SKREE clonk blONK REEE
August 10, 2014 11:11 AM Subscribe
A video of the Guitar Center store in Times Square. As per the video description, "36 seconds of hell on earth".
I'm pretty sure that woman had a petit mal.
posted by phaedon at 11:17 AM on August 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by phaedon at 11:17 AM on August 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
"No Stairway? Denied!"
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 11:18 AM on August 10, 2014 [14 favorites]
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 11:18 AM on August 10, 2014 [14 favorites]
I really need to work up that slap bass "Stairway" version
posted by thelonius at 11:28 AM on August 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 11:28 AM on August 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
You think this is bad, you should see the showroom floor of Steel Drum Center, just down the street.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 11:30 AM on August 10, 2014 [26 favorites]
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 11:30 AM on August 10, 2014 [26 favorites]
like hajokaidan meets amm, but more boring
posted by idiopath at 11:35 AM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by idiopath at 11:35 AM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
The endless slap bass is the problem, yes.
Yet I still go in there once a year.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:42 AM on August 10, 2014
Yet I still go in there once a year.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:42 AM on August 10, 2014
Well, now I have yet another reason to avoid Times Square.
posted by nevercalm at 11:52 AM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by nevercalm at 11:52 AM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
Same as it ever was. This is picture of the Sunset Blvd Guitar Center back in the 80s. Only there was more hair and spandex.
posted by 2N2222 at 11:56 AM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by 2N2222 at 11:56 AM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
You shoulda seen/heard Manny's before rock died.
posted by spitbull at 12:03 PM on August 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by spitbull at 12:03 PM on August 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
Frankly, I think these places are a lot of fun, even though I'd hate to work there. It's like a giant music collage with people not listening to each other...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:06 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:06 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
I was in a Guitar Center and I said something along the lines of, "People probably think it's awesome to work here, but this is my idea of hell." It sounded like this video at the time of my comment.
I go there a lot (I am building a home recording studio). Usually my tinnitus forces me out before I've bought what I was there for. Anyway, one day they were playing this awesome music; female singer/songwriter, and then I realized the entire store was listening, then I realized it was an actual woman playing and singing in the flesh and I was jealous this shit happened where the guy worked.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:08 PM on August 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
I go there a lot (I am building a home recording studio). Usually my tinnitus forces me out before I've bought what I was there for. Anyway, one day they were playing this awesome music; female singer/songwriter, and then I realized the entire store was listening, then I realized it was an actual woman playing and singing in the flesh and I was jealous this shit happened where the guy worked.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:08 PM on August 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
"Yeah dude, that 8-string bass is going to look totally sick on stage! What's your jazz-fusion combo called, anyway?"
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:16 PM on August 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:16 PM on August 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
Every Guitar Center in the world has that awfully ugly carpet, eh?
posted by koeselitz at 12:19 PM on August 10, 2014
posted by koeselitz at 12:19 PM on August 10, 2014
There was actually a pretty brilliant comment about this on reddit. How all these people just memorized some tabs, and can't actually play guitar. But that the difference between playing, and just rote reproducing riffs is like shitting vs diarrhea. Theoretically similar, but in practice not the same thing at all.
I've witnessed two impromptu jam sessions at guitar center. One in the synth room, and one in the drum room where another guy had a bass.
Not in the guitar room though ever. It's always metal-post-metalocalypse teenagers playing the same memorized riffs dissonantly against each other, or whatever.
posted by emptythought at 12:19 PM on August 10, 2014 [6 favorites]
I've witnessed two impromptu jam sessions at guitar center. One in the synth room, and one in the drum room where another guy had a bass.
Not in the guitar room though ever. It's always metal-post-metalocalypse teenagers playing the same memorized riffs dissonantly against each other, or whatever.
posted by emptythought at 12:19 PM on August 10, 2014 [6 favorites]
nevercalm: "Well, now I have yet another reason to avoid Times Square any fucking Guitar Center store that's come into town and has since ruined all the nice local music shops that used to exist."
posted by symbioid at 12:23 PM on August 10, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by symbioid at 12:23 PM on August 10, 2014 [5 favorites]
There was actually a pretty brilliant comment about this on reddit. How all these people just memorized some tabs, and can't actually play guitar.
What was the brilliant part?
posted by signal at 12:31 PM on August 10, 2014 [24 favorites]
What was the brilliant part?
posted by signal at 12:31 PM on August 10, 2014 [24 favorites]
There was actually a pretty brilliant comment about this on reddit. How all these people just memorized some tabs, and can't actually play guitar.
The thing is, this describes 95% of /r/guitar. Some of them own guitars, some of them want to own guitars, some of them can weedle-eedle-ee, but most of them have no idea how to actually make music. It's mostly gear fetishism and "theory" wanking.
I just don't understand why that kind of person takes to guitar. Do they think it can still get you laid? Has that been even remotely true at any time this century?
posted by uncleozzy at 12:36 PM on August 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
The thing is, this describes 95% of /r/guitar. Some of them own guitars, some of them want to own guitars, some of them can weedle-eedle-ee, but most of them have no idea how to actually make music. It's mostly gear fetishism and "theory" wanking.
I just don't understand why that kind of person takes to guitar. Do they think it can still get you laid? Has that been even remotely true at any time this century?
posted by uncleozzy at 12:36 PM on August 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
OK, no more posts about how hard it is to work at a coffee shop. I trust these employees get free medical services--one hour breaks every three hours, 8 weeks of vacation, 4 day work week and state of the art ear protectors.
posted by rmhsinc at 12:46 PM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by rmhsinc at 12:46 PM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
"It's as clear as a buttonhook in the well water!"
posted by Smart Dalek at 12:50 PM on August 10, 2014
posted by Smart Dalek at 12:50 PM on August 10, 2014
I wonder what the suicide rate is for employees of the guitar center?
posted by Green Winnebago at 12:51 PM on August 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by Green Winnebago at 12:51 PM on August 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
It's mostly gear fetishism and "theory" wanking.
"These people are insane. They just like talking to guitar players."
posted by thelonius at 12:57 PM on August 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
"These people are insane. They just like talking to guitar players."
posted by thelonius at 12:57 PM on August 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
It's always metal-post-metalocalypse teenagers playing the same memorized riffs dissonantly against each other, or whatever.
"Well thats is just your opinions, dude."
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:05 PM on August 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
"Well thats is just your opinions, dude."
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:05 PM on August 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
You shoulda seen/heard Manny's before rock died.
posted by spitbull at 12:03 PM on August 10 [+] [!]
Manny's? Do you mean 'Lunch for your ears?' That was my favorite record store, but yeah sometimes the music they had playing there definitely sounded like this...
posted by From Bklyn at 1:08 PM on August 10, 2014
posted by spitbull at 12:03 PM on August 10 [+] [!]
Manny's? Do you mean 'Lunch for your ears?' That was my favorite record store, but yeah sometimes the music they had playing there definitely sounded like this...
posted by From Bklyn at 1:08 PM on August 10, 2014
shitting vs diarrhea
gear fetishism and "theory" wanking
I'm beginning to see the wisdom of uncleozzy's question:
I just don't understand why that kind of person takes to guitar.
posted by fairmettle at 1:18 PM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
gear fetishism and "theory" wanking
I'm beginning to see the wisdom of uncleozzy's question:
I just don't understand why that kind of person takes to guitar.
posted by fairmettle at 1:18 PM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
It's always metal-post-metalocalypse teenagers playing the same memorized riffs dissonantly against each other, or whatever.
... and yet I'll still take it over yrrr standard white-guys-slopping-through-twelve-bar-blues any day, twice today (being Sunday).
posted by philip-random at 1:29 PM on August 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
... and yet I'll still take it over yrrr standard white-guys-slopping-through-twelve-bar-blues any day, twice today (being Sunday).
posted by philip-random at 1:29 PM on August 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
It's mostly gear fetishism and "theory" wanking.
This accurately describes pretty much every photography forum on the Internet.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 1:32 PM on August 10, 2014 [11 favorites]
This accurately describes pretty much every photography forum on the Internet.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 1:32 PM on August 10, 2014 [11 favorites]
I wonder what the suicide rate is for employees of the guitar center?
It was my first job, in 1999. It was as bad as you think. Maybe worse. I quit after 2 months without getting a single commission check because selling the kind of equipment that has a significant profit margin requires straight-up lying to fellow musicians about what they need to make music. But also because the nonstop cacophony made me want to murder people for 8 hours a day. It's particularly soul-crushing for a retail job, and I distrust anyone who can keep it up for more than a few weeks.
posted by jake at 1:47 PM on August 10, 2014 [8 favorites]
It was my first job, in 1999. It was as bad as you think. Maybe worse. I quit after 2 months without getting a single commission check because selling the kind of equipment that has a significant profit margin requires straight-up lying to fellow musicians about what they need to make music. But also because the nonstop cacophony made me want to murder people for 8 hours a day. It's particularly soul-crushing for a retail job, and I distrust anyone who can keep it up for more than a few weeks.
posted by jake at 1:47 PM on August 10, 2014 [8 favorites]
What it's really like to work in a music store, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
posted by nooneyouknow at 2:01 PM on August 10, 2014 [14 favorites]
posted by nooneyouknow at 2:01 PM on August 10, 2014 [14 favorites]
I actually bought a new guitar last summer--I needed something with single coil pickups to do stuff I just can't do with the SG--and I felt like a total tool playing the same riffs and pieces over and over again, at a pretty reasonable volume, to find the Strat that sounded like the Strat in my head. I can't imagine what I'd have felt like playing in this mess.
posted by uncleozzy at 2:36 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by uncleozzy at 2:36 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
It's mostly gear fetishism and "theory" wanking.
Wait, is there anything on the Internet that this does not describe? (I'd say present company excluded but we do our fair share...)
posted by bleep at 2:37 PM on August 10, 2014 [9 favorites]
Wait, is there anything on the Internet that this does not describe? (I'd say present company excluded but we do our fair share...)
posted by bleep at 2:37 PM on August 10, 2014 [9 favorites]
I'm still waiting for the drop.
posted by drezdn at 2:38 PM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by drezdn at 2:38 PM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
I'm still waiting for the drop.
