technical or emotional?

I agree with Arjen.

Well, at least you two agree on this one, I've been following your other thread in Opinions and Polls. :D

:)
Kingpatzer, you really can't be serious can you? I just posted an old hit by Kris Kristopherson. He is not a technical player or singer at all. But that song touched millions and was a huge hit.

Sure he is. He doesn't have the greatest technique in the world -- but so what? He has enough to use it in a way that touches the audience.
The most successful musicians play with emotion. This is why they reach and are very popular with the public.

For every succesful musician playing with emotion who makes it to the public eye (whatever the hell that even means beyond playing well) there are a thousand more playing in little bars waiting for their big break. And for every one of those there's another thousand who don't even bother to record themselves but who are just as damn good.

Popularity and talent are only incidentally related.
How many of these super shredder guitarists (or any instrument) have sold as many records as simple musicians like the Beatles, CCR, or Johnny Cash??

NONE.

Like Steve Wonder said, "it don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing"

You're confusing good technique with shredding. Shredding is technically challenging, but it's not all there is to technique.

Johnny Cash is a great example . . . he played very simple music extremely well. His musical skills where top notch. He may not have been as super fast as Yngwie, but he knew, in my mind, how to apply the technical skills he had mastered with greater finesse than Yngwie does. And that is what I'm talking about.

That grumbling with a nice reverb sounds great! ;)

I'm just agreeing with, well, everyone here. Maybe I wouldn't quite use 'the X factor' so much as 'the + factor' in describing the qualities of what's a great performance and what isn't. (I know, just semantics ;) )

But it should ideally be a balance of both things. No one-sided, one-dimensional coins here. A balance as so many have stated, between technique and emotion. The one assists the other, feeds it, allows it to come through. Either one by itself is meaningless - or rather, 'only' meaning and no expression, or 'only expression with no meaning.

There's no point to either by themselves.

It's just that people get hung up on the expression part, the technique because, I'd guess, it's easiest to comprehend at first; easiest to get into. Just practice, mindlessly, and you get it. The emotion part, the meaning behind things, well that takes a bit of self evaluation, looking in the mirror at times (and not just to brush your hair), and self discovery. That part can't be gotten from a DVD or tab book or sheet music, or even lessons from others. That's a personal journey that only the individual can take. Like life itself if you wanna look at it that way.

But it's easy for people to get distracted by the one and not build up or even delve into the other. And emotion is tough enough to understand even in ourselves, and to then get in touch with, but add to that the idea of expressing it and it's like a mountain sometimes. Like baring your soul or something, and it's not pleasant at times, even if that baring is done just to yourself. Like...what do you 'really' feel about this or that? And then, 'why' do you feel that way?

Sometimes it's not easy even being honest with ourselves, seems like, but as guitarists, bassists, composers, musicians or just plain 'artists' that's the road that has to be taken, for better or for worse. And maybe that's the 'x factor' -- not emotion balanced with technique, but rather, you, balanced with your life.

And then the art or music or whatever personal expression can just come right out uninhibited.

So with 'great' artists or lesser artists, it's the same thing. That honesty with themselves, and perhaps a big jolt of courage to look inside where few people look, and becoming balanced and at-ease with that, with themselves.

Then art, or music, whatever it is, if it's there to come out at all, will be just a byproduct.

That's what it mostly looks like to me :)

Kingpatzer

Really hard to understand what you are saying. Nobody would say Johnny Cash had better technique than Yngwie. And I am a huge Johnny Cash fan and have never cared for Yngwie at all. But Yngwie has technique all over Johnny Cash.

Johnny Cash used to hold his guitar with the headstock pointed at the floor and his thumb wrapped over the top of the neck. Sure, he could play very well in his own simple way. But this is not good technique.

But Johnny could communicate with his audience better than Yngwie will ever be able to do. This has nothing to do with guitar technique at all. It has to do with personality. And personality is measured in emotional terms like kindness, or friendliness, or compassion.

You are the one who said emotion is just putting your finger on the right note at the right time. This is technique. And Yngwie can do this better than Johnny could.

oops double post, sorry

Kingpatzer

Really hard to understand what you are saying. Nobody would say Johnny Cash had better technique than Yngwie. And I am a huge Johnny Cash fan and have never cared for Yngwie at all. But Yngwie has technique all over Johnny Cash.

He's faster.
He's cleaner.
He's got a bigger stretch.

But . . . playing 5,000 16th notes in a row at 185bpm isn't all there is to technique.

Johnny played very simple music very well. His technical skills -- the ability to make the intensity of attack on the down strum of whatever open chord he was playing match the intensity of the lyrics he was singing was very very good.

That is a technical skill.
Johnny Cash used to hold his guitar with the headstock pointed at the floor and his thumb wrapped over the top of the neck. Sure, he could play very well in his own simple way. But this is not good technique.

It's not good mechanics, true.

I'm not saying he was a technical genius. I'm saying he used the techniques he knew in a way appropriate to the music he was playing with great musical finesse, skill and taste.

