5 Ways Things Have Changed For The Worse
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- čas přidán 13. 09. 2024
- Technology has brought us #guitar players many benefits over the past few decades. BUt we may have lost soemthing along the way. Here are 5 ways I think things may have been better in the past.
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One thing that has improved since the “days of old” is the number of guitar tutors who teach rock guitar . “When I were a lad” there were only classical guitar teachers and Bert Weedon manuals at your local music shop or your mate showing you a few chords.
Thanks John, Great video from a great philosopher. Here's my Five things that were better in my day 1 , My Waistline 2, My Hairline 3, Music cos of course it was better in my day 4, Family because unfortunately a lot of them are Gone 5, My Bloody Health BAD EYES , STROKE , BUGGERED HIPS AND BACK AND SHOULDER. . TWO THINGS THAT ARE DEFINITELY BETTER
1 , JOHN ROBSON 2 , MY SENSE OF HUMOUR AND THE FACT THAT I DON'T MOAN AND I'M ALWAYS RIGHT!!! " AYE BASTARD'S " thanks again great show. PEACE AND LOVE TO EVERYONE ❤❤.
Yup! Older than you so preaching to the converted 😀
1. On stage or in the studio we tuned to the piano. Also used harmonics vs. fretted notes to check internal tuning.
2. I found my own 'sound' - LP Custom + Fender 50W + a few basic pedals and a tape-echo. I got a VOX Tonelab when they came out - handy in the studio, for sure, but even then I settled on a handful of useful sounds . . . enough for me.
3. Never really bothered with tabs etc. Just figured it out - if in doubt about a chord I'd lean on our keyboardist to check the right notes / voicing! 😅
4. Internet obviously helpful and can be fun, but it's also a bit of a rabbit-hole and there's so much divisiveness and antsy stuff I tend to tune out. There seems to be a very gray area between Reviewers & Salesmen these days - and of course the 'so called reviewers' who just want to turn everything up to 11 and jam incessantly . . . be warned those are precious minutes you will never get back!
Totally agree with tuners John - strobe tuners are brilliant live when you are playing roaring bends then need to tune up in silence for 20 seconds for the next song in a 6 song 25-minute set. However, you need to be able to hear what is in pitch to: a) hear the tuning of your bends, b) be able to play in a pub with an old piano, and c) being able to pitch vocal harmonies that do not sound like cats dying. As always, brilliant stuff mate.
Now when I were a lad, I used pitch pipes and tapped my foot to keep time. I learned by ear by dropping’th needle and me n’th bass player played throug’th same amp.
We couldn’t keep a keyboard player cos they were all breadheads.
Seriously, I started playing in 1976 and am back on the horse after a 20 year hiatus. So much has changed! I love the technology - I can lay an amazing sounding midi drum track down and assign a hyper realistic kit to it, put my own bass and keyboard parts down, lay down rhythm and lead guitar and mix/master it with pro software, all on a mac laptop.
I am also glad I came up the old school way, played by ear and made the sound with my hands and most importantly, got out of the bedroom and gigged - there is nothing on earth quite like that!
I'm a few years older than you John and I know of what you speak. A couple of years ago I bought a Boss Katana so I could dial in all my favorite classic tones. Then I discovered once I got a good Jimi Hendrix sound all I needed to do was switch from a Strat to a Humbuckers guitar, add a little boost and I had a good ZZ Top or Cream tone. So the best thing about the amp is it's so convenient. I just use the line out into a mixer/interface and I'm ready to play.
I'm 70 next month and I used to put Get It On On my record player to tune my sixth string to E. Also used to slow down songs on 45 rpm to 33 rpm to learn solos, this meant you were a fourth below the original pitch so you had to reposition when playing at the correct pitch. Still use harmonics to check my tuning.
i can well remember pitch pipes, they were worse than useless !
My grandfather learned me how to tune by ear, he was an excellent piano
and church organ player and new instantly if i was ot of tune.
One small point, if you suffer from "Perfect Pitch" issues as Bruce Welch does
tuning a guitar is a nightmare.
I yell at the cloud on my Mac, I don't want it and don't use it! Great video John! 👍
I’ve picked up the guitar this year after 10 years away. I always tune by ear first and then check with the tuner.
You have encouraged me to learn to Tune by Ear. I will check it with a Tuner after. To make sure I'm on. But any adjustments I'l make and then check again. I'm trying to learn Sight reading so no Tab. One thing I think TAB has done and it did to me (Not for me) was get me playing only the Hook of the song. How many say they can play Smoke on the Water . But can only play something that sounds like the "Hook" and not the rest of the song. And many songs can be added to the list.
40 years ago I used to grab a G harp and blow in the A hole. Then the 5th string was done. As for the rest of the strings, use the frets and/or the harmonics on the 12th.