That happens at the Apple store.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:39 PM on August 10, 2014 [6 favorites]
That happens at the Apple store.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:39 PM on August 10, 2014 [6 favorites]
Presumably the headphone apparatus has not yet reached New York city via gyrocopter.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:48 PM on August 10, 2014
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:48 PM on August 10, 2014
"Yeah dude, that 8-string bass is going to look totally sick on stage! What's your jazz-fusion combo called, anyway?"
it's an 8 string guitar - and the band is called nasal death clamps - "--" - totally metal, man
--
I've witnessed two impromptu jam sessions at guitar center.
i've done one in the guitar room - some guy was playing slap bass - (i know, but THIS guy had a groove and owned it) - so i started playing funk along with him across the room
fun
hey, guess where john cage's ghost hangs out?
posted by pyramid termite at 2:50 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
it's an 8 string guitar - and the band is called nasal death clamps - "--" - totally metal, man
--
I've witnessed two impromptu jam sessions at guitar center.
i've done one in the guitar room - some guy was playing slap bass - (i know, but THIS guy had a groove and owned it) - so i started playing funk along with him across the room
fun
hey, guess where john cage's ghost hangs out?
posted by pyramid termite at 2:50 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
"Yeah dude, that 8-string bass is going to look totally sick on stage! What's your jazz-fusion combo called, anyway?"
It's called "Cheap Trick"
posted by thelonius at 2:53 PM on August 10, 2014 [7 favorites]
It's called "Cheap Trick"
posted by thelonius at 2:53 PM on August 10, 2014 [7 favorites]
and their landmark album "itches you"
posted by pyramid termite at 2:55 PM on August 10, 2014
posted by pyramid termite at 2:55 PM on August 10, 2014
Wait, is there anything on the Internet that this does not describe?
Real art, maaaan!
posted by rhizome at 2:56 PM on August 10, 2014
Real art, maaaan!
posted by rhizome at 2:56 PM on August 10, 2014
There was actually a pretty brilliant comment about this on reddit. How all these people just memorized some tabs, and can't actually play guitar.
Studied classical piano for 12+ years. Have a high school diploma in piano performance. (Yes, I know, it's a useless document, but it does show some degree of recognized knowledge about the subject.) Know music theory pretty deeply, used to be able to sight-read just about anything set in front of me with a high degree of success.
What do you think that is other than being able to read tabs? Could I improvise at the piano? No. Could I memorize the sheet music (piano equivalent to tabs) and play it back with feeling and artistry? Yes.
Would you say I wasn't able to play piano? What exactly is your definition of "being able to play guitar"?
posted by hippybear at 3:03 PM on August 10, 2014 [24 favorites]
Studied classical piano for 12+ years. Have a high school diploma in piano performance. (Yes, I know, it's a useless document, but it does show some degree of recognized knowledge about the subject.) Know music theory pretty deeply, used to be able to sight-read just about anything set in front of me with a high degree of success.
What do you think that is other than being able to read tabs? Could I improvise at the piano? No. Could I memorize the sheet music (piano equivalent to tabs) and play it back with feeling and artistry? Yes.
Would you say I wasn't able to play piano? What exactly is your definition of "being able to play guitar"?
posted by hippybear at 3:03 PM on August 10, 2014 [24 favorites]
It does seem a bit like "he can't actually type, he just memorized the position of the keys."
posted by Justinian at 3:10 PM on August 10, 2014 [7 favorites]
posted by Justinian at 3:10 PM on August 10, 2014 [7 favorites]
hippybear, it's that they don't even know any songs, just some stereotypical lead guitar riffs.
posted by thelonius at 3:13 PM on August 10, 2014
posted by thelonius at 3:13 PM on August 10, 2014
“Guitarists should be able to pick up the guitar and play music on it for an hour, without a rhythm section or anything.” - Joe Pass
posted by tommasz at 3:14 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by tommasz at 3:14 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
*plays Kum By Yah and the greatest hits of Peter Paul & Mary for an hour*
Yay! I'm a guitarist!
Seriously, I can do this. Don't make me prove it!
posted by hippybear at 3:17 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yay! I'm a guitarist!
Seriously, I can do this. Don't make me prove it!
posted by hippybear at 3:17 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
I don't want to defend Guitar Center wankers, yet somehow I find myself wanting to point out that, at a music store, you're not there to play a song and show that you're a real musician. You are there to test equipment.
Now, most certainly, a lot of people are wanking unmusically for no reason other than they have nothing better to do. But even a really good musician that's there because they seriously want to buy a guitar or amp isn't going to sit there and play an entire song in case they're being recorded. They're going to play edge case stuff to see how the gear sounds under certain conditions. Also, even if everyone was playing whole songs earnestly, it would still result in a challenging cacophony.
I quit after 2 months without getting a single commission check because selling the kind of equipment that has a significant profit margin requires straight-up lying to fellow musicians about what they need to make music.
Years ago, I asked a Guitar Center guy if a guitar that I liked, but had a Floyd Rose (which I had no need for), would be able to handle heavy gauge strings. Breezy as hell, he said sure! People do it all the time! I brought it home, strung it, and the bridge ended up literally two inches off the body. I brought it in to get my money back, and the guy who processed the return was not at all surprised by the whole thing.
posted by ignignokt at 3:27 PM on August 10, 2014 [9 favorites]
Now, most certainly, a lot of people are wanking unmusically for no reason other than they have nothing better to do. But even a really good musician that's there because they seriously want to buy a guitar or amp isn't going to sit there and play an entire song in case they're being recorded. They're going to play edge case stuff to see how the gear sounds under certain conditions. Also, even if everyone was playing whole songs earnestly, it would still result in a challenging cacophony.
I quit after 2 months without getting a single commission check because selling the kind of equipment that has a significant profit margin requires straight-up lying to fellow musicians about what they need to make music.
Years ago, I asked a Guitar Center guy if a guitar that I liked, but had a Floyd Rose (which I had no need for), would be able to handle heavy gauge strings. Breezy as hell, he said sure! People do it all the time! I brought it home, strung it, and the bridge ended up literally two inches off the body. I brought it in to get my money back, and the guy who processed the return was not at all surprised by the whole thing.
posted by ignignokt at 3:27 PM on August 10, 2014 [9 favorites]
play it back with feeling and artistry
This is sort of the crux, I think. Do you understand what you're playing? You must, if you can interpret it. My mental picture of music store guitar rooms is a bunch of guys who might know which notes to play, but don't really get how they fit together.
In my mind, these are people who might lay down a blistering riff or two, who might hack their way through a solo, but probably can't play "the greatest hits of Peter Paul & Mary for an hour" (which I'd say is a more useful, and maybe even harder to attain, skill).
posted by uncleozzy at 3:33 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
This is sort of the crux, I think. Do you understand what you're playing? You must, if you can interpret it. My mental picture of music store guitar rooms is a bunch of guys who might know which notes to play, but don't really get how they fit together.
In my mind, these are people who might lay down a blistering riff or two, who might hack their way through a solo, but probably can't play "the greatest hits of Peter Paul & Mary for an hour" (which I'd say is a more useful, and maybe even harder to attain, skill).
posted by uncleozzy at 3:33 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
The data show a steady year-over-year decline, nation-wide in guitar sales - every year since 2005.
This is and was somewhat predictable, courtesy of the decline of guitar music on the radio.
Those two things suggest, at least to me, that Guitar Center - and by extension nearly all instrument retailers, are stuck in the situation of selling instruments to an ever-decreasing pool of performing (read: professional and semi-professional) musicians and well-heeled hobbyists.
The 'problem' in two parts:
1. Anecdotally, it also 'feels' like a lot of the 'average' guitarists have fallen away from playing or interest in guitar-music. This generally leaves only a hard core of musicians who are very keen on performance and technicality. In my day, they were maligned as 'noodlers'. They certainly make interesting music, but it rarely gets much of a listening audience outside of other musicians. The best way I can put it is "guitarists playing really complicated stuff for the listening benefit of other guitarists (and no one else".
2. Wealthy hobbyists is where I think GC is aiming for these days. The guys who believe that if I just get this amp, or this head, or this cabinet ... I'll get the sound of / insert name of famous player here /. I knew more than a handful of accountants who wanted to sound like Jeff Beck or Jimmy Page, and had twenty-thousand dollar rigs in their converted garages set aside for that purpose.
I'd say these two things have conspired, creating a culture that is hostile to non-technical players, and creating price points on equipment to keep them financially out of reach.
For that reason, GC (and most music stores) just seem to suck.
posted by The Giant Squid at 3:41 PM on August 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
This is and was somewhat predictable, courtesy of the decline of guitar music on the radio.
Those two things suggest, at least to me, that Guitar Center - and by extension nearly all instrument retailers, are stuck in the situation of selling instruments to an ever-decreasing pool of performing (read: professional and semi-professional) musicians and well-heeled hobbyists.
The 'problem' in two parts:
1. Anecdotally, it also 'feels' like a lot of the 'average' guitarists have fallen away from playing or interest in guitar-music. This generally leaves only a hard core of musicians who are very keen on performance and technicality. In my day, they were maligned as 'noodlers'. They certainly make interesting music, but it rarely gets much of a listening audience outside of other musicians. The best way I can put it is "guitarists playing really complicated stuff for the listening benefit of other guitarists (and no one else".
2. Wealthy hobbyists is where I think GC is aiming for these days. The guys who believe that if I just get this amp, or this head, or this cabinet ... I'll get the sound of / insert name of famous player here /. I knew more than a handful of accountants who wanted to sound like Jeff Beck or Jimmy Page, and had twenty-thousand dollar rigs in their converted garages set aside for that purpose.
I'd say these two things have conspired, creating a culture that is hostile to non-technical players, and creating price points on equipment to keep them financially out of reach.
For that reason, GC (and most music stores) just seem to suck.
posted by The Giant Squid at 3:41 PM on August 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
" *plays Kum By Yah and the greatest hits of Peter Paul & Mary for an hour*"
Someone's smashing everything m'lord, kumbaya...
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:43 PM on August 10, 2014
Someone's smashing everything m'lord, kumbaya...
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:43 PM on August 10, 2014
I play guitar for a living. My wife, she 'likes keyboard players'. The part when I'm not playing guitar for a living I play keyboards - probably a 75 / 25 ratio. I have a feeling that locations like this work against me....
posted by johanze at 3:44 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by johanze at 3:44 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
Don't laugh—one of these dudes could be the next ____ ____.
And unless he has a highly symmetrical face, his artistry will one day have a following of 120 on Soundcloud, and ( Rory Gallagher | Danny Gatton ) will be whispering, somewhere, "Rumors of my lack of fame were greatly exaggerated".
posted by sylvanshine at 3:52 PM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
And unless he has a highly symmetrical face, his artistry will one day have a following of 120 on Soundcloud, and ( Rory Gallagher | Danny Gatton ) will be whispering, somewhere, "Rumors of my lack of fame were greatly exaggerated".
posted by sylvanshine at 3:52 PM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
hey, guess where john cage's ghost hangs out?
posted by pyramid termite
He's sharing the corner over there with Charles Ives.
posted by StickyCarpet at 3:58 PM on August 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by pyramid termite
He's sharing the corner over there with Charles Ives.
posted by StickyCarpet at 3:58 PM on August 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
Is it just me or does this sound like one gigantic djent song?
posted by gucci mane at 4:30 PM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by gucci mane at 4:30 PM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
uncleozzy: "I just don't understand why that kind of person takes to guitar. Do they think it can still get you laid? Has that been even remotely true at any time this century?"
