The Fault in our Stars

Did he though :wink:

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Sounds like we’re saying similar things re: creativity. Re: mechanics I will submit two things with respect to drums and piano:

An expert playing middle C does do it differently, and there is a great research paper I read studying this. It was a timed endurance test. Experts could hit a single note on the keyboard for fifteen or more minutes straight, loud, without tiring, whereas beginners petered out after five. On studying the movements they found that the experts were using more shoulder and elbow, whereas the beginners were using more wrist and finger. The bigger muscles had more endurance. That being said I do think more people succeed at piano technique than guitar, percentagewise. I think the difference is that on piano, it’s easier for beginners to “figure out” the expert way by feel, without specific instruction. On guitar, lots more of us fail to discover something as simple as the pickslanting stuff we notice in Yngwie’s playing, for example, unless someone shows us.

Drums are goddamn voodoo. It’s probably the pop instrument most similar to guitar in terms of the tricky mechanics that experts employ. As an example, to play a paradiddle you have to hit two notes in a row with the same hand. It’s like doing two downstrokes in a row. When experts do this very fast, there is a good chance they will click into a more efficient motion and won’t mention or even be aware they’re doing this. There is a great video of Glen Sobel doing this. When he kicks into high gear the doubles are effortless and the forearm / wrist movement changes to enable this:

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Piano teachers are so good because they have built an outstanding educational pipeline, and they can feed students all the way through conservatory and a PhD in piano performance. They have stunningly good educational materials written by musical giants. There are no secrets or unknowns in piano, because educators have studied piano technique with intense focus. Self-study in piano is a ridiculous waste of time compared to what piano teachers provide.

Popular guitar is an absolute mess because pre-CtC there was no understanding of the picking techniques, hence there really was no reliable way to take classes and end up with mastery of all of the modern techniques. Even worse, instead of learning the works of the great masters (like the classical students), popular guitar players want to “improvise” and do their own thing, but the sad reality is that their music sounds terrible in most cases, as great composition is rare.

There is hope, however,

  • electric technique is likely fully mature
  • CtC has been instrumental in describing missing pieces of technique, nearly all of it has likely been cataloged
  • CtC is busy creating instructional material for practice

I believe that eventually there will be a clear pipeline for guitar where students can go in at one end and come out well versed in all modern techniques, and able to play all of the important electric guitar music. Perhaps CtC will become a conservatory, how cool would that be?! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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