A point about musicians not having ready access to guitar tunes, I have always thought that was what made older recordings sound more organic and have a greater depth of sound. It's those small imperfections.
And no metronome, the Drummer did that.
Really valuable observations. Just sitting down with your instruments and getting to know them well, playing with different chord voicings and trying to pick up songs by ear...and just plain old jamming!
I learned to tune the old way, as you described. Then i learned to tune using harmonics. Pretty much stuck with that. I do have a headstock tuner (a good one) these days, but if i sense somethings 'out' I check the old way - it's quicker.
I learned songs off the vinyl, didn't have cassettes for quite a while. It did develop one's ear. I sometimes resort to tab, but not for the rhythm, just Nowto figure out the nots pattern and neck position if i'm stuck. Usually my ear is pretty good at that. I'm nowhere near as honed now as I was when i used to practice four hours a day back in my late teens, early 20's (nowhere near as dextrous either).
Well, you warned us: old man yelling at the clouds. I find I progress more on guitar now in tech times than when I was young. (57 now) Entertaining vid anyway, so thanks. Keep it up!😅
what? a tuning pipe? Luxury!! I have been using clip on tuners as I'm an old bugger and don't want to eff up the sound. To train myself to getting to pitch, I've been bending the strings. First, I get the sound of the hald step up, then bend to it. Next, is a full step up. It's been helping.
Agree with your first point. You only have to look at how the computer has changed our individual habits -
Handwriting in general is very poor for most people now that everyone almost always uses a keyboard
People's memories are generally worse due to the availability of search engines, sat navs and AI
People's social skills IMO are generally poorer, particularly among younger people due to the fact that a lot of their interactions take place via text or online video.
I love being a Gen X 60s kid.
You are right, John, things were a lot better back then, I started learning guitar in the early 2000's, and it was a lot more fun and rewarding to have less choice and focus more on actually playing the guitar. Clean, Dirty, and some type of Modulation effect and that is all you really need. I use a Fuzz Face, UniVibe, and a Marshall in a box pedal and I am set. Don't need anything else. You can play anything to a close facsimile with that setup. Leaning things by ear is way more rewarding and you learn more, even with a lot of the older tabs they were not that accurate, so you basically just had a starting point and had to figure it out by ear anyway. Not having the direct contact with a teacher to show you things is also something I miss.
John Robson is a pleasantly uncontentious and jovial channel master, and this feels like community so here I remain. For sure I'd use tuners at a noisy gig but at home it's by ear all the time. Bare bones rigs in the 70-80s forced me to find a tone and refine it. I mostly used the Bandit with just gain/reverb. Sometimes an SD-1/DD-2 into a Bassman. Modeled pedals and amps are good for exploring tones I hadn't previously worked with but I'd have been too distracted using them back when.
Damn! Had forgotten that I used to tune up with pitch pipes! Can tell when the tuning is off because of that I think. Got a rechargeable Boss Clip on now... Takes seconds. Can't believe people are using them to hit bends though!
I can't be doing with the internet arguing either. Finding other people to jam to whatever was always a treat.
Cheers for the video. All the best.
i can tune by ear, but its much easier and faster to tune with my Peterson strobestomp pedal. The last few years ive noticed ive been using my pedalboard less and less. The pedals i use most often are my beatbuddy 2 mini for a drumbeat and my tuner pedal. Very occasionally i use a looper and thats about it. (i am a bedroom player)
Tabs i've always used to get a general idea of the tune but in most cases it's not quite right, which i then try and figure out by hearing.
1) clip on tuners suck. i don't care what any of you say. i cant tell you how many times i had to stop the other guys because no one's tuner was the same. it's only $100 for a polytune, and it's dead-on, every time. yeah, i came up in the 80's when you tuned to a dial tone (which was an F) and then relative pitch harmonic'd the other 5 strings. i don't miss the old days. 2) as for the amp models, i don't need them. my mesa boogie makes all the sounds i need, for anything i might play. it's why the amp has knobs on it. 3) i never had much use for tabs, they are always wrong. 4) we never needed the internet to divide us. there were assholes before the internet too.
you go ahead and be an old man yelling at clouds if you want to. i'll stand right next to you, and yell "DAM RIGHT" to whatever you say.
Yes clip on tuners are mostly useless, I found this out recently.
Tuners have one long term benefit, you are always tuned to pitch 440 (as long as you are disciplined and use it all the time) that can't be bad for the ears. I only use a Tuner when I am going to record (and tuning New Strings for that first two times), and my Guitar is never more than a few cents high or low. Not being able to bend sounds like they should find another hobby, you are right, LISTEN.