Playing drums in high school marching band and trumpet in concert band got me precisely one girl.
That wasn't in this century, though.
posted by double block and bleed at 4:33 PM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
Playing drums in high school marching band and trumpet in concert band got me precisely one girl.
That wasn't in this century, though.
posted by double block and bleed at 4:33 PM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
I still have dreams of laying it down like Jimmy Page or Eddie Van Halen. Dreams, because I can't play guitar at all.
posted by double block and bleed at 4:35 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by double block and bleed at 4:35 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
I don't know why, but music was never something I turned into a gear obsession. Maybe because I didn't really start learning an instrument until after I graduated college and had, you know, bills and things. My first guitar was $75 off craigslist. Maybe I'm doing it wrong? I must be able to become better if I drop a few grand on stuff, right?
posted by backseatpilot at 4:53 PM on August 10, 2014
posted by backseatpilot at 4:53 PM on August 10, 2014
*plays Kum By Yah and the greatest hits of Peter Paul & Mary for an hour*
Yay! I'm a guitarist!
Seriously, I can do this. Don't make me prove it!
Don't be dissing Peter Paul & Mary! They could rock the house.
posted by jokeefe at 4:58 PM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
Yay! I'm a guitarist!
Seriously, I can do this. Don't make me prove it!
Don't be dissing Peter Paul & Mary! They could rock the house.
posted by jokeefe at 4:58 PM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
I don't know, I liked the first 30 seconds. My inability to focus on any single player made it sound a little bit like 'Metal Machine Music' to me, and I really love 'Metal Machine Music'. But then our videographer turns the corner and we focus clearly on two guys playing x5 chords and pentatonic scales and it went from experimental to well-we've-all-been-here-before-haven't-we?
posted by SafetyPirate at 5:05 PM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by SafetyPirate at 5:05 PM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
i don't think so, backseatpilot - a few grand isn't going to make a bad musician good - nor is a 75 dollar guitar, if it's a good one, going to turn a good musician bad
yes, there are certain minimum requirements that an instrument must have to be playable but once those are met - and they can be met pretty inexpensively these days - it's all in the player, not the guitar
of course, when we start dealing with amps, fx and instruments like synths, it gets a little trickier and often a good roll of cash can improve a player's sound
posted by pyramid termite at 5:05 PM on August 10, 2014
yes, there are certain minimum requirements that an instrument must have to be playable but once those are met - and they can be met pretty inexpensively these days - it's all in the player, not the guitar
of course, when we start dealing with amps, fx and instruments like synths, it gets a little trickier and often a good roll of cash can improve a player's sound
posted by pyramid termite at 5:05 PM on August 10, 2014
memorized some tabs
You know, tab preceded actual musical notation for guitar.
"Tab hate" is just a stupid meme. There's just music and
non-music. Nobody who plays modern music isn't also referencing,
to some degree, the actual sound of what has been tabbed. So, what is
the difference between someone playing a perfectly reproduced riff from tab
and hearing, and someone, after 10 years of learning to read for guitar,
playing the same from a sheet or chart? There's no guarantee that the
next improvised riff from either is going to be something worth hearing.
OT: What hath Jimi wrought?
posted by Chitownfats at 5:06 PM on August 10, 2014
You know, tab preceded actual musical notation for guitar.
"Tab hate" is just a stupid meme. There's just music and
non-music. Nobody who plays modern music isn't also referencing,
to some degree, the actual sound of what has been tabbed. So, what is
the difference between someone playing a perfectly reproduced riff from tab
and hearing, and someone, after 10 years of learning to read for guitar,
playing the same from a sheet or chart? There's no guarantee that the
next improvised riff from either is going to be something worth hearing.
OT: What hath Jimi wrought?
posted by Chitownfats at 5:06 PM on August 10, 2014
They could rock the house .
rev davis was better
posted by pyramid termite at 5:14 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
rev davis was better
posted by pyramid termite at 5:14 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
I would note, incidentally, that the Times Square Guitar Center just opened this past week. (And mostly this video reminds me that I want to check it out.)
posted by Shmuel510 at 5:19 PM on August 10, 2014
posted by Shmuel510 at 5:19 PM on August 10, 2014
They *all* work there.
posted by yellowcandy at 5:27 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by yellowcandy at 5:27 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
Hey, I thought Mittens Romney's company was busy putting Guitar Center out of business...
posted by njohnson23 at 5:29 PM on August 10, 2014
posted by njohnson23 at 5:29 PM on August 10, 2014
Don't be dissing Peter Paul & Mary!
I'm entirely NOT dissing PP&M. If I were prone to do that, I wouldn't actually know most of their greatest hits on guitar. But others may not be so appreciative.
posted by hippybear at 5:36 PM on August 10, 2014
I'm entirely NOT dissing PP&M. If I were prone to do that, I wouldn't actually know most of their greatest hits on guitar. But others may not be so appreciative.
posted by hippybear at 5:36 PM on August 10, 2014
You shoulda seen/heard Manny's before rock died.
It's funny. An old friend I knew made a guitar pilgrimage from Toronto to NYC specifically to buy a guitar from Manny's. He picked up a Strat and lightly jazz-strummed it a little bit, and the sleazy sales-guy there loud-grunted: "So Whut Are Yah Gonna Buy It Or Nott!" He dropped the Strat and walked out.
Same friend also worked sales at Steve's Music in Toronto. Saturday afternoons there always sounded kinda exactly like the main post above. Once I visited him during peak mayhem hour. He just laughed, walked over to the intercom, punched up the public address system and yelled: "Have You Ever Heard Of Beethoven? Do You Know Who Mozart Is? Now That Is Music!" The din subsided, briefly. I thought it was funny.
posted by ovvl at 6:28 PM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
It's funny. An old friend I knew made a guitar pilgrimage from Toronto to NYC specifically to buy a guitar from Manny's. He picked up a Strat and lightly jazz-strummed it a little bit, and the sleazy sales-guy there loud-grunted: "So Whut Are Yah Gonna Buy It Or Nott!" He dropped the Strat and walked out.
Same friend also worked sales at Steve's Music in Toronto. Saturday afternoons there always sounded kinda exactly like the main post above. Once I visited him during peak mayhem hour. He just laughed, walked over to the intercom, punched up the public address system and yelled: "Have You Ever Heard Of Beethoven? Do You Know Who Mozart Is? Now That Is Music!" The din subsided, briefly. I thought it was funny.
posted by ovvl at 6:28 PM on August 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
You shoulda seen/heard Manny's before rock died.
Manny's? Do you mean 'Lunch for your ears?' That was my favorite record store, but yeah sometimes the music they had playing there definitely sounded like this...
I've got a strong feeling that your comment, FromBklyn, was a bit of an inside joke, and that you are probably aware that Manny's was one of the big NYC music stores back in the glory days of 48th Street.
But on the subject of Manny (Lunch For Your Ears Manny) he is still around, though his Spring St. store is long gone. I saw him back in November of last year, when I played a solo show at Bruce Gallanters Downtown Music Gallery located waaaay down in lower Chinatown. Manny helps Bruce out with the shop these days. I dunno, they might even be partners of some kind. It was great to see Manny, it had been a lot of years.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 10:28 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
Manny's? Do you mean 'Lunch for your ears?' That was my favorite record store, but yeah sometimes the music they had playing there definitely sounded like this...
I've got a strong feeling that your comment, FromBklyn, was a bit of an inside joke, and that you are probably aware that Manny's was one of the big NYC music stores back in the glory days of 48th Street.
But on the subject of Manny (Lunch For Your Ears Manny) he is still around, though his Spring St. store is long gone. I saw him back in November of last year, when I played a solo show at Bruce Gallanters Downtown Music Gallery located waaaay down in lower Chinatown. Manny helps Bruce out with the shop these days. I dunno, they might even be partners of some kind. It was great to see Manny, it had been a lot of years.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 10:28 PM on August 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
"Tab hate" is just a stupid meme. There's just music and non-music.
I'm sure there's some meme-ness to lazily hating on tab, but I also don't think it's just that. Or really that what the underlying "it" is isn't about tablature—which, yeah, just a musical notation system, innocent of wrongdoing and a useful tool in the right context—but about the use of tab as some sort of presumed shortcut to musicianship. The way that learning to map a number on the staff to a finger on the fretboard can end up being the primary or even sole thing some neophyte guitarist has in their box labeled What Making Music Is. And the way that that ensuing ignorance of all the rest can be something that they're not even really cognizant of, so that you can't trust them to know their own boundaries and meet shared expectations in e.g. a casual jam setting. If you don't know that you don't know how to play music with other people, you can waste other people's time and create some awkward-ass situations.
It's stuff like memorizing (and mis-memorizing) riffs or parts of riffs or solo chunks out of songs while not being able to, at all, track the actual arc of the song or play or follow the chords or orient yourself in the song or basically do anything other than playing the riff again and hoping everyone else fills in around you that makes for miserable interactions with someone. And that's not something that's isolated to the guitar, by any means, but the guitar as an instrument is so ubiquitous and accessible that sheer numbers alone make a likely frustrating neophyte musician a guitarist most of the time, and the (at least historically) central role that guitarists play as instrumental showmen in pop culture ups the stakes more because your probable guitarist may also be having a much more I Am The Star, Check This Riff Out sort of fantasy relationship with his instrumental abilities than would a drummer or a bassist or a keyboardist. There's just so much communicating that weedle-weedle-weedle = cool rock dude that it's real easy for no developed skillset to combine with misguided hubris to create a lousy guitarist who thinks they're accomplishing something musically.
Tab just happens to be a really readily available tool on the internet in service of that trainwreck. It's not tab's fault, but boy does tab tend to be mixed up in the whole thing in a way that "spend a few years working on your fundamentals, internalize some (formal or otherwise) chord/harmonic theory, learn to follow song structures well and work out chords by ear or get really adept at working off a chart" doesn't so much.