And people call that "playing with emotion." Which just means -- he applied his musical skills to the piece well.
You are the one who said emotion is just putting your finger on the right note at the right time. This is technique. And Yngwie can do this better than Johnny could.

That's not actually what I said. Just playing a piece straight, with no variance in attack, no vibratto on the notes, might be technically great -- but it's also technically limited. There's more to good technique on a guitar than just playing the score without mistakes.

What I said was that "'Emotion' is nothing more than the ability to apply solid techniques at appropriate times within the piece." And by that I mean using a sound understanding of the genre your playing combined with well developed musical taste and ear to apply your guitar playing skill in a way that is musically pleasing.

Every note that comes out of a guitar happens because of what you physicall do, not what you emotionally feel. B.B. King doesn't play the blues well because he's really really sad. He plays the blues well because he has an increadibly refined set of musical skills that he brings to bear every time he picks up a guitar.

Every note that comes out of a guitar happens because of what you physicall do, not what you emotionally feel.

Nah...... can't go along with that one. :)

My playing changes with the way I feel. The physical touch might be the steering wheel, but my emotions are the engine.

DemoEtc has it right - it's an inextricable synthesis of the two (hey, how's that for flash?...). I mean you need both, and one's of limited use without some of the other.

I think that the more interesting point of discussion revolves around how, when and why we all respond to different things. What really gives rise to these differences of opinion is that we don't all feel the same emotions, and we don't all feel them in response to the same triggers.

So for some of us there might be a deep feeling of satisfaction on listening to something that is undeniably mostly a technical tour de force, whereas others will get off on something really raw and messy if it's got the right degree of passion in it. This is particularly true of live music which can sometime sweep you right off your feet while still being pretty darn rough around the edges. Of course, many of us can have an ear in both camps, depending on our mood at the time. :)

Arjen, I thought that clip of yours was beautiful. But I have a hard time believeing that song was played by skilled musicians simply playing "by the numbers". It is very likely that that orchestra got into the emotion of this great song to play it with such feeling.

Nope, no emotion involved. Instead of by a skilled grouped of musicians this was performed by a computer. Using MIDI. With the cheapest orchestra sample library in the world. You heared emotion, MrJonesey did, I did, thousands of people in the Garritan community did. Chris didn't and probably a lot of others won't either. That's impossible if the music itself were emotional, there just isn't a way around it.

So is it purely random how people respond to music? No. Because how people experience music is largely based on the culture they are in. Which is where technique and understanding of both music and humans kick in. If you ever go to a quality orchestra you will hear emotion. Every single time, always, no matter what those musicians are feeling. The classical composers were experts in emotion: they knew in advance how people in the western world responded to certain harmonies, techniques and expressions. As a performer you only have to understand the piece and then execute it. A slow mournfull vibrato will be played that way whether the performer actually feels mournfull or not.
This is why they reach and are very popular with the public. How many of these super shredder guitarists (or any instrument) have sold as many records as simple musicians like the Beatles, CCR, or Johnny Cash??

Chopin. Vivaldi. Rachmaninov. Need I say more? Oh, how about Britney Spears, the BackStreet Boys etc, are these so super emotional?

Finally, as King said: technique is more then speed. Every physical aspect between having a thought and creating a sound is technique, and the examples you gave had plenty. Then take that Kristopher song to Zimbabwe and ask them how they like it. They probably wouldn't understand it at all. Again: impossible if the music itself would have been emotional.

Another reason: quite some people here occasionally said some songs of mine were performed with excellent emotion. Half of those pieces were performed by a computer, just programmed with intentions by me. I also happened to have received an email about a song I did with Mike, the person explained how he experienced the song, which had absolutely nothing in common with how I, and probably Mike, experienced the song. Again: impossible if the emotion would be in the music itself.
You can't see everything in a logical and analytical way. Emotions and feelings exist. If you fall down and break your leg, the pain is real. It is not an opinion. When people lose a loved one, the sadness is real, it is not conditioning.

In case you had failed to notice I am actually a human being myself. I am perfectly aware of the existence of emotions. I never mentioned conditioning, mostly because I don't mean conditioning.

....I play an oud, the precursor to the lute and spanish guitar.
it's fretless and manly.

Is there anything you don't play though?..... :D

For months I used to have on my hard drive a picture that you once posted of your collection of instruments (doubtless expanded again by now... :wink: ). Every so often I'd look at it and sigh with envy....

(Adds an Oud to GAS list....... :oops: )
Chris. what can I say. I did sell he pedal steel. I am saving for a couple of ukes.

I wonder if we should change a word.
would it be more accurate to say technical vs intuitive.
I feel I am more an intuitive player. yes, I understand scales and technique, but I think I dont calculate a riff as much as sense it and feel it.
it is the same with alot of my decisions. I dont over think it and analysize it to death. I have a stronger intuitive sense about things.
some people are the complete opposite.

I wonder if we should change a word.
would it be more accurate to say technical vs intuitive.
I feel I am more an intuitive player. yes, I understand scales and technique, but I think I dont calculate a riff as much as sense it and feel it.

I think that gets to how one thinks about music.

I practice scales daily and know theory better than most. When I improvise over someone comping along, I don't think about scales so much as I feel melody and rhythms and try to recreate what I "hear in my head."