The INTERNET : I have learned more in the last 10 years about Music and Maintenance than I did in the first 30 years. A lot of the "cheap" Guitars I owned would have been a lot better if I knew what I do today about setting a Guitar up.
As far as chat boards, Proselytism is a human condition. The best example I can come up with is a comment about a Solo being the best ever that had been sitting there for years, lots of replies over that time pointing out other leads from that Player (And some about how crappy and sloppy he is) and a response from the OP who was astonished at the controversy he stirred up that went "what's the big deal it was something I thought then and don't think any more". (It was Stairway).
I agree 100% with you, especially with the Internet. I was on Facebook for about 2 weeks and one of my favorite bands of 30 yrs. posted some political junk. I was finished with it after that.
I only tune my D string with a tuner. Then tune by ear the rest of the way. For playing in some keys you need to flat your B-string a bit etc. Tuner can't do that.
Will be 67 in a couple of months. Grew up with a 65 Vox Pathfinder with real tubes and a Bulldog 8" speaker. Man I wish I still had it!!! All we had back then was a Fuzz Face and a Vox Wah Wah. That's all we needed and still can play almost anything with that rig. To many toys can have just as many complications!!!! And yes I will yell at the clouds also, because we've been there and seen the Light!!!!
Haha I had an old tube radio I modded to an amp. And a realistic tape recorder for a boost......
Bums me out. The internet should be bringing us together, not dividing us. Do we not realize what it is all about anymore? Been playing since 1974. Not a boast but relate to John's perspective.
Yep … I got used to a tuner when playing in a cover band back in the early-90’s. We drank a lot when we played and didn’t trust our ears to intonate things accurately.
I’ve used one ever since. A Peterson strobe at home & a Boss TU-3 on the board.
Recently while jamming one of my jammers said after a song we just played that the G string on the guitar i was playing was not in tune..i laughed at him he said go ahead and check..so i did..he was right it was flat..i wish i had an ear like that..3 songs later he said it again...so i tuned up
How many record player needles did we go through from picking up the arm and setting it back to that spot on the records you were trying to figure out? I stupidly stopped playing for about 25-30 yrs. I realize now my ear was so much better back then. And tuning to a pitch pipe thingy I had 😀
I can still restring my guitar and naturally tune up to Eb. I had a friend that spent big money on a tuner back in the day and would always complain about me being out of tune. I'd strike a note and say tune to me and we'll both be in tune. LoL
Pocket calculators do still exist, and the single biggest advantage they have is that the battery pretty much never dies. And the screen is way more resilient to impact damage. And it works way better if you're wearing gloves in a fume hood.
I'm yelling at that same cloud....
I think you see your knowledge and experience as increasingly irrelevent.. When I was in college studying music one of the bass players on the course (back in 1990) was as well as seriously into prog rock, was into music technology, sampling techno, drum loops etc in a big way. He massively embraced music technology and all its forms, and all it had to offer. As well as being one of the best bass players in the country he added many many more strings to his bow. Saw technoloogy and its power as just a brilliant tool for creating music. Threw himself into it. He is a multi millionaire now. Toured with everyone. Trad guitar and musicianship died around 1990. We should all have taken a leaf out of my mates book. Your mentality is just that of a dinosaur my friend.
You’d have to memorize something like 138 note positions on a six string. Seems a bit intimidating.
Music venues......there was loads of them in the old days......now many have closed down. Don't get me wrong, there's still a lot of cool venues around, but once upon a time every pub would have singers or bands on regularly.....now, not as many pubs.
I'd forgotten about pitch pipes. 😂😂😂
What is an impulse response?
Essentially a speaker emulation. You apply it to a DI recorded guitar sound so you can sound like you're playing through a 4x12, or a 4x10 or a 2x12 or whatever takes your fancy.
@@JRobsonGuitar Wouldn't make any difference in my case. I have the rare ability to make all fancy equipment sound like the same cheap setup. :-)
If it was not for the internet I dont thikg I would be playing at all.
A lot of the problem is people look a the tab and just copy it instead of learning it note for note me included
Bloody hell John thought you'd gone all political when I read link😂
So true, John - strings ain’t what they used to be …. 🙄🥁🤕
Have you noticed people are frequently unable to spell three letter words like 'too' or off' because of autocorrect, and txt shrthnd? I H8 that. Don't U? 😅
Anyone who gets a text message from me will find capital letters in all the correct places, along with full stops, commas and other punctuation marks. I get really irked when other people (not "ppl") are too lazy to do this. But then again, I'm a "boomer" apparently.
@JRobsonGuitar I guess I am too, having been born in 1950. Blessed to be a teenager in the 60s!
Vitriolic comments on line, yuk.. No problem with any of your points . The clouds do not answer back.
my wife lol😆