Learning some riffs out of context without developing a rounded-out skillset is like learning to whisk eggs really fucking well while knowing nothing else about cooking. Sure, if anyone ever has an egg-whisking emergency you will be just the guy to tap, but in the mean time everybody around you gets pretty sick of you steering the conversation toward how maybe someone else feels like eating a frittata, wouldn't a frittata be good right about now, let's go to the kitchen, see what's up, maybe there's, oh, look, there's some eggs, can't make a frittata without eggs, well let me just find a whisk and hey check it out, check this shit out, okay, someone make the frittata now I guess. It's like, enough with the fucking whisking.
posted by cortex at 10:47 PM on August 10, 2014 [16 favorites]
I'm sure there's some meme-ness to lazily hating on tab, but I also don't think it's just that. Or really that what the underlying "it" is isn't about tablature—which, yeah, just a musical notation system, innocent of wrongdoing and a useful tool in the right context—but about the use of tab as some sort of presumed shortcut to musicianship. The way that learning to map a number on the staff to a finger on the fretboard can end up being the primary or even sole thing some neophyte guitarist has in their box labeled What Making Music Is. And the way that that ensuing ignorance of all the rest can be something that they're not even really cognizant of, so that you can't trust them to know their own boundaries and meet shared expectations in e.g. a casual jam setting. If you don't know that you don't know how to play music with other people, you can waste other people's time and create some awkward-ass situations.
It's stuff like memorizing (and mis-memorizing) riffs or parts of riffs or solo chunks out of songs while not being able to, at all, track the actual arc of the song or play or follow the chords or orient yourself in the song or basically do anything other than playing the riff again and hoping everyone else fills in around you that makes for miserable interactions with someone. And that's not something that's isolated to the guitar, by any means, but the guitar as an instrument is so ubiquitous and accessible that sheer numbers alone make a likely frustrating neophyte musician a guitarist most of the time, and the (at least historically) central role that guitarists play as instrumental showmen in pop culture ups the stakes more because your probable guitarist may also be having a much more I Am The Star, Check This Riff Out sort of fantasy relationship with his instrumental abilities than would a drummer or a bassist or a keyboardist. There's just so much communicating that weedle-weedle-weedle = cool rock dude that it's real easy for no developed skillset to combine with misguided hubris to create a lousy guitarist who thinks they're accomplishing something musically.
Tab just happens to be a really readily available tool on the internet in service of that trainwreck. It's not tab's fault, but boy does tab tend to be mixed up in the whole thing in a way that "spend a few years working on your fundamentals, internalize some (formal or otherwise) chord/harmonic theory, learn to follow song structures well and work out chords by ear or get really adept at working off a chart" doesn't so much.
Learning some riffs out of context without developing a rounded-out skillset is like learning to whisk eggs really fucking well while knowing nothing else about cooking. Sure, if anyone ever has an egg-whisking emergency you will be just the guy to tap, but in the mean time everybody around you gets pretty sick of you steering the conversation toward how maybe someone else feels like eating a frittata, wouldn't a frittata be good right about now, let's go to the kitchen, see what's up, maybe there's, oh, look, there's some eggs, can't make a frittata without eggs, well let me just find a whisk and hey check it out, check this shit out, okay, someone make the frittata now I guess. It's like, enough with the fucking whisking.
posted by cortex at 10:47 PM on August 10, 2014 [16 favorites]
What was the brilliant part?
Would you say I wasn't able to play piano? What exactly is your definition of "being able to play guitar"?
Oh god, this and the AskMe post. What have i unleashed?
I had a momentary lapse of judgement and forgot that this is one of the most contentious discussions you can really ever have. It's like what D&D version you prefer or something.
And i mean, someone already got into it above, but i think the primary difference is if you actually understand what you're playing. Just because you couldn't jam and aren't particularly good at improvising doesn't mean you can't play, but i'm talking about a completely different type of person here.
And there's some of them who have spent tons and tons of hours practicing just playing specific tabs and riffs without having any actual introspective moments of peformance.
They treat it like a videogame max score speedrun. As long as they're playing it technically perfectly then they've "won" and they can play guitar. But as was said above, they don't actually understand how the pieces slot together and probably don't have any real skill beyond being able to do some basic technical playing stuff to reproduce those specific riffs.
I mean, i guess i'm setting an arbitrary bar, but if someone else plays something and you can't even play a riff that's in key with it in a several tries, then you probably can't actually play. You're just punching in street fighter combos.
And yea, i had piano lessons and went to music school, and i've composed, produced electronic music, and played in a band for years. I have a very specific stereotype in my head.
To come back to the videogame thing, it's like that one guy who sits around the arcade and beats most people younger than him at a fighting game just by spamming the same combo over and over. He doesn't actually know how to play the game, he just knows how to do a couple cheap moves that win most of the time against a relatively unskilled player and give him the appearance of proficiency. The problem arises when he has the cockiness and swagger to think he actually is proficient. Do you see where i'm going with this?
And i mean, i wasn't getting at anyone not being a musician. I was just saying that they're musicians in the same way a 16 year old who just got his license after a couple weeks of practice is a driver. They think they know a hell of a lot more than they do, and you often end up with something like this video. I wasn't even hating either. We were all that person once. I just like to think i was a lot more humble than a lot of the guitar center shredders are.
by the way, i thought the brilliant part was the diarrhea vs shit analogy, because i thought it gave a solid example while also being a bit cheeky.
posted by emptythought at 12:10 AM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
Would you say I wasn't able to play piano? What exactly is your definition of "being able to play guitar"?
Oh god, this and the AskMe post. What have i unleashed?
I had a momentary lapse of judgement and forgot that this is one of the most contentious discussions you can really ever have. It's like what D&D version you prefer or something.
And i mean, someone already got into it above, but i think the primary difference is if you actually understand what you're playing. Just because you couldn't jam and aren't particularly good at improvising doesn't mean you can't play, but i'm talking about a completely different type of person here.
And there's some of them who have spent tons and tons of hours practicing just playing specific tabs and riffs without having any actual introspective moments of peformance.
They treat it like a videogame max score speedrun. As long as they're playing it technically perfectly then they've "won" and they can play guitar. But as was said above, they don't actually understand how the pieces slot together and probably don't have any real skill beyond being able to do some basic technical playing stuff to reproduce those specific riffs.
I mean, i guess i'm setting an arbitrary bar, but if someone else plays something and you can't even play a riff that's in key with it in a several tries, then you probably can't actually play. You're just punching in street fighter combos.
And yea, i had piano lessons and went to music school, and i've composed, produced electronic music, and played in a band for years. I have a very specific stereotype in my head.
To come back to the videogame thing, it's like that one guy who sits around the arcade and beats most people younger than him at a fighting game just by spamming the same combo over and over. He doesn't actually know how to play the game, he just knows how to do a couple cheap moves that win most of the time against a relatively unskilled player and give him the appearance of proficiency. The problem arises when he has the cockiness and swagger to think he actually is proficient. Do you see where i'm going with this?
And i mean, i wasn't getting at anyone not being a musician. I was just saying that they're musicians in the same way a 16 year old who just got his license after a couple weeks of practice is a driver. They think they know a hell of a lot more than they do, and you often end up with something like this video. I wasn't even hating either. We were all that person once. I just like to think i was a lot more humble than a lot of the guitar center shredders are.
by the way, i thought the brilliant part was the diarrhea vs shit analogy, because i thought it gave a solid example while also being a bit cheeky.
posted by emptythought at 12:10 AM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
I mean, hell, cortex, whisked eggs ain't just for frittatas. There's a whole world of dishes that require eggs be whisked. Scrambled eggs. Omelets. Chicken-fried steak. There was one kid in high school we thought was going places; could whisk the shit out of eggs for a quiche. They found him dead one day, face down in a bowl of partially whisked egg whites. The poor bastard wanted to make a meringue.
Some kids, they just don't know the limits.
posted by logicpunk at 12:38 AM on August 11, 2014
Some kids, they just don't know the limits.
posted by logicpunk at 12:38 AM on August 11, 2014
Great comment cortex - I'm off to the tattoo parlor to have it inscribed on me!
posted by thelonius at 4:07 AM on August 11, 2014
posted by thelonius at 4:07 AM on August 11, 2014
I just don't understand why that kind of person takes to guitar. Do they think it can still get you laid? Has that been even remotely true at any time this century?
The sound of guitar (or, more precisely, guitar plus effects plus amps) is a useful part of the modern timbral palette.
A lot of the music I like (shoegaze, post-rock, various psych) is guitar based, and as someone who dabbles in music making, I'd like to have such sounds at my disposal. Though it has always been a tradeoff between investing the time in learning guitar or immediately getting results on the laptop I have with me, so I've stuck with the laptop. (I have bought a guitar, though generally don't use it, partly for want of space in my tiny London flat.)
Having said that, I have picked up various virtual guitar plug-ins/sample sets, which with the right post-processing can yield 60%-90% of the desired result in a lot of cases, if programmed correctly. They sit next to the orchestral samples, as I can't play cello or French horn either.
posted by acb at 5:17 AM on August 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
The sound of guitar (or, more precisely, guitar plus effects plus amps) is a useful part of the modern timbral palette.
A lot of the music I like (shoegaze, post-rock, various psych) is guitar based, and as someone who dabbles in music making, I'd like to have such sounds at my disposal. Though it has always been a tradeoff between investing the time in learning guitar or immediately getting results on the laptop I have with me, so I've stuck with the laptop. (I have bought a guitar, though generally don't use it, partly for want of space in my tiny London flat.)
Having said that, I have picked up various virtual guitar plug-ins/sample sets, which with the right post-processing can yield 60%-90% of the desired result in a lot of cases, if programmed correctly. They sit next to the orchestral samples, as I can't play cello or French horn either.
posted by acb at 5:17 AM on August 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
I know someone is competent at playing guitar when another person that is competent at playing guitar plays guitar, and the first fella doesn't continue to play Dragonforce riffs while the second guitarist strums into something more groovy.
posted by oceanjesse at 6:01 AM on August 11, 2014
posted by oceanjesse at 6:01 AM on August 11, 2014
My god, turns out that guitar players are the snobbiest motherfuckers I've ever come across on the internet. God forbid people learn and enjoy playing a couple riffs on a guitar. the horror!