That's what I'm getting at when I talk about having developed a musical ear and a sense of musical taste.

The ability to translate what you want to play to the instrument is entirely a technical skill. Perhaps for some people the generation of the musical idea they are attempting to play is driven entirely by emotion or intuition, but for most it probably has a lot more to do with knowing how to be musically creative within a particular genre, it is still true that the ability to take that idea and make it happen on the instrument requires the ability to apply appropriate techniques.

Again, B.B. King doesn't play great blues 'cuase he's really sad. He plays great blues because he is an increadibly proficient guitarist who understands his genre and his audience very ver well, and who has the skill to create the sounds that convey his musical ideas.

I think part of the misconception is that people seem to equate speed with technical mastery, and that is not the case. As was said earlier, Johnny Cash will never be considered a great guitarist but he had complete mastery of the techniques he used. Clapton, Page, Rheinhart, Richards and Buddy Guy, all masters of their instrument yet I have heard arguements about them not being as "Good" as Satriani or Vai or the northern person with the unpronouncable name because they didn't or couldn't play 300 notes per minute.
There are many elements to technical mastery not just speed, where I think emotion is lost is when all you do is play at top speed, you can't put those big bends or wide BB type vibrato into a run when you are palying that fast.

Perhaps a better discussion would be speed vs. emotion

I think part of the misconception is that people seem to equate speed with technical mastery, and that is not the case. As was said earlier, Johnny Cash will never be considered a great guitarist but he had complete mastery of the techniques he used. Clapton, Page, Rheinhart, Richards and Buddy Guy, all masters of their instrument yet I have heard arguements about them not being as "Good" as Satriani or Vai or the northern person with the unpronouncable name because they didn't or couldn't play 300 notes per minute.
There are many elements to technical mastery not just speed, where I think emotion is lost is when all you do is play at top speed, you can't put those big bends or wide BB type vibrato into a run when you are palying that fast.

Perhaps a better discussion would be speed vs. emotion

I honeslty don't know what people mean by "emotion" in this context.

"happy" don't strum the strings.

Geez hasn't this argument gone on forever.

Yes speed is a technical skill it's just not the only technical skill. So Johnny and Yngwie can have great technical skills but they just happen to be different technical skills.

But just because Yngwie (and I can't stand his music) plays 16th notes at 185 BPM doesn't mean he doesn't have soul or play with emotion....it's YOUR own narrow view of what is or isn't emotional playing that labels his music that way.

I'll give you a news flash...some people LOVE Ynqwie and think his playing and all the other thrash metal/death metal bands that shred do play with emotion and their audiences do connect with the music and to them it's very emotional.

It's getting old hearing how BB King or Johnny Cash or SRV are so much more emotional/soulful in their playing.....that's really abunch of junk....it's emotional only if the listener beleives it is.

One of the real issues I have is that everyone seems to knock people that shred and it always seems to be a person that doesn't have the technical ability to shred that knocks it. I rarely see a post nor have I ever heard someone that shreds say, "I'd never play a note like SRV because it's too emotional". Personally I think there's not a guitarist in the world (at least in the rock genre) that in the back of their minds would love to be able to shred...I know I would and it ain't easy.

To me it's very narrowminded to label any music as emotional or soulful or lacking emotion because those are only and always only the opinions of the person making that statement and as such mean crap to me if I have a different view.

Reminds me of the movie "Titanic" that came out a few years ago...all I heard was that it was such a wonderful movie and such an emotional blah blah blah...it was the worst movie I ever saw. But that's just my opinion.

I don't know how to explain it, it's just something you feel or you don't. When I hear BB doing that big wide vibrato of his I feel myself choking up, when I hear KW Sheppard pull those big bends and double stops in Leavin You Before I commit a Crime I can feel myself getting angry. I don't know how else to explain it

I'm with cnev, I think emotion is more in the listener than the player. That's not to say guitarists don't create music without the intention of portraying an emotion. But what's intended and what's perceived can be two different things.

I think every guitarist has technical skills. Everything you do is a technique, be it a really fast solo, a wide bend or simply changing from a G to a C. They are all techniques.

I don't know how to explain it, it's just something you feel or you don't. When I hear BB doing that big wide vibrato of his I feel myself choking up, when I hear KW Sheppard pull those big bends and double stops in Leavin You Before I commit a Crime I can feel myself getting angry. I don't know how else to explain it

Sure, but isn't that a very personal thing? Let's give an example: after the rap scene got pretty nasty with a number of artists being shot Eminem and some of his collegues recorded the song 'Like Toy Soldiers'. I know I definitely hear some emotion in it. I also know plenty of folks here don't consider rap music, nevermind emotional music. I'm fine with people having a personal taste and hearing emotion in some songs and not in others. But actually saying that the music you (you being used in general, not directly at you!) like IS more emotional seems pretty weird to me. Check the song out here, it's from 2004.

http://music.yahoo.com/ar-289114-videos--Eminem

As a sad sidenote, the guy who played the 'executed rapper' (nickname Proof) actually got shot a year later.