioning his existence, what he wanted from human beings, and that Jefferson believed God would certainly approve more of men with active questioning minds, than men who just follow along with the crowd complacently, questioning nothing.

The lawyer’s name was Luke Lirot. He was a brilliant man. he loved what I love - something he termed “a robust exchange of ideas.” That’s what I’m all about. The robust exchange of ideas Don’t confuse my passion for anger. I feel strongly about what I love. I love rock 'n roll and I want to see good things happen to it!!!

[Drew]

There’s nothing to forgive Drew. I have no desire to prevent people from enjoying things. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to do so anyway, would I?

I guess I’m saying that that’s kind of the message I’m getting with “kids these days, with their youtube channels and prerecorded backing tracks and amp modelers, back in my day we played in clubs and carried our full stacks upstairs both ways, load-in AND load-out!”

If people are having fun recording covers and sharing them on Youtube, let them. If you want to do something different, then do it. As long as we’re all enjoying ourselves, it’s all good. We’re all here because we love guitar and love the pursuit of technique, and that’s enough for quite a lot of discussion without getting into the relative merits of what we all choose to do WITH that technique.

EDIT:

I mentored it before but I think it bears repeating that the internet, at least a forum where our words are strictly in black and white, doesn’t supply us with the majority of a person’s message. When I was in college I was taught that when people speak to each other, about 90% of their message is nonverbal. That’s huge! If I were speaking instead of typing, if people could see my face, hear my tone of voice and see my body language, nobody would think I’m angry.

Also, wanted to address this. While this may be true, that over text you lose a lot of nonverbal cues like tone and body language, I think that’s something that we all have to be aware of coming into a conversation, and it’s on us to account for that and strive to be overly clear. If you post something on the internet, then you can’t rely on your tone or your body language to make sure your message will be understood, so you have to rely on your words, and let your words speak for themselves. If your words alone aren’t enough to prevent your meaning from getting clearly understood, to the degree that your meaning and tone are frequently getting misunderstood, then you’re failing to communicate clearly and that’s a failure on your part and not the part of the audience. You’re aware that a large part of your meaning is probably getting lost on the net, so the logical followup from that awareness is to take steps to make sure your writing is clear enough that people can understand your meaning even without all those nonverbal cues.

Does that make sense? The lack of nonverbal cues doesn’t excuse unclear communication, it should encourage better writing.

[Acecrusher]

Hey Brendan!

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. If you say that it was just bad timing that you wrote that thing about considering closing this thread directly after I had written the post where I thanked every single person who had posted in this thread and said this has been a cool discussion that I find fascinating, then I believe you. So, fine, it was unfortunate timing.

For the record, I truly appreciate that you didn’t close this thread or merge it. I believe this thread has plenty of unique, original material for it to stand on its own.

I appreciate that you agree the “old man yelling at clouds” added nothing of intellectual value to this. When that happens I believe the best response is no response. I enjoy a robust exchange of ideas - not an exchange of insults. I believe I’ve been polite and fair to everyone on this thread - the people who agreed with me and the people who didn’t.

“old man yells at cloud” thing is uncharitable and doesn’t add anything positive to the conversation. That said, your posts have prompted this reaction on multiple occasions — you might take a moment to consider why that is.

You’re right. Sometimes my posts have prompted that type of uncharitable, response with no substance to it… However, this thread also prompted several “likes” and I prefer to look at the positives rather than dwell on the negatives. A positive mental attitude is one of the keys to success in life. It’s truly phenomenal what a difference a positive mental attitude makes.

I do enjoy a lot of these discussions, and appreciate the diversity of perspectives,

Thanks Brendan! I too enjoy the diversity of perspectives. It’s interesting to find out what sorts of different perspectives different people hold and why. I love it. I try to make sure that I treat people who disagree with me just as politely as everyone else. Here and elsewhere. Drew and I have had some long, in-depth discussions on all sorts of things on this forum - we’ve disagreed almost constantly! We’ve disagreed about whether or to cell phones, or more specifically recording devices should be allowed into the areas when rock concerts are being held we’ve disagreed on whether Queensryche was a progressive metal band, and pretty much everything else. Yet to this day, I consider him one of the best posters here because he always brings an interesting way to back up his argument. @Drew I enjoy our discussions. I’m convinced that one day we’re going to have a discussion where it will turn out we both have the same opinion on something.

Brendan, you say I frame things in a way that seems argumentative but it’s certainly not meant that way. I don’t want to be argumentative. I do however love what Luke Lirot termed “The robust exchange of ideas.” I love arguing in that sense - in the best sense of the word. Two people argue a certain point and at the end of it, by having to support their side of it, they’ve either strengthened their opinion by having to defend it, or, they’ve found that something they once believed to be true isn’t true. The person changed his mind on what he thought regarding a certain issue because of the strength, the logic of the other person’s argument. That’s awesome.

Since being argumentative is a different thing than that, and you say I “frame things in a way that feels more dismissive or argumentative than necessary”, that means I’m going to take a look at how much validity there is to that idea and provided I find some validity to it, I’ll begin the process of working on framing my arguments in a better way. I’m not a professional writer; I never wanted to be one.I never wanted to be anything other than what I am - a musician. I do consider writing to be a serious hobby of mine and I want my writing to be the best it can be. If I can improve the way I frame things so that my point get across to people more effectively, than do you think I’d want to go ahead and improve at that? You bet!