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:44 AM on August 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:44 AM on August 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
cortex: come on! I was just using "riff" as a shorthand for any kind of learning
from tab. There are tab books with every note played on every instrument for entire
albums. Would learning from them constitute "whisking"? Riffs are fun, songs are fun,
music is fun. Who, seriously, who the FUCK are you to judge that "lousy guitarist"
and his "trainwreck"? The "wheedlers" amuse themselves, maybe some hapless friends
or family members, and are never going to be anything but unheard by the rest of us
except as we wander by a Guitar Center. God forbid they harbor any delusions.
posted by Chitownfats at 7:16 AM on August 11, 2014
from tab. There are tab books with every note played on every instrument for entire
albums. Would learning from them constitute "whisking"? Riffs are fun, songs are fun,
music is fun. Who, seriously, who the FUCK are you to judge that "lousy guitarist"
and his "trainwreck"? The "wheedlers" amuse themselves, maybe some hapless friends
or family members, and are never going to be anything but unheard by the rest of us
except as we wander by a Guitar Center. God forbid they harbor any delusions.
posted by Chitownfats at 7:16 AM on August 11, 2014
I read a story years ago of a quiet morning at a NYC music store (was it Manny's, I don't remember). A guy was on one side of the store, playing a few licks and feeling pretty good. He pauses and someone on the other side plays his lick back. So they start going back and forth, picking up speed. Finally the writer of the article gave his fastest run, hoping to finally take the lead. A blistering wall of country/blues notes came flying back at him. The guy put down his guitar and walked over to a point where he could see his antagonist. They met eyes and Mark Knopfler just smiled and gave him a friendly nod.
posted by Ber at 7:38 AM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Ber at 7:38 AM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
I like people playing enthusiastically and poorly and without totally getting it, just like I like seeing people code enthusiastically and poorly without totally getting it. It's a good step, and I hope no one is afraid of the glare of "real musicians," who in the end, are only incrementally more interesting to hear on average, anyway.
posted by ignignokt at 7:41 AM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by ignignokt at 7:41 AM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
Who, seriously, who the FUCK are you to judge that "lousy guitarist"
and his "trainwreck"?
A good guitarist who started as a lousy guitarist and has played with a lot of guitarists and has strong opinions about guitar-playing vis-a-vis imposing it on other people especially in musical social settings where it becomes the business of other people and can have a direct impact on the musical situation that exists beyond the tip of the imposing guitarist's nose.
I want to be clear: I don't think weedle-weedling is inherently bad; I don't think weedlers are bad; I don't think people should be denied the right to be happy in their weedling; I think learning an instrument is a good thing and understand very well that it takes time and effort and involves not being anything but bad for a while; I think learning to read a tab correctly is better than learning a song by ear badly and that in any case using tools available to you is a smart thing to do; I have a lot of respect for people who can read music efficiently, whether tablature or score or what-have-you, something that I have never gotten more than painfully slow at personally; and I don't particularly have a problem with people getting their rote riffage on at Guitar Center or any other music store, because, christ's sake, it's a music store, if ever there was a place for it that seems okay even if the result in aggregate is cacophony.
That doesn't mean that carrying an unfocused, contextless set of memorized or half-memorized guitar chunks into a context where other people want something other than exactly that is good social musicianship, though. And that's where it falls down, and that's what pretty much the entirety of my comment is about, because as with so many things I have zero problem with what anybody does in the privacy of their own home but when they're going to basically insist that it be part of my musical experience and it has the effect of undermining my own musical experience, that's naive and frustrating at best and outright solipsistic at worst.
You said tab hate is just a meme. I explained why while I agree with you in spirit that there are a lot of people who are mostly making cheap shots about that reflexively, it's also very much not just that and that dudes focusing in near isolation on memorizing EADGBT transcripts of portions of songs to the exclusion of a more rounded musical skill set with their instruments actually can be a legitimate source of frustration for other musicians and bystanders.
posted by cortex at 7:42 AM on August 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
and his "trainwreck"?
A good guitarist who started as a lousy guitarist and has played with a lot of guitarists and has strong opinions about guitar-playing vis-a-vis imposing it on other people especially in musical social settings where it becomes the business of other people and can have a direct impact on the musical situation that exists beyond the tip of the imposing guitarist's nose.
I want to be clear: I don't think weedle-weedling is inherently bad; I don't think weedlers are bad; I don't think people should be denied the right to be happy in their weedling; I think learning an instrument is a good thing and understand very well that it takes time and effort and involves not being anything but bad for a while; I think learning to read a tab correctly is better than learning a song by ear badly and that in any case using tools available to you is a smart thing to do; I have a lot of respect for people who can read music efficiently, whether tablature or score or what-have-you, something that I have never gotten more than painfully slow at personally; and I don't particularly have a problem with people getting their rote riffage on at Guitar Center or any other music store, because, christ's sake, it's a music store, if ever there was a place for it that seems okay even if the result in aggregate is cacophony.
That doesn't mean that carrying an unfocused, contextless set of memorized or half-memorized guitar chunks into a context where other people want something other than exactly that is good social musicianship, though. And that's where it falls down, and that's what pretty much the entirety of my comment is about, because as with so many things I have zero problem with what anybody does in the privacy of their own home but when they're going to basically insist that it be part of my musical experience and it has the effect of undermining my own musical experience, that's naive and frustrating at best and outright solipsistic at worst.
You said tab hate is just a meme. I explained why while I agree with you in spirit that there are a lot of people who are mostly making cheap shots about that reflexively, it's also very much not just that and that dudes focusing in near isolation on memorizing EADGBT transcripts of portions of songs to the exclusion of a more rounded musical skill set with their instruments actually can be a legitimate source of frustration for other musicians and bystanders.
posted by cortex at 7:42 AM on August 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
How can it be a source of frustration? Because they sound bad?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:49 AM on August 11, 2014
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:49 AM on August 11, 2014
That doesn't mean that carrying an unfocused, contextless set of memorized or half-memorized guitar chunks into a context where other people want something other than exactly that is good social musicianship, though.
I hear you, if you are talking about playing with people that do this. I just think that's a problem you should take up with those specific people, though, not bedroom shredders or people trying out guitars at a music store.
I learned to play music in an orchestra, and I know how valuable social musicianship is. However, amazing stuff can come from people doing things in isolation, including just plain personal self-amusement. I don't think it's anyone's duty to be a group player, even though we are raised to believe that is an important part of "real" musicianship.
posted by ignignokt at 7:50 AM on August 11, 2014
I hear you, if you are talking about playing with people that do this. I just think that's a problem you should take up with those specific people, though, not bedroom shredders or people trying out guitars at a music store.
I learned to play music in an orchestra, and I know how valuable social musicianship is. However, amazing stuff can come from people doing things in isolation, including just plain personal self-amusement. I don't think it's anyone's duty to be a group player, even though we are raised to believe that is an important part of "real" musicianship.
posted by ignignokt at 7:50 AM on August 11, 2014
This is a surprisingly good thread; I never expected to do a 180 on Guitar Center noodlers when I first started reading!
posted by ignignokt at 7:53 AM on August 11, 2014
posted by ignignokt at 7:53 AM on August 11, 2014
Hey you all I didn't mean to unleash a storm with the AskMe - I was genuinely curious and I think I've gotten some good, thoughtful answers.
I'm not going to go down to the Guitar Center and play Born to Be Wild on my uke, though. EVEN THOUGH I TOTALLY COULD.
posted by winna at 8:02 AM on August 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
I'm not going to go down to the Guitar Center and play Born to Be Wild on my uke, though. EVEN THOUGH I TOTALLY COULD.
posted by winna at 8:02 AM on August 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
“Guitarists should be able to pick up the guitar and play music on it for an hour, without a rhythm section or anything.” - Joe Pass
I can play music on a guitar for an hour. But it would be repetitive twelve-bar blues and/or random unskilled noodling. I think Mr. Pass probably meant "play music well for an hour". :-)
I don't want to defend Guitar Center wankers, yet somehow I find myself wanting to point out that, at a music store, you're not there to play a song and show that you're a real musician. You are there to test equipment.
You are there to test equipment, but there are a lot of people (usually teenage boys) who are there to whurdle-whurdle away on some expensive guitar and gear without ever buying it. (Which, admittedly, is kind of a fun thing to do.)
Which reminds me of a painful memory: in 1980, when I was 20, I went to an uber-cool music store, and wanted to actually buy a guitar, after trying it out for a bit. It took me a considerable length of time to find a salesperson willing to acknowledge my uncool self; when I actually finally bought the guitar, they sold it to me in a bass case. It's all good - I still have the guitar (though I can't play music well on it for an hour), and the bass case holds lots of extra strings and stuff.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 8:19 AM on August 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
I can play music on a guitar for an hour. But it would be repetitive twelve-bar blues and/or random unskilled noodling. I think Mr. Pass probably meant "play music well for an hour". :-)
I don't want to defend Guitar Center wankers, yet somehow I find myself wanting to point out that, at a music store, you're not there to play a song and show that you're a real musician. You are there to test equipment.
You are there to test equipment, but there are a lot of people (usually teenage boys) who are there to whurdle-whurdle away on some expensive guitar and gear without ever buying it. (Which, admittedly, is kind of a fun thing to do.)
Which reminds me of a painful memory: in 1980, when I was 20, I went to an uber-cool music store, and wanted to actually buy a guitar, after trying it out for a bit. It took me a considerable length of time to find a salesperson willing to acknowledge my uncool self; when I actually finally bought the guitar, they sold it to me in a bass case. It's all good - I still have the guitar (though I can't play music well on it for an hour), and the bass case holds lots of extra strings and stuff.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 8:19 AM on August 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
How can it be a source of frustration? Because they sound bad?
The two, somewhat distinct places where it becomes a source of frustration:
1. When they decide that non-musical social gatherings are audiences.
2. When they decide that musical social gatherings are unilateral things where they produce what they got and everybody else can just deal.
First case is mostly a social issue for working out between all involved; if nobody around the Here, Let Me Play The Opening Riff of "One" Again dude minds, okie doke. My experience is that that's often not the case, though, and that's on the riffer to be more self-aware.
Second case is actively wasting other people's time by not setting expectations reasonably, and is trying for everybody else involved. It's elevating an under-studied and unreflected-upon private hobby (fine, okay, totally kosher!) to a musical and social imposition on other musicians (kinda crappy and thoughtless!).
And the second case is not every situation ever where someone learning an instrument plays with others. I am all for understanding and deliberate mixed-skill jamming when that's what everybody is signing up for; I think that's great, and I've done it both as a budding musician that other people helped along and as a more experienced musician helping newer musicians try out the whole jamming thing. Depending where I am at the moment with a new instrument or genre I actually go back and forth, it's not a one-way street for me. Learning is great, supportive environments for learning are great, everybody opting in to a specific musical situation is great.
But that's not always what happens, and when that sort of consensus doesn't happen up front that can be pretty obnoxious. And the guy who's musical universe is "I memorized a few lead lines and riffs, there is a guitar here, ergo now is as good a time as any for me to play them" is sort of the platonic ideal of that kind of obnoxiousness, and I've known a lot of 'em.
