technical or emotional?

No doubt, there are a few musical equivalents of Sir Laurence out there too.
Wink

Actually the best actor I've known has lived a remarkedly blessed life -- he's a trust fund baby who was able to dedicate all his time to what he loves and has never wanted for anything in his life.

While he works very hard at his craft, he is in fact one of the happiest people I've ever met.

And his favorite roles are those where he gets to play really morose miserable souls who suffer terribly.

He claims he's practicing in case he ever has to deal with anything bad in real life ;)

Maybe he puts on a happy face for others but cries himself to sleep at night and is ravaged by pain and suffering on the inside. :wink:

I will 100% agree with the idea that "happy don't strum the strings". You can have all the emotion you want, but if you don't have the technique to show it, you're screwed. You can't give a guitar to someone who doesn't know how to play, or only barely knows how to play and who's technique is not great, but who "has the blues" and have them play great blues.

But, I also 100% believe that your emotion has a lot to do with the choice of notes and how you play them. I mean, you can of course have a solid foundation of theory to fall back on and know what will sound happy or sad or angry or whatever and sort of fake your way through it. But if you're actually feeling one of those emotions, I think it comes out better. I find that I just play and sound better when I'm able to do that. I think this is what people really mean when they say playing with emotion.

All of us have been getting emotional over trivial topics and playing less guitar and debating big time.

Relax.It won't matter what you or me will think about music or its attributes.Music is enjoyed by people in various ways (metal, country, thrash, soul, blues etc etc.) and let them do it in whatever way they want to and that's it.

Every person does find artists he or she likes and relates to them.Its no good for one to critisise others if one does not like them.By arguing till infinity, we are only wanting to prove our point, where it is not needed at all.

If music was a person, he (or she), must have been laughing on GN members.

I think rahul brings up a valid point.

I think we all have.

Discussions like this, if taken in the right manner, are very important. It's stimulating, makes us think about what we really think.

No need to push anyone out of the conversation, really.

To me at least, with a subjective topic, everyone's input is valid.

All of us have been getting emotional over trivial topics and playing less guitar and debating big time.

To me, they're not trivial - not all of them anyway ;)

Yah I don't think we have to get personal here; we're discussing musical concepts, not individual perceptions.

It's cool with me if it's cool with you all. :)

How's this. I don't think you need to be emotional to convey emotion musically. But man does it help. I've seen people fake it and you know they're faking it. But I've also seen what I believe is something that has happend to me. Have you ever started out just playing something "technical" and before you know it, the emotion strikes you. You become enveloped in the music and it surrounds you. You feed off the same emotion you create and the more that comes in the more that comes out. Soon you are completely lost in the experience of music and emotion. Then, ehen you come out of the haze, people are just staring at you and you Know they GOT it! Sometimes the moments are short, and sometimes they are longer. But it exists and I know my music is better when I "have it."

Even when I am practicing I get moments of it. If I'm practicing scales, timing, a new piece or whatever, I am very technical. I am focused on absorbing what I am doing. Then I will occasionally fade out and completely lose where I'm at and just play. Then I caome back and it's like "oh yeah, scales."

I know I have felt it and I believe I have seen it in other performers on stage. Haven't you seen someone you started out like maybe they just don't have it tonight. They fake their way through it and the music is good, but you can tell there is missing emotion? And sometimes when they start off that way, it's really cool to see them get into it and find theirselves.

I would be very surprised if ereyone on this board haven't had these same moments of which I speak.

Soon you are completely lost in the experience of music and emotion. Then, ehen you come out of the haze, people are just staring at you and you Know they GOT it! Sometimes the moments are short, and sometimes they are longer. But it exists and I know my music is better when I "have it."

I agree with this except for the "emotion" part. I definitely have had times where I just get completely enveloped in the groove, the beat, the melody, the other players, and there's a zen-like experience of your fingers are doing the walking over the fretboard and you're just along for the ride . . .

But to me it's not about emotion at all. I find such moments, rare as they are, exciting, electrifying, exhilerating, and probably other adjectives starting with 'e' -- regardless of what the music is I'm playing.

Best example I can think of happened at a rehersal for a show.

I'm playing the electric guitar solo for the finale in "Godspell." The director for this particular production put the band on stage with the actors -- great actors, other great musicians, and I happen to have my own religious reason for connecting to the story line. The actor, who happened to be sort of a friend of mine is belting out "Oh God, I'm dying . . ."

And I've got a big grin on my face 'cause I'm just into the tune and I know I'm nailing it.
When we finish the only comment from the director was "Ok folks, there's no smiling in this scene, and that includes the guitar player."

Now, maybe I'm playing "with emotion" in the way folks here mean -- but the emotion I'm feeling and the emotion I'm conveying have nothing to do with each other.

