https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/ Guitar Noise Discussion Board en-US Fri, 05 Jun 2026 09:07:44 +0000 wpForo 60 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/3/#post-334923 Thu, 23 Jul 2009 07:17:46 +0000 Opinions and Polls Coolnama https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/3/#post-334923 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/3/#post-334911 Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:21:41 +0000
Sorry about that.

I was part way through completing it (with lengthy interuptions to play keyboard and guitar while I was thinking it through....) when I realised that I had run out of time. So I was attempting to copy a couple of the replies into a word processor, to save doing the whole thing again later. The Mac keyboard has a particular arrangement of buttons to press for those sort of tasks and I must have accidentally knocked an extra neighbouring one.... because it suddenly flipped onto the screen saying that it had been submitted. Not sure why it decided to do that six times though. Perhaps that's how many times it can repeat an action in the nano second before the accidental button tap was released? I hope it wasn't too hard to undo. :(

Dangerous combination - computers, clumsiness, and deteriorating eyesight, not to mention senility.... :o
Also Chris we were wondering, if would be ok with you, if we could use excerpts and quotes from your discussion board postings to help supplement our data once the final paper is written? Of course, but thanks for asking. Once something is put up on the net you don't expect to have any real control over how people either understand it, or use it. If you're lucky, somebody will quote you as an example of something they agree with, but your words just as likely to be used to illustrate an attitude that's seen as wrong, confused, needing to be corrected, or whatever. That's fair enough too. So please feel free to use whatever you think fits what you're saying.

Cheers,

Chris]]> Opinions and Polls Chris C https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/3/#post-334911 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/3/#post-334868 Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:22:17 +0000 Opinions and Polls Guitar_Psych https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/3/#post-334868 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/3/#post-334438 Sat, 18 Jul 2009 10:00:01 +0000 (thanks for the inspiration and awesome feedback Chris!) You're most welcome. Sorry it was so wordy... :oops:

Thanks very much to you too for the opportunity to think it all through (even if it was out loud, and a bit too long.... :wink: ). Your interest in music as a language, with similarities to any other, has really helped me put it into perspective. It's always puzzled me why my approach to learning guitar seemed at odds with what the books seemed to be suggesting, but when I compare it to how I learn(ed) to use the English language it now seems to make perfect sense. That's been a very exciting and motivating thing to find out. In a funny way, it may even make it easier for me to put in some more formal practice time, because I now have a somewhat different way of seeing it. :)

Cheers,

Chris

PS I did the new survey this morning, and only managed to stuff it up once.. :roll: (hit the wrong button while taking a detour to play some piano for a bit, half way through filling it out. So you may have got one and a half answers from me.... blame senility...)]]> Opinions and Polls Chris C https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/3/#post-334438 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/3/#post-334370 Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:31:59 +0000 http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=ckdud3RlXzZFcjdUMUtvRVJBSmstMmc6MA..

(thanks for the inspiration and awesome feedback Chris!)]]> Opinions and Polls Guitar_Psych https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/3/#post-334370 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/2/#post-333076 Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:06:55 +0000 Well we've had a great turn out for our study! Thanks to everyone who has taken part! We've gotten such a great amount that we're going to be closing down the survey earlier than expect (July 8th). We could however use at least another 25 to bring our sample up to an even 300!! As for our secondary survey with open ended questions for those who felt the first version was too restrictive in its response options, I've sent our application off to the ethics committee for approval and should be hearing back from them within a week and will immediately make the survey available to you all (only for those who have not already participated in the original format survey). Stay posted for the details and links to the new survey. And again, thank you all very much we should have a complete analysis finish by summer's end and we will make the results available to whomever is interested]]> Opinions and Polls Guitar_Psych https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/2/#post-333076 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/2/#post-332333 Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:08:36 +0000
One of the daughters was home (babysitting her niece). Molly was a good music student at school. She learned piano, clarinet and saxophone, and had been good enough to play clarinet and sax in the school band. She'd even been on tour with the band (playing tenor sax) when they did a tour to parts of our State's north. But she left school a couple of years ago, went to Uni etc and I hadn't seen her on her own for quite some time. I asked how her playing was going. The answer, which was sad but unsurprising, was that she didn't play any of them any more. In a couple of years (actually probably a couple of months or even weeks) another promising musical journey, on 3 different instruments, had simply withered.

But there was some good news too. She's just started playing music again - on bass guitar. But why bass guitar? Because somebody wants to talk to her... on bass.... Her brother in law is currently trying to revive his own musical life and has got together to play with a mate (and his young son is also learning violin). They needed a bass player and invited Molly to fill the spot, despite the fact that she'd never touched a bass.