And I'm sure some of this is me being a grumpy musician who has (a) spent more than the average chunk of time being around and playing with other musicians and (b) developed a stronger set of opinions about this stuff partly from having been there and done that and being keenly aware of my own bad behavior historically as a budding musician. But it's not some random lazy meme thing where musicians are just reflexively Grumpy About Tab for the sake of being grumpy, which was more or less the assertion I responded to in the first place last night.
I just think that's a problem you should take up with those specific people, though, not bedroom shredders or people trying out guitars at a music store.
I don't disagree. I know this is a thread that started with a video of Guitar Center cacophony, but I haven't been anything other than briefly mildly supportive of private practice or GC riffing.
posted by cortex at 8:20 AM on August 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
The two, somewhat distinct places where it becomes a source of frustration:
1. When they decide that non-musical social gatherings are audiences.
2. When they decide that musical social gatherings are unilateral things where they produce what they got and everybody else can just deal.
First case is mostly a social issue for working out between all involved; if nobody around the Here, Let Me Play The Opening Riff of "One" Again dude minds, okie doke. My experience is that that's often not the case, though, and that's on the riffer to be more self-aware.
Second case is actively wasting other people's time by not setting expectations reasonably, and is trying for everybody else involved. It's elevating an under-studied and unreflected-upon private hobby (fine, okay, totally kosher!) to a musical and social imposition on other musicians (kinda crappy and thoughtless!).
And the second case is not every situation ever where someone learning an instrument plays with others. I am all for understanding and deliberate mixed-skill jamming when that's what everybody is signing up for; I think that's great, and I've done it both as a budding musician that other people helped along and as a more experienced musician helping newer musicians try out the whole jamming thing. Depending where I am at the moment with a new instrument or genre I actually go back and forth, it's not a one-way street for me. Learning is great, supportive environments for learning are great, everybody opting in to a specific musical situation is great.
But that's not always what happens, and when that sort of consensus doesn't happen up front that can be pretty obnoxious. And the guy who's musical universe is "I memorized a few lead lines and riffs, there is a guitar here, ergo now is as good a time as any for me to play them" is sort of the platonic ideal of that kind of obnoxiousness, and I've known a lot of 'em.
And I'm sure some of this is me being a grumpy musician who has (a) spent more than the average chunk of time being around and playing with other musicians and (b) developed a stronger set of opinions about this stuff partly from having been there and done that and being keenly aware of my own bad behavior historically as a budding musician. But it's not some random lazy meme thing where musicians are just reflexively Grumpy About Tab for the sake of being grumpy, which was more or less the assertion I responded to in the first place last night.
I just think that's a problem you should take up with those specific people, though, not bedroom shredders or people trying out guitars at a music store.
I don't disagree. I know this is a thread that started with a video of Guitar Center cacophony, but I haven't been anything other than briefly mildly supportive of private practice or GC riffing.
posted by cortex at 8:20 AM on August 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
So it really has nothing to do with tabs or playing bad or playing stairway to heaven, or is that just a comorbidity with playing guitar when its not welcome?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:58 AM on August 11, 2014
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:58 AM on August 11, 2014
You shoulda seen/heard Manny's before rock died.
posted by spitbull
-----
Manny's? Do you mean 'Lunch for your ears?' That was my favorite record store, but yeah sometimes the music they had playing there definitely sounded like this...
posted by From Bklyn
No, the ultra-legendary Manny's Music on 48th St. It was where I (and those of my generation from the NYC area who outgrew Sam Ash's crap offerings) got my first good instrument - a pre-CBS P bass, for $350 in 1976, read it and weep. Still playing it, and the 1991 Telecaster Thinline I got from Ray Hennig's in Austin, but the last few Fenders and Taylors (including my beloved new Taylor 440CE, holy shit she plays sweet) have come from the excellent Sweetwater.com. When you're my age, you know what you like already and you don't need to try many out. Plus guitar manufacturing quality is so good these days there really isn't much difference between particular versions of the same model once you go north of $1000.
posted by spitbull at 9:08 AM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by spitbull
-----
Manny's? Do you mean 'Lunch for your ears?' That was my favorite record store, but yeah sometimes the music they had playing there definitely sounded like this...
posted by From Bklyn
No, the ultra-legendary Manny's Music on 48th St. It was where I (and those of my generation from the NYC area who outgrew Sam Ash's crap offerings) got my first good instrument - a pre-CBS P bass, for $350 in 1976, read it and weep. Still playing it, and the 1991 Telecaster Thinline I got from Ray Hennig's in Austin, but the last few Fenders and Taylors (including my beloved new Taylor 440CE, holy shit she plays sweet) have come from the excellent Sweetwater.com. When you're my age, you know what you like already and you don't need to try many out. Plus guitar manufacturing quality is so good these days there really isn't much difference between particular versions of the same model once you go north of $1000.
posted by spitbull at 9:08 AM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
pre-CBS P bass, for $350 in 1976, read it and weep
You did not have to instruct me; I was weeping already
posted by thelonius at 11:39 AM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
You did not have to instruct me; I was weeping already
posted by thelonius at 11:39 AM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
Comorbidity is a good way of putting it. I just had an exchange elsewhere about the use of the word fedora to refer to a trilby, and it's a complicated thing because (a) a fedora is not a trilby and vice versa but (b) a figurative fedora can be a fedora or a trilby or a bad pickup line but (c) if you just really like hats you don't deserve shit for caring about the distinction and yet (d) it can be sort of vexing for people dealing with the figurative fedora bullshit to have to suddenly accommodate the Yes But Really It's A Trilby sidebar. And so everyone ends up collectively mutually annoyed that the thing they're talking about isn't the thing the other person is talking about, even when the actual figurative-fedora m'ladyer who is the source of most of the trouble isn't even present.
A circle of proxy vexation.
posted by cortex at 11:41 AM on August 11, 2014
A circle of proxy vexation.
posted by cortex at 11:41 AM on August 11, 2014
My god, turns out that guitar players are the snobbiest motherfuckers I've ever come across on the internet.
Q: How many guitar players does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 5. One to change the bulb and 4 to watch him and say, "I can do better than that."
posted by soundguy99 at 12:25 PM on August 11, 2014 [3 favorites]
Q: How many guitar players does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 5. One to change the bulb and 4 to watch him and say, "I can do better than that."
posted by soundguy99 at 12:25 PM on August 11, 2014 [3 favorites]
Ah, the classics.
Q: How do you get a guitar player to turn down?
A: Put sheet music in front of him.
posted by thelonius at 12:45 PM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
Q: How do you get a guitar player to turn down?
A: Put sheet music in front of him.
posted by thelonius at 12:45 PM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
q. - what's the difference between a guitar player and a pizza?
a - a pizza can feed a family of four
posted by pyramid termite at 12:48 PM on August 11, 2014 [3 favorites]
a - a pizza can feed a family of four
posted by pyramid termite at 12:48 PM on August 11, 2014 [3 favorites]
You did not have to instruct me; I was weeping already
posted by thelonius
Oh, I'm gonna rub it in. It's a beauty. 1963, 3-piece alder body, heavy as hell, the middle bout is very wide and the outer bouts just wisps of wood, rock maple neck and rosewood. Pickup is a Dimarzio from the early 80s, but I still have the original somewhere. Natural finish, clear coat not worn away anywhere, all original hardware (it's a bit oxidized and creaky, I bought all new stock Fender hardware for it this summer but haven't gotten to doing the work yet). There is a somewhat cool cigarette burn on the headstock from some previous owner who did that thing of leaving his burning butt stuck under the G string between the nut and tuner, kind of adds character -- and makes me think it was a country player's rig. A few character-giving nicks and dents but the neck is in great shape -- it's the C neck, wide and thin, great for slapping and double stops. Tuners are stiff as hell, but the truth is this instrument needs tuning about once a year. It's so stable it's scary.
I'm looking at it across the room right now, leaning jauntily against the Ampeg. Been playing it a bit this summer when taking a break from the guitars (a brand new Nashville Special tele in candy apple red is my current main squeeze, I haven't been a serious bass player in 30 years so I mostly keep the P-Bass around for recording and because it was my first good guitar).
Mind you $350 was a shit-ton of money to a 14 year old kid in 1978 (I had the year wrong above). I think I could get about 10 times that now (especially with all original hardware and pickups and especially gorgeous wood), but I'm not sure that's even market-rate appreciation. Don't care, wouldn't sell it for anything short of a kidney transplant.
posted by spitbull at 2:22 PM on August 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by thelonius
Oh, I'm gonna rub it in. It's a beauty. 1963, 3-piece alder body, heavy as hell, the middle bout is very wide and the outer bouts just wisps of wood, rock maple neck and rosewood. Pickup is a Dimarzio from the early 80s, but I still have the original somewhere. Natural finish, clear coat not worn away anywhere, all original hardware (it's a bit oxidized and creaky, I bought all new stock Fender hardware for it this summer but haven't gotten to doing the work yet). There is a somewhat cool cigarette burn on the headstock from some previous owner who did that thing of leaving his burning butt stuck under the G string between the nut and tuner, kind of adds character -- and makes me think it was a country player's rig. A few character-giving nicks and dents but the neck is in great shape -- it's the C neck, wide and thin, great for slapping and double stops. Tuners are stiff as hell, but the truth is this instrument needs tuning about once a year. It's so stable it's scary.
I'm looking at it across the room right now, leaning jauntily against the Ampeg. Been playing it a bit this summer when taking a break from the guitars (a brand new Nashville Special tele in candy apple red is my current main squeeze, I haven't been a serious bass player in 30 years so I mostly keep the P-Bass around for recording and because it was my first good guitar).
Mind you $350 was a shit-ton of money to a 14 year old kid in 1978 (I had the year wrong above). I think I could get about 10 times that now (especially with all original hardware and pickups and especially gorgeous wood), but I'm not sure that's even market-rate appreciation. Don't care, wouldn't sell it for anything short of a kidney transplant.
posted by spitbull at 2:22 PM on August 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
spitbull, I saved up $500+, in 1981 or 1982, from my first job, for my first good bass, a Rickenbacker 4001. I know well how long it seemed to take. $3.35/hour.