As a new guitarist I only worry about one thing related to the emo/tech issue, I just hope I devolop enough technique to convey my emotions thru my playing, that is my sole goal as a guitarist, I don't really care to be the fastest, I think amazing technique is for the most part lost on the average listener. I think only other guitarists go: "Wow great sweep picking!" most people prob just think it sounds cool :)

Scott

I think amazing technique is for the most part lost on the average listener.

One of the things that lots of us on the "i don't get how you even say versus" side of this discussion are saying is that technique isn't just about mechanics, speed, etc. but rather about applying those things appropriately to the music you're playing. It is all about making it sound great to the audience.

Yah, I still have to come back to the concept of 'balance.' Like if I were eating a steak for example, I wouldn't want 'just' a fork, or 'just' a knife. I'd want both. Makes things a little easier. I 'could' saw away with the fork and get a piece off, or I 'could' cut and then stab a piece with the knife, but...if both are available, then why not use both?

And an interesting point by sdolsay just now.

I always think of Keith Richard(s) and his level of technique. At a certain point, after the records and the tours and the records and more tours, there was a point where he - and other people too, I'm just using him as an example - stopped having time to sit and practice technique. He played leads with Brian and everybody was a blues enthusiast in the band (especially Bill, I've heard) but they were running all over the world to keep the music going.

So maybe he can't shred or even do things like Mick Taylor, but...it fit the music. It fit the genre, it fit the 'feeling' of whatever song they happened to be doing. And then they got together with Ronnie (finally), and now they can do that 'guitar-weaving' like in the old days with Brian.

So to me at least, it's good to have technique, but maybe not so good to have it take the place of everything else--especially the context and meaning of any particular song.

I remember seeing a guy on Filipino Fiesta years ago (it was one of these long-running Sunday morning local TV talent shows in Hawaii), and he was on the violin doing a solo to some traditional piece that I didn't even know what it's name was. Older guy. You could tell he'd been playing a long time. But he was playing the melody, and then just all of a sudden would do these little violinist 'tricks' like plucking a few notes with the fingering hand, and doing weird little bouncy things with the bow, and...it just didn't fit at ALL. Me, not being much of a musician back then (not to say so now), was thinking "Man, STOP doing that! It's distracting!"

But he seemed quite pleased with what he was doing, and then they switched over to a 'stick-dance' and that was all. But that stuck with me too - that inclusion of stuff that has nothing to do with the intent of the music. I mean, okay, you can put stuff in if you want - it's up to you as the performer at that point - but...there it was, a matter of musical taste you might say.

Like...too much salt in the soup. Not enough curry.

And yet some people will like it and some won't; it's completely and utterly at the mercy of the listener at that point. Nowadays, when someone says they really hate something or really love it, I just think "Oh, cool; that's cool." I mean, them, having lived their lives, and me, having lived mine - why should I think that that would make us automatically agree all of a sudden, since everything is so otherwise different?

Or even if our lives are really similar, it still doesn't guarantee that every single aspect is going to be in sync.

And, for the most part, it really shouldn't. That would be a pretty one-dimensional world, and...I think the world's got enough problems to add that to things. ;)

How about calling it something like expression. Then you have a word that doesn't imply exclusively head or heart. Otherwise, the whole deal descends into the kind of 'nature versus nuture' debate that sociologists have. Only technique; only emotion. Why can't it be 'all of the above'? Mixed in a gumbo that defies analysis.
This has actually been on my mind a bunch lately. I'm learning some 'simple' Chuck Berry style riffs and after a couple of weeks(!) I still know they're not right. Fingering, pace, strumming...everything is quite simple, except I know emphatically it's not there. It doesn't sound 'happy' enough to put it simply. I'm working on the premise that it needs to be sloppier but ironically, there's a 'technique' to sloppiness!
I do think whether you concentrate on technique or emotion, you're mining the same territory. Just 2 ways for you to try to find your way to the heart of a song. Just, no matter what, make sure you're playing a ton... :wink:

OT: congrats on the Chuck riffs. If you want to see something funny about how to play them correctly, watch a movie called Hail Hail Rock 'n Roll, where Keith Richards is doing the riff to Oh Carol, and Chuck keeps stopping him.

Keith's face is classic. Sorta reminds me of some rehearsals I've been to, but...not that bad :)

That works for me. You need to be able to express emotion which is a technical ability. You have to be able to evoke emotion in the listener. You don't have to be feeling it at the moment. However in order to technically express it helps to have once felt the emotion. It helps me to express and evoke if I try to emote appropriately at the time.

then again.....

During the lovemaking scene in Endless Love, Franco Zeffirelli squeezed Brooke Shields' big toe off camera to provoke a reaction that would look like an orgasm. So I suppose it's possible to fake the expression of emotion or whatever, although Endless Love and Brooke Shields aren't synonomous with great acting.

I'll buy your solution, Nick. That's about as succinct as it can get, I think.