Hope for our species?

ConradP

Hi All

I am basically engaged in a debate with a fellow guitarist who reckons there is no point int recording original instrumental material because the market is flooded and there are too many talented shredders out there.

What are your opnions?

Conrad

Renesongs

In the 19th Century Music academics believed that all the greatest music had already been written - enough said.

Manfred-Klose

Just have fun.

Because we live in SA things takes a bit longer than in the states. We as SA shredders are infleunced by music from all the corners of the earth, were as European shredders have probably never even heard african music. sad.

Re-invent yourself. Take classical music for an example: Bach (1600's), Mozart(late 1700's) and beethoven(early 1800's), those are very different styles of classical music that has been reinvented over a period of say 200 years.

Same applies to shredding: Fransisco Tarrega(late 1800's, i think?), Django reinhart(+-1920's i think), chuck berry(1950's), jimi hendrix(1960's), eddie van halen(late 1970's), Randy rhoads(1981-1982), Yngwie malmsteen(1980's), Michael Angelo Batio(1990's), amd list goes on forever............

The point i'm trying to make is, that all of those shredders found a way to reinvent guitar playing.

The choice would be yours to give up all those intense hours of practise because you think you wont make it.

Conrad, you are correct when you say that there is to many talented shredders out there, but most can only play fast, The key ingredient is melody.

Manfred-Klose

maby another 5 - 10 years before we have a guitar shredder that made an awesome break through, like van halen did with tapping.......

CornFlakes

Renesongs wrote In the 19th Century Music academics believed that all the greatest music had already been written - enough said.

That is so true it’s actually scary

ConradP

Ya. I mean I don't want the fact that I am South African to inhibit me (I don't believe we are say....genetically inferior to the Americans for example). I believe we can produce music of the same quality. This guy is very negative.

Conrad

Wessel

Let me guess...Your friend is one of those people who thinks because he can't do something no one can? The amount of possibilities to make new music is endless. And everybody is enique if you just print your self on your music you would definitly have something new.

maby another 5 - 10 years before we have a guitar shredder that made an awesome break through, like van halen did with tapping.......

I think this has already been happening for a while. Dragonforce have introduced allot of new tecniques (Playing with whammy bar over muted strings, tapping with pick on harmonics over pick-ups ect.) And who ever invented behind the nut bends.

O and I forgot......F@ck America!

sepheritoh

Wessel wrote
And who ever invented behind the nut bends.

That was an integral part of Hank Marvin's sound (The shadows) in the 60's.

I enjoy Dragon force. Rage against the Machine is also doing things with the guitar that was not imagined before - more like using it for special effects.

ConradP

You see I am trying to encourage him to record because I really think he is a world class guitar player and composer but he doesn't seem to be responding positively. He just says "everything has been done already".

Conrad

MiKeZilLA

Hmmmm..... call me old school but it's not just bout technical innovation - It's really impressive to hear some one really fly across the fretboard but for me the beauty of the guitar is how two guys can pick up the same instrument play the same piece of music and make it their own.... The whole everythings been done debate has always struck me as a bit lame - if playing for the sake of playing isn't enough then maybe it's best ya take a break from the instrument....

AlanRatcliffe

Renesongs wrote In the 19th Century Music academics believed that all the greatest music had already been written - enough said.

That says it better than I could.

Skilled players are a dime a dozen. Tasteful players are much more scarce (About $10 ea. ?). Innovative players are one in a million of those.

Manfred-Klose

Why dont you ask your friend if he wants to sell his equipment, since he is a shredder with zero attitude.

He can start doing something else, like learning to play harp really well.
There aren't much harp players around, maby he can re-invent the harp.

I'm just being silly here.

ConradP

Well. Regardless of what he said, I always have music in my head and it has to come out so I'll be playing and composing regardless...so if I die young and hungry having composed something, it would be better than dying old and rich and unhappy so there ?

Conrad

deanBailey

@ ConradP: I agree. IMO the only thing that makes SA "inferior" is the currency. I humbly believe that (most) SA citizens are a lot more naturally smarter than the people of the US.

@ Wessel: lol I thought the news got out by now. Here it is everyone:
Dragon Force speed up their solos on the album.
"Don't be ridiculous, how do they pull it off live then?"
Easy...

...They can't really:

Around 0:51 he plays the sweep really poorly. lol at 1:02 Sam Totman really doesn't play those taps well at all..
Film and Audio recording is exactly the same as playing a TV game with unlimited lives, as you can just re-do it again and again. Why did they not just re-take that scene?? Especially for a "bet you can't play this" surely they'd want to uphold their reputation by getting perfect takes?

It is not a conspiracy I bottled up because I do not like them, It's actually a fact posted by their engineer in another forum I read through (Don't ask me to find the post lol). This is the Plug-in that was used.

Watch their music video:

Fact 1: Around 3:30 during the solo box you can see his hair fall into the shot and it moves rather unnaturally (as if it was sped up)
Fact 2: The solo in the box is a different performance to the wide shot performance (Their body movements don't match that of the wide shot). This tells me that they could have taken their time cleaning up their playing without the performance dragging them down, and then speed it up (fact 1).
Fact 3: Maybe they're not speeding it up and actually are playing it fast? It's pretty much a no Brainer that for music videos they play the album version of the song over the edited film. That way if they DID make mistakes (in the video) you can't hear them.

Sorry for the detailed explanation but I got into an argument with a few ignorant fans that were heartbroken by the news on another forum, and I didn't want to destroy the peace here ?

deanBailey

But anyway, Let me allow myself to get back on topic.

I do feel that most bands (NOT all) in SA lack origionality as they tend to copy their heroes and influences a little bit more than they should. It's mainly the younger bands as most of the time these kids are learning their instrument through tabs they found online of their favorite band and when writing music for their band you start seeing the influences come through a little to strongly than it should.

If you've ever said or heard someone say "that part sounds cool! almost like *insert influential band* in the chorus/bridge/verse" then you've been victim to it.
It's not necessarily a bad thing depending on the extent of the similarity but it does reflect bad on your band amongst labels and promoters etc.

Also...maybe I should stop here.

EDIT: I've been victim to all the above when starting out, and noticed it's actually something that most bands do.

Manfred-Klose

Hey dean you really had a thing against dragonforce, i'm glad you did research and proved the world wrong, almost like the guy who said the world was round, then they killed him, and found out afterwords he was right.

But in this modern people wont kill you(only the mentally retarted pshycho ones) they would just turn into Emo's and cry the whole day long.

I cant even remember what the topic was, oh yeah......

They used similar processors in the 80's with making tv game theme tunes, but most of was anyway pre programmed synths.

How does Sam totman and herman li sleep at night? knowingly that they betrayed world of music.

AlanRatcliffe

Keep it nice guys. Show respect for each other's opinions and no mud-slinging please.

deanBailey

If that was at me, I know my posts often come across as condescending, but I can assure you I meant no attack against anyone here ?

Manfred-Klose

Sorry, got carried away. :-[

AlanRatcliffe

Thanks guys!

Y'know - that was the first time I've had to flex my "moderator muscles".

Careful.... I might get to like it ?