You had great timing; you bought that right at the end of the period when people were selling those as just old things, before the vintage guitar market really locked in and the pre-CBS Fenders became an investment object. Good for you for keeping it instead of cashing in; it is a bass, it is meant to be played. (If you do ever want to cash in, don't replace the hardware, and put the original pickup back, though).
posted by thelonius at 2:32 PM on August 11, 2014
You had great timing; you bought that right at the end of the period when people were selling those as just old things, before the vintage guitar market really locked in and the pre-CBS Fenders became an investment object. Good for you for keeping it instead of cashing in; it is a bass, it is meant to be played. (If you do ever want to cash in, don't replace the hardware, and put the original pickup back, though).
posted by thelonius at 2:32 PM on August 11, 2014
GC is a category killer, boo. One of the last places one can go and fool around with various 12-string guitars or mandolins unmolested, at least some such place still exists for the fool-arounder, the future is not clear for musical instrument stores.
posted by koebelin at 2:39 PM on August 11, 2014
posted by koebelin at 2:39 PM on August 11, 2014
Yep, that's why I've saved the original pickup all these years, and I'll hang on to the hardware and see if it can be restored.
But it's true, no one said "pre-CBS" to me when I bought it. It was just the sweetest bass I could afford. Years later when I was playing reggae and funk I realized it had shaped my playing as much as any other influence. Thing has bottom end like nobody's business. Notes ring forever. You can slap it as hard as you want and it still has tone and the tones have shapes.
I would have taken a Rick 4001 too. I believe I cleared poison ivy patches (I wasn't allergic) for the neighbors all summer for that $350. Of course I wasted some years playing through a Yamaha B100 amp before I could afford an Ampeg.
I threw a picture up in my profile.
posted by spitbull at 3:22 PM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
But it's true, no one said "pre-CBS" to me when I bought it. It was just the sweetest bass I could afford. Years later when I was playing reggae and funk I realized it had shaped my playing as much as any other influence. Thing has bottom end like nobody's business. Notes ring forever. You can slap it as hard as you want and it still has tone and the tones have shapes.
I would have taken a Rick 4001 too. I believe I cleared poison ivy patches (I wasn't allergic) for the neighbors all summer for that $350. Of course I wasted some years playing through a Yamaha B100 amp before I could afford an Ampeg.
I threw a picture up in my profile.
posted by spitbull at 3:22 PM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
Guitar Center is Wal Mart for musical equipment. Local indie music shops are far superior in virtually every respect if you live in a city. If you're out in the toolies, my condolences, and I feel your "forced to do business with GC" pain.
posted by stenseng at 3:35 PM on August 11, 2014
posted by stenseng at 3:35 PM on August 11, 2014
It's beautiful, spitbull
posted by thelonius at 3:59 PM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by thelonius at 3:59 PM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
Guitar Center is Wal Mart for musical equipment.
No disagreement here.
Local indie music shops are far superior in virtually every respect if you live in a city.
Ehhhhhhhhhh . . . . . . . I'd call this a 'Your Mileage May Vary Widely' kinda situation in reality. There were plenty of shysters, scam artists, sleazebags, egomaniacs, and indifferent tools working in, owning, or managing my area's local music stores long before GC came to town 20 years ago, and some of the ones that've survived (or even new stores that've opened since) are same as it ever was.
A good local indie rises head and shoulders above almost any GC, true, but not all local indie stores are good.
(Of course, some of those scam artists and sleazebags were characters, and thus the source of many entertaining encounters and stories, and that's something you won't really get from a GC salesdrone . . . .)
posted by soundguy99 at 5:23 PM on August 11, 2014 [3 favorites]
No disagreement here.
Local indie music shops are far superior in virtually every respect if you live in a city.
Ehhhhhhhhhh . . . . . . . I'd call this a 'Your Mileage May Vary Widely' kinda situation in reality. There were plenty of shysters, scam artists, sleazebags, egomaniacs, and indifferent tools working in, owning, or managing my area's local music stores long before GC came to town 20 years ago, and some of the ones that've survived (or even new stores that've opened since) are same as it ever was.
A good local indie rises head and shoulders above almost any GC, true, but not all local indie stores are good.
(Of course, some of those scam artists and sleazebags were characters, and thus the source of many entertaining encounters and stories, and that's something you won't really get from a GC salesdrone . . . .)
posted by soundguy99 at 5:23 PM on August 11, 2014 [3 favorites]
I too can feel the pain, I own a music store, a special kind of music store , not much in the way of guitars.
posted by boilermonster at 12:42 AM on August 12, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by boilermonster at 12:42 AM on August 12, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yea. I live in what i believe is now considered a "big city", and we have plenty of local music shops. Some of them are pretty big even.
What i associate guitar center with is being able to go in and check stuff out, or fuck around with it, or whatever(usually pro audio, or trying out headphones i've been wanting, or noodling around with a model of synth i'm curious about) without being assholed at and generally while being left alone. At all the big local music shops i'd go in, theoretically ready to buy something if it really jumped out of me, cash in hand and all that... and get treated like some stupid kid who needed to fuck off because i was going to break something or was just wasting their time or whatever. And that still hasn't changed at all as i've gotten older, and i've looked a lot older than i actually am since i was in high school(during which people constantly assumed i was in my 20s, and in my early 20s people assumed i was in my late 20s or around 30)
Don't get me wrong, i've had totally awesome interactions with staff at some of those places, and two of the shops i'm thinking of off the top of my head carry stuff GC never would(mostly used, older interesting stuff).
But yea, sometimes part of what makes GC good is that it is like the best buy of instruments. Sometimes i do just want to go try something offline i saw online or on craigslist without getting assholed at or generally not treated all that nicely by some pretentious clerk.
Amusingly, in close to ten years the only things i've bought at GC are cheap cables innumerable times, and a rectifier tube. They also for some reason bought my friends decade old guitar that was maybe $800 new for like $500 when we were all broke... which ruled(we probably could have gotten a bit more on craigslist, but instant money! and the only one we saw on there was only like $150 more than that anyways).
I feel like i'm somehow fucking up my "cool credentials" here by not just saying they're teh suck, but realistically if they didn't exist the choice would be pay $5 for a cable on amazon, or $20 at the local shop... i'd just wait unless it was an emergency. And if i knew those were the options, i'd have spares anyways... which i already usually do. They seem to serve a completely different segment of the population than the local shops, which seem to be doing just fine.
And besides, if anyones been paying attention, it's the big chain record stores that died... the local ones are still doing fine. I could see the same thing happening here.
posted by emptythought at 4:40 AM on August 12, 2014
What i associate guitar center with is being able to go in and check stuff out, or fuck around with it, or whatever(usually pro audio, or trying out headphones i've been wanting, or noodling around with a model of synth i'm curious about) without being assholed at and generally while being left alone. At all the big local music shops i'd go in, theoretically ready to buy something if it really jumped out of me, cash in hand and all that... and get treated like some stupid kid who needed to fuck off because i was going to break something or was just wasting their time or whatever. And that still hasn't changed at all as i've gotten older, and i've looked a lot older than i actually am since i was in high school(during which people constantly assumed i was in my 20s, and in my early 20s people assumed i was in my late 20s or around 30)
Don't get me wrong, i've had totally awesome interactions with staff at some of those places, and two of the shops i'm thinking of off the top of my head carry stuff GC never would(mostly used, older interesting stuff).
But yea, sometimes part of what makes GC good is that it is like the best buy of instruments. Sometimes i do just want to go try something offline i saw online or on craigslist without getting assholed at or generally not treated all that nicely by some pretentious clerk.
Amusingly, in close to ten years the only things i've bought at GC are cheap cables innumerable times, and a rectifier tube. They also for some reason bought my friends decade old guitar that was maybe $800 new for like $500 when we were all broke... which ruled(we probably could have gotten a bit more on craigslist, but instant money! and the only one we saw on there was only like $150 more than that anyways).
I feel like i'm somehow fucking up my "cool credentials" here by not just saying they're teh suck, but realistically if they didn't exist the choice would be pay $5 for a cable on amazon, or $20 at the local shop... i'd just wait unless it was an emergency. And if i knew those were the options, i'd have spares anyways... which i already usually do. They seem to serve a completely different segment of the population than the local shops, which seem to be doing just fine.
And besides, if anyones been paying attention, it's the big chain record stores that died... the local ones are still doing fine. I could see the same thing happening here.
posted by emptythought at 4:40 AM on August 12, 2014
This thread was so weird to me as a musician and disliker of the loud riffers. Its OK not to like that sort of thing without making it a matter of unqualified snobbery. Its not like the store exists for anyone's listening pleasure, right? These places are set up for exactly this -- a sufficient number of "unqualified" plinkers will walk out with gear to make the proposition right.
If you wanted a proper test experience you'd be in an isolated booth or at the least a quiet room. If you wanted to have a proper listening experience there are venues for that. Snobs should seek or provide one of the two or GTFO.
The "long suffering" video auteur is working on an open floor with hot units all set up for exactly this: the problem is his expectation gap. You can get a paycheck elsewhere. Dickish music clerks seem to come pretty cheep in crap establishments and I'm never sure where they get off especially when the rubes they so despise are their majority trade. Musicians with any self-respect would avoid their establishment and warn other musicians about the poor service. I still won't go to Skip's and am telling you exactly that even though that's a reputation from a long time ago.
The majority of us have bad work experiences. If the worst thing you've got to go through is a cacophony of noodlers, get some plugs and consider yourself entirely fortunate for the plushness of your situation.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 7:52 AM on August 12, 2014
If you wanted a proper test experience you'd be in an isolated booth or at the least a quiet room. If you wanted to have a proper listening experience there are venues for that. Snobs should seek or provide one of the two or GTFO.
The "long suffering" video auteur is working on an open floor with hot units all set up for exactly this: the problem is his expectation gap. You can get a paycheck elsewhere. Dickish music clerks seem to come pretty cheep in crap establishments and I'm never sure where they get off especially when the rubes they so despise are their majority trade. Musicians with any self-respect would avoid their establishment and warn other musicians about the poor service. I still won't go to Skip's and am telling you exactly that even though that's a reputation from a long time ago.
The majority of us have bad work experiences. If the worst thing you've got to go through is a cacophony of noodlers, get some plugs and consider yourself entirely fortunate for the plushness of your situation.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 7:52 AM on August 12, 2014
Soundguy99: There were plenty of shysters, scam artists, sleazebags, egomaniacs, and indifferent tools working in, owning, or managing my area's local music stores long before GC came to town 20 years ago . . . Of course, some of those scam artists and sleazebags were characters, and thus the source of many entertaining encounters . . .
Where are they now?
