Learning Electric Guitar: So Now Let's Make Some Music

The classical guys are trained to play the notes other people wrote. That's how classical music works now - though in the past, the composers were also often virtuoso performers (nobody ever shredded better than J S Bach) and the instrumentalists fill in chords and bass lines from the barest notation, while the singers were given a tune and expected to improvise around it. Mmmmm. Sounds familiar.

Contemporary classical is not how rock and jazz work.

If you learn and play the Rikki solo, you're either in a tribute band (when the closer to The Skunk the better) or you're not, in which case, you're just imitating The Skunk, and it's lame.

   

Putting something that recognisable, and that good, in the middle of an otherwise competent but not inspiring song would distract from the song. Nobody would remember anything else. Oh, yeah, that's the song where they use the Rikki solo. The song needs its own solo, as generic as it may be, and people will say "nice guitar". That's what the guitarist is hired to provide.

This is partly about the law. In rock and jazz, the Rikki solo and its like are protected by copyright - that can be worth the cost of enforcing. In classical, either the copyright has run out, or the fees are cheap, or it's not worth the cost of enforcement. Which is why all those string quartets can play Bartok and Beethoven quartets without bankrupting themselves, and why it is worth the musician's time learning to interpret them, and learning to read music in the first place. (Something similar applies to jazz, when it is treated as a classical form.) Rock musicians often don't read because they are not in the business of reproducing other people's music faithfully and interestingly.

Professional guitar-playing is about being able to learn a piece of music quickly; adapting your tone to the needs of the band / song / studio; and composing or improvising solos, breaks and backing phrases as needed. (Also showing up on time and ready to go, behaving well and getting along with everyone - but that's pretty much standard operating procedure in any job.) The fundamental skill in rock guitar, even more than jazz, is the ability to make music. Even a four-note phrase between the lines of the verse. (Especially that, now I think of it.)

The technique and music theory is an enabler for that. You can know a zillion scales and chord extensions, but if you don't have the taste to apply them when needed, you may as well stick to the basics. The distance between learning the technical stuff, and actually playing, is huge. It's about one's ability to hear what is going on, and play something that fits in with it.

Noodling ("improvising or playing casually on a musical instrument") is primarily therapeutic. How many people sit through a slow movie with an acoustic in their lap, playing scales, riffing chords and phrases, to fill out the time between plot points? Electric guitars open up the possibility of noodling with tone as well. One can noodle one's way into learning the Turkish Diminished Locrain scale, or into getting the cowboy chords at the tenth fret. It keeps the hands in and the fingertips hard. One can spend an hour comparing Santana's tone on the CD with what's coming out of the DAW or the digital pedalboard. One can noodle with aplomb, and one can noodle so badly that one disappoints oneself. (Sighs. Puts down guitar. "Time to do the washing-up".)