Now, this guy is pretty good on guitar. He was Conservatorium trained and for a while professionally played in a duo using the sort of repertoire you'd expect to hear from John Williams and Julian Bream. They were Good with a capital G. But there just wasn't enough work to sustain them locally. If they'd gone overseas to find better markets the competition would have been ramped up by an even bigger factor than the opportunities. Plus, they didn't want to shift. So they split up and stopped. Several years later, he's now driving an ambulance for a living. His potential career as a professional musician went out of the window. The sad thing is that a substantial chunk of who he thought he was, and what he thought he was about, went right through the window along with it.... :(

But he has also started to find somebody to talk to musically again. For the last couple of years he puts on a family concert of Carols by Candlelight. He and three or four others play and about a hundred of us sit around in a natural amphitheatre in the orchard and eat, drink, and sing our socks off. It's a wonderful way to enjoy music. But that's only one day a year - still a long way to go between chats. So he's gradually started playing with others, in a more modern and electrified style. He tells me that Molly is rocketing along on bass. Why wouldn't she?... They've all got somebody to talk to again.
:mrgreen:

Cheers,

Chris]]> Opinions and Polls Chris C https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/2/#post-332333 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/2/#post-332332 Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:08:07 +0000
Here is an excerpt from a book that Victor Wooten wrote a couple of years ago. Thank you so much for posting that link. Great story. :)

Yesterday must have been a good day for coincidences.


Firstly, I had just bought one of Harry Manx's CDs (we both like him, but my wife in particular is a big fan) and I was listening to it for the first time. Vicki wasn't home yet, and I'd spent some time earlier staring at the guitar neck thinking about how the way a guitar is designed and tuned affects the patterns in which the notes are laid out. (I've only played chords and rhythm up to now and I'm about to start having a go at learning to solo). Rather than jump straight into learning ‘boxes' and ‘forms' from the various charts and diagrams that are so poorly explained in the books that I've bought, I thought I'd try and get a feel for what the original designers had in mind.

Anyway, I'm a firm believer in - as Wooten put it - getting into the ‘groove' of the music first . One might say: learn to measure the flour out before you start trying to ice the cake. So I picked up a guitar and started tapping my foot and plucking a few notes in time with the song. Exactly as in the example you linked to, I had no idea what key the song was in (and no clue how to work it out either...) so I just concentrated on the beat and let my finger jump around on a very simple pattern. I didn't expect to find much out except the beat of the song, but it only took a few seconds before the odd note started to line up here and there, and by keeping it simple, and dropping the ones that didn't seem to be fitting, and continuing to experiment with the ones that did, I found a simple pattern of notes that seemed to be working almost all the time. Most enjoyable.

It did occur to me that if I remembered the pattern and also kept my finger in place at the end of the song I should be able to work out what key I'd been playing in, but I got lost in the pleasure of the experiment. By the end it didn't seem that important to know that particular answer right then anyway. Instead, it felt like I had learned something very useful - not about a box or key, but about a method of learning that I had found extremely appealing. So I'll be going back to try that again for sure. :) :note1: :note1: :note1:

Cheers,

Chris]]> Opinions and Polls Chris C https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/2/#post-332332 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/2/#post-332294 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:15:24 +0000
Here is an excerpt from a book that Victor Wooten wrote a couple of years ago. The book is written as a novel, but explores the journey of learning to be a musician, rather than just an {insert instrument here} player.

I heard him speaking about this topic at a clinic in Toronto just after the book came out, and what he said made a lot of sense to me. I just wish I could apply it to myself (or more properly, find a way to motivate myself to apply it).]]> Opinions and Polls kent_eh https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/2/#post-332294 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/2/#post-332266 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 05:40:21 +0000
On a high level of musical ability, improvised music is a conversation. Just watch jazz masters trading ideas... compare it with watching an animated discussion in a language you don't understand. We interrupt, interject ideas, sway others to our side of the musical argument, etc.

Chris, you make a good point on comeradery vs competition. My point is that musicians who excel thrive on the competitive aspects - they vie for first chair, or to be the fastest on the block, or whatever (the same is true in sports).

As far as traditional pedagogy being a drag at times, I'm not sure I agree. There's a difference between tactics and strategy; pedagogy is strategy - what goes where in the learning process. Teaching methods are tactics. I use different tactics with different students - and different method books and handouts to go with them. Many people will get turned off by one method, but would do fine with another. Some of that has to do with the choice of materials a particular method uses.

But pedagogy is deeper than that. On piano, if you want to play the harder Chopin etudes (I forget the number of the one I have in mind, and I'm too lazy to look it up right now - it's the one with the parallel sixths) you've got to acquire certain fingering skills first... that piece can't be taught "off the shelf" without the proper preparation. And pieces that develop that preparation are pretty tedious for an intermediate/early advanced pianist... so as a teacher, you do well to include that work much earlier on.

There isn't a single guitar method (strategy) that I like across the board. The skills of musicianship are best acquired in one order; the techniques of guitar are best acquired in a different sequence. As an example, I think it's essential to read standard notation - it lets you understand music theory at a much higher level. But the easiest stuff to read is in the key of C; the easiest stuff to play will be in the keys of G, D, or A. As a result, the tactics of teaching guitar (get them playing fast, so they enjoy it and keep coming back) are somewhat at odds with the long term strategy (develop sound fundamentals so they can go as far as they can). Other instruments have done a much better job at thinking through these issues and developing a "best practices" consensus. With the guitar, we're still hewing the path.]]> Opinions and Polls NoteBoat https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/guitar-players-researchers-in-need-of-your-help/paged/2/#post-332266