One thing I’ve never had any trouble with is being sincere. People who know me know that I love rock 'n roll to death. When I say I’m passionate about this subject because I want to see good things happen to rock music, I couldn’t mean it any more.

There’s no reason people shouldn’t be able to enjoy karaoke. The concept - a single person performs a song that some well known artist wrote while a recording plays - a recording of everyone else they would need to actually perform a live rendition of the song - is fun. It’s entertaining. It’s my opinion however, and we all have an opinion, that while karaoke is entertainment it is not art. There’s a difference between a karaoke singer who performs a rendition of “Walk This Way” and Steven Tyler himself. Singing “Walk This Way” along to a backing track doesn’t make you a member of a successful rock band. Playing the guitar to “Walk This Way” along to a backing track doesn’t make you Joe Perry. It doesn’t make you a member of a successful rock band. Do any of you find that controversial or insulting? If so, just please tell me what about it is insulting and I’ll re-frame it so that its not insulting.

[Drew]

@Acecrusher

@Drew I enjoy our discussions. I’m convinced that one day we’re going to have a discussion where it will turn out we both have the same opinion on something.

Inconceivable!

@Acecrusher

There’s a difference between a karaoke singer who performs a rendition of “Walk This Way” and Steven Tyler himself. Singing “Walk This Way” along to a backing track doesn’t make you a member of a successful rock band. Playing the guitar to “Walk This Way” along to a backing track doesn’t make you Joe Perry. It doesn’t make you a member of a successful rock band.

But, devil’s advocate, what’s the difference between playing “walk this way” in a cover band, and playing the solo to a backing track in your bedroom and sharing it on youtube? To me, it seems the biggest difference is I don’t have space in my studio room for a drum kit, nor do I have a bassist and drummer at my beck and call. Otherwise, it’s just me playing along to other instruments, regardless of if they’re pre-recorded or played live by someone else.

[PickingApprentice]

Honest question here to @Acecrusher. Why have you not tried it yourself? (Assuming you haven’t). How do you know whether or not you would enjoy/benefit from it? I’m assuming you have a band right? (Otherwise I don’t think your posts are making much sense). You could use it to market yourself and your band - I bet if I saw you playing an awesome rendition of a song that I liked and it was clear that you were in a band, I am much more likely to try and get hold of your material or better still, see you live.

It is much better to try something before questioning the reason why (with exception of say, the thought of putting your hand in a blender ) - it will likely give you all the answers to the questions you never thought of… You never know, one day I might go fishing!

[Brendan]

Thanks for the reply Ace, glad we have no hard feelings here, and I appreciate the willingness to improve how you frame an argument or express an opinion. I think that’s something we can all stand to work on and I’ve observed it myself — one nice thing about the forum is getting more practice, not only writing in general, but learning to write more clearly and empathetically based on how others react. I will shoot you a note in a little bit with some more specific feedback as well.

[element0s]

Where are the rest of their bands? Why don’t they record their performance playing with a band, the way rock music was meant to be played, the way it was meant to be performed?

I realize that you’re specifically asking for insights about the YouTube crowd, but you do know that there are tons of young (and otherwise) rock/metal bands out there grinding through the underground trenches, touring and releasing new music right? Some of them are incredible and are achieving a moderate level of success, despite the lack of mainstream support. I think I could recommend some stuff to you, based on your tastes. Modern rock guitar runs a lot deeper than YouTube!

[Twangsta]

I knew at the back of my head there was good reason to avoid this thread… play your gutiars folks, waay too much lip here. No offence but to each his own.

[BillHoudini]

I generally try to make my own backing tracks from scratch, mostly with midi and VST instruments. There are two reasons for that. First of all, I don’t have the time or patience to form a band. I would consider myself borderline a social anxiety patient and I tend to cringe easily. The second reason is that I’m a control freak and I like doing things my way, especially in the song writting process.

Having said all that, I totally understand people that play on backing tracks, because they either can’t or don’t want to find band members. I’ve found out many great players on YouTube that play with backing tracks. One of my absolute favourite guitar players gigs all over USA with backing tracks, his name is Buckethead. This is from a few days ago. The guy is slaying!

Nottingham Lace by Buckethead live March 2019

If I ever get good enough to write some worth listening songs I will definitely gig alone or form a band of easy going session players. It may sound like I’m a weird person or something, but I just like working alone. I don’t think that playing over backing tracks is “bad” or that it makes less of a musician. Rock on everyone, with bands or backing tracks!

[Acecrusher]

@Drew

But, devil’s advocate, what’s the difference between playing “walk this way” in a cover band, and playing the solo to a backing track in your bedroom and sharing it on youtube? To me, it seems the biggest difference is I don’t have space in my studio room for a drum kit, nor do I have a bassist and drummer at my beck and call. Otherwise, it’s just me playing along to other instruments, regardless of if they’re pre-recorded or played live by someone else.

In two words: Human interaction.

@Drew

Inconceivable!

Ha ha! Drew, you’re the kind of guy I like to have on a forum.