- Lentine's* (closed; bought out by Sweetwater)
- Sodja's (closed)
- Pi Keyboards (closed)
- Mayfield Music (closed; RIP Barry Weinberg)
- Heights Guitar (closed; RIP Greg Stiles)
- DiFiore's (closed)
- Cleveland Music Center (still open in Parma)
- Prospect Music** (still open, but no longer on Prospect)
- Music Emporium (still open)
- Woodsy's (still open in Kent)
**Prospect Music used to have an old (1909?) Gibson harp-guitar in the window for years. I wonder if they still have it or did it finally sell to some collector?
posted by Herodios at 9:43 AM on August 12, 2014 [1 favorite]
Heh - you forgot Sam's Music Shoppes (branches in downtown (until it burned down), Warrensville Heights, Middleburg Heights, and out in Mentor near the end.)
If you're asking where the characters and shysters and weirdos are now, I couldn't really say - I don't really hang around music stores as much as I used to.
If you're asking about indie stores, there's always Timeless Guitars down on Pearl. I think a few new places have opened up in the southwestern & northeastern suburbs, although I can't say I really remember or would recommend them. I made a trek to Erie Street Guitars out in Willoughby not long ago and liked the shop and the owner - I think he's a tinkerer whose projects outgrew his garage, not a lot of stock, but good stuff. I know the guys who run Guitar Riot downtown, and they know what's what (although most of their stuff is too rich for my blood). I've stopped in to Dirty Town Guitar and Amps in Lakewood a couple of times and it's not bad, but they seem to be more focused on getting their line of boutique tube amps up and running.
DiFiore's (closed)
DiFiore's kept running for a while off lessons, and they got into the ebay game very early (although not, IIRC, under that name), and I know they were able to make some bucks off of that by finding vintage pieces there or IRL and then selling them for top dollar to collectors. Eventually they bought out a wholesaler/importer of student-level instruments & accessories (whose name completely escapes me at the moment) and as far as I know that's what they're doing still. My boss knew the son pretty well, and just after they bought the wholesaler he invited us to come to the warehouse and see if there was anything we were interested in. The industrial shelves full of beginner saxes and trumpets were no surprise, but there was a warehouse floor full of boxes into which the previous workers had literally thrown unsold & broken stuff. (There wasn't really much we wanted, although we scored a no-name flying V copy in silver sparkle that had some kind of distortion built into it, complete with LED indicator. It's still hanging around our offices, and it's good for a laugh.)
Lentine's was the only NEO music store that had a significant online presence before year zero. Interesting that Sweetwater would have taken an interest in them and not, say, Sodja's.
I always thought Lentine's was by far the most "corporate" of stores in the area, so Sweetwater's interest didn't surprise me much. Dick Sodja had such strong customer loyalty that he was able to keep going til '06, I don't think he ever would've entertained a buyout offer until he was ready to retire.
Prospect Music used to have an old (1909?) Gibson harp-guitar in the window for years. I wonder if they still have it or did it finally sell to some collector?
I didn't see it that I recall the last time I was there, which was a couple of months ago. The current owner plays in a band I work with every so often, if I remember to I'll ask if he knows what became of it.
Mayfield Music (closed; RIP Barry Weinberg)
He was a fantastic piano player. He also used to buy any old Kustom "tuck and roll" amps & cabinets he could get his hands on, so he'd have someplace comfortable to take a nap in the back of the store in the afternoon.
Mayfield is where I traded my Peavey Pacer combo & $350 for a '68 blackface Fender Dual Showman and a Sunn 4 x 10 cabinet. Re-tubed and recapped a couple of years ago, I still turn it on every so often and think, "Holy shit, did I really used to play that loud??!!??"
posted by soundguy99 at 4:59 PM on August 12, 2014 [2 favorites]
If you're asking where the characters and shysters and weirdos are now, I couldn't really say - I don't really hang around music stores as much as I used to.
If you're asking about indie stores, there's always Timeless Guitars down on Pearl. I think a few new places have opened up in the southwestern & northeastern suburbs, although I can't say I really remember or would recommend them. I made a trek to Erie Street Guitars out in Willoughby not long ago and liked the shop and the owner - I think he's a tinkerer whose projects outgrew his garage, not a lot of stock, but good stuff. I know the guys who run Guitar Riot downtown, and they know what's what (although most of their stuff is too rich for my blood). I've stopped in to Dirty Town Guitar and Amps in Lakewood a couple of times and it's not bad, but they seem to be more focused on getting their line of boutique tube amps up and running.
DiFiore's (closed)
DiFiore's kept running for a while off lessons, and they got into the ebay game very early (although not, IIRC, under that name), and I know they were able to make some bucks off of that by finding vintage pieces there or IRL and then selling them for top dollar to collectors. Eventually they bought out a wholesaler/importer of student-level instruments & accessories (whose name completely escapes me at the moment) and as far as I know that's what they're doing still. My boss knew the son pretty well, and just after they bought the wholesaler he invited us to come to the warehouse and see if there was anything we were interested in. The industrial shelves full of beginner saxes and trumpets were no surprise, but there was a warehouse floor full of boxes into which the previous workers had literally thrown unsold & broken stuff. (There wasn't really much we wanted, although we scored a no-name flying V copy in silver sparkle that had some kind of distortion built into it, complete with LED indicator. It's still hanging around our offices, and it's good for a laugh.)
Lentine's was the only NEO music store that had a significant online presence before year zero. Interesting that Sweetwater would have taken an interest in them and not, say, Sodja's.
I always thought Lentine's was by far the most "corporate" of stores in the area, so Sweetwater's interest didn't surprise me much. Dick Sodja had such strong customer loyalty that he was able to keep going til '06, I don't think he ever would've entertained a buyout offer until he was ready to retire.
Prospect Music used to have an old (1909?) Gibson harp-guitar in the window for years. I wonder if they still have it or did it finally sell to some collector?
I didn't see it that I recall the last time I was there, which was a couple of months ago. The current owner plays in a band I work with every so often, if I remember to I'll ask if he knows what became of it.
Mayfield Music (closed; RIP Barry Weinberg)
He was a fantastic piano player. He also used to buy any old Kustom "tuck and roll" amps & cabinets he could get his hands on, so he'd have someplace comfortable to take a nap in the back of the store in the afternoon.
Mayfield is where I traded my Peavey Pacer combo & $350 for a '68 blackface Fender Dual Showman and a Sunn 4 x 10 cabinet. Re-tubed and recapped a couple of years ago, I still turn it on every so often and think, "Holy shit, did I really used to play that loud??!!??"
posted by soundguy99 at 4:59 PM on August 12, 2014 [2 favorites]
If you're asking where the characters and shysters and weirdos are now
I was actually reaching for the E! TV / rock-doc / behind-the-music rhetorical version.
you forgot Sam's Music Shoppe . . . downtown (until it burned down)
Yeah, I forgot the name so I omitted it. Now you've jogged my memory, I remember the place downtown as "Sam's Golf". I picked up a Epiphone Genesis there in 198x that I still have.
Barry Weinberg . . . used to buy any old Kustom "tuck and roll" amps & cabinets he could get his hands on, so he'd have someplace comfortable to take a nap in the back of the store
Yah, the old "mother-of-66-mustang" upholstered cabs. Inexplicably popular throughout the midwest. Comfy but nasty sounding.
For those keeping score at home, at all of the places mentioned, in their day, it was possible to find a time of day / day of the week when you'd be able to a) try out instruments with minimal hassle and 2. be able to hear yourself think while doing it.
It should be obvious that you don't do any serious shopping at a GuiTarget or Smash at 4pm on a school night.
posted by Herodios at 8:31 AM on August 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
I was actually reaching for the E! TV / rock-doc / behind-the-music rhetorical version.
you forgot Sam's Music Shoppe . . . downtown (until it burned down)
Yeah, I forgot the name so I omitted it. Now you've jogged my memory, I remember the place downtown as "Sam's Golf". I picked up a Epiphone Genesis there in 198x that I still have.
Barry Weinberg . . . used to buy any old Kustom "tuck and roll" amps & cabinets he could get his hands on, so he'd have someplace comfortable to take a nap in the back of the store
Yah, the old "mother-of-66-mustang" upholstered cabs. Inexplicably popular throughout the midwest. Comfy but nasty sounding.
For those keeping score at home, at all of the places mentioned, in their day, it was possible to find a time of day / day of the week when you'd be able to a) try out instruments with minimal hassle and 2. be able to hear yourself think while doing it.
It should be obvious that you don't do any serious shopping at a GuiTarget or Smash at 4pm on a school night.
posted by Herodios at 8:31 AM on August 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
Incidental to all the rest, as far as music shops go, let me share my own perspective:
Fuck guitars. They are the only thing anyone cares about anymore, and it's godawful tedious.
Back when I was looking to buy a trumpet in Denver a few years ago, it literally took me weeks of spending all my time off going around to places and listening to people tell me "oh, you want brass instruments? Uh, yeah... we don't really do that kind of thing..."
As far as I can tell, this is largely down to the general ascendancy of guitars, combined with the Guitar Center development. Guitar Center and a few other chains started moving in and picking off local places that had more product diversity, the kind of places that supplied high school bands, etc, at least before those things started going all internet-order. And a bunch of local music stores I know of that used to have a whole bunch of stuff have gone all-guitar, apparently in order to compete with Guitar Center and the rest.
It's completely depressing and sad, and sometimes I even have a hard time finding keyboards in a music store anymore. So I cling to the four or five awesome places I can find that are still around, and they get my undying support.
And here's to Universal Music Company, which is still Denver's finest. Keep the faith!
posted by koeselitz at 2:46 PM on August 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
Fuck guitars. They are the only thing anyone cares about anymore, and it's godawful tedious.
Back when I was looking to buy a trumpet in Denver a few years ago, it literally took me weeks of spending all my time off going around to places and listening to people tell me "oh, you want brass instruments? Uh, yeah... we don't really do that kind of thing..."
As far as I can tell, this is largely down to the general ascendancy of guitars, combined with the Guitar Center development. Guitar Center and a few other chains started moving in and picking off local places that had more product diversity, the kind of places that supplied high school bands, etc, at least before those things started going all internet-order. And a bunch of local music stores I know of that used to have a whole bunch of stuff have gone all-guitar, apparently in order to compete with Guitar Center and the rest.
It's completely depressing and sad, and sometimes I even have a hard time finding keyboards in a music store anymore. So I cling to the four or five awesome places I can find that are still around, and they get my undying support.
And here's to Universal Music Company, which is still Denver's finest. Keep the faith!
posted by koeselitz at 2:46 PM on August 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
Sadly Best Music in Oakland closed last month.
posted by boilermonster at 11:59 PM on August 21, 2014
posted by boilermonster at 11:59 PM on August 21, 2014
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posted by TDavis at 11:15 AM on August 10, 2014 [6 favorites]