Research? Count Me In!

Lately, I've been noticing the results of research, surveys and so on being published in the press - and you know what? They're getting sillier and sillier...

Here's a few examples from recent weeks: in all cases, these news items were prefixed with 'recent research has shown that...'

Kids who spend a lot of time watching TV and playing video games have a greater risk of obesity

Parents should monitor their children's web use

The current financial crisis could force poorer families to accept an inadequate diet

People who store personal data on their mobile phones are more prone to identity theft

And there are many more I've forgotten. But, as Pink Floyd would have it 'every day the paper boy brings more...' 

My point is, erm, duh? I mean isn't the above as clear as day? Does it really have to be subject of actual research? And more importantly, who the hell conducts this research, how much are they paid and where do I sign up for it because it sounds like a really easy gig!

TAB: The Phantom Menace?

As you can probably imagine, I'm a fairly frequent visitor to guitar forums and on many occasions have seen what I am beginning to think is a worry addiction among students of the instrument; TAB Addiction. 

Now before you discount this as the ramblings of a guy who spends much too much of his time writing about guitars and technique, just let me ramble on a bit and explain why I think this is definitely not a good thing.

Whenever a 'hot' guitar album is released, it's generally not too long before it becomes a talking point on the many forums out here in webland. It's inevitable that one of the posts goes something like this:

"Oh man, this album burns! I can't wait for someone to TAB it out..."

OK, so what is wrong with this sentence? Well, the problem I have with it as a teacher and player of many years is that current trends seem to conclude that TAB is the answer to everything and that its seductive 'painting by numbers' interface is all you really need to turn you into a player of phenomenal girth. Wrong. And I've proved it many times.

There are two basic reasons for my unrest with the TAB-as-the-answer-to-everything approach to learning guitar: one is source material - many transcriptions published on the web are littered with errors and, seeing as these are copied and republished numerous times, the errors they contain become compounded. In other words, the 'wrong' version becomes accepted as being somehow 'right' (more on why this happens in a sentence or two...). Even the books you buy from music shops - you know, the ones that boast 'note-for-note' transcriptions on the covers - tend to be a bit hit or miss. When I was teaching full time, I had a student come in to see me clutching a book containing a transcription of Eric Clapton's song 'Layla'; I don't know who did the transcription, but the decision to write it out in the key of A flat should have been picked up somewhere before publication (the riff is in A). So instead of open strings down at the nut, the riff was tabbed as being at the fourth fret - not only did this make it more difficult to play than in the correct key, but it just didn't sound right, either.

In interviews, I've often asked players if they ever get to see transcription books before they go to print and none of them have said that they do - and yet they are the only guys who could possibly tell you if the music is right! The only exception to this was Joe Satriani - and he told me that he found a serious error in that a whole piece had been transcribed in the wrong time signature. Oops.

OK, so I've trashed the nefarious 'free tab' available from the internet and questioned the properly paid for variation available in the market place. What's the other reason that TAB is so bad for players? It's all down to invisible techniques and pitch training...

Let's take them one at a time: what the heck do I mean by 'invisible techniques'? Quite literally, there are many techniques in play in any guitar piece at any one time - some obvious, others not. Is it important, would you say, to recognise that a riff is played with all downstrokes instead of alternate picking, for instance? Well, it is if you want to nail that piece 100% - I'm talking about the slight difference in timbre that separates one picking stroke from the next. And is it important to note that the note A in the second bar was in fact played at the 14th fret, G string, rather than the easier 5th fret E string? Sure it is - for all the same reasons, too. 

So the music has to be right if anyone has got a chance to reproduce it - but the other important concern is what's happening to people who are allowing themselves to become 'tab dependent'. Simply put, I think it means that their ears aren't developing. What used to happen was that someone who was learning would hear something they particularly liked on a record and really struggle to work it out themselves (there was no TAB back in the pioneering days of playing guitar). It was a heck of a pain and, having spent many hours doing this myself, I wouldn't blame anyone for taking an easier way out if it was on offer. But what all those hours did to me was develop my ear - it was subtle and I didn't particularly notice at the time, but it led me to the point where I can usually find my way around the guitar landscape these days - and of course I do the odd transcription for magazines, too. 

I've heard similar stories from loads of players from my generation - and beyond it - too. In fact, the legendary jazz guitarist Tal Farlow told me once that he learned to play many of the tunes in the jazz repertoire from listening to the radio. He said that when a track he liked came on the radio he used to pick up his guitar, knowing that he only had this one pass to get the music right - if not, he just had to wait until it was on the radio again. But he had the most amazing ears and could play virtually anything he wanted to because of it.

So what's going to happen to the 'tab generation'? Poorly developed ears means even greater TAB dependency, very slow progress for the individual and the loss of many of the more subtle nuances that players use and which makes the instrument so magical. And that's not good for the future of guitar playing...

Music Education Sucks!

You may have read a government report published recently regarding how music education in schools is considered inadequate in many instances. I forget the exact statistics involved - which doesn't matter because everyone knows that 74% of published statistics are made up on the spot. Ahem. In any case, the report showed that music lessons haven't really moved on since I was at school. The reason seems to be, according once again to the government report, that a lot of school music teachers are, and I quote, 'out of touch with modern trends'.

Well hallelujah - someone's noticed at long bloody last!

Back in my murky past as a guitar teacher I had the opportunity to teach in a school (I won't mention its name) as a supply teacher. I guess they were desperate or something... Anyway, I had to teach classes full of young people according to the prevailing syllabus of the day and top of the list was 'instruments of the orchestra'. Now, you probably don't need me to tell you that the average 14-15 year old doesn't give a rat's ass about classical music. To them, it's what you listen to in preparation for old age and death and so the job definitely wasn't an easy one. No matter, I was told - the syllabus is written by wise men for us to follow and who are we to question them?

Well I wish someone had because that was 22 years ago and it doesn't look to me like anything has really changed since. Last week I was shown a mock GCSE music paper and at least 70% of it was based on classical music and orchestral instruments. Why don't they learn? Kids don't want to hear a load of dead guys' music and so why not play them something they do want to listen to instead? After all, music is music - it's not like Bach employed a wholly other set of rules when he sat down at his mighty organ to compose. There aren't one set of regulations for classical music and another for popular/rock/blues/prog/metal. It's basically the same - especially if you're teaching kids about time signatures, minims, quavers and other assorted delights.

So what do we do? For one thing, we need to start teaching the teachers differently in order to get rid of the compound errors inherent in the system. After all, it's probably true that all music teachers in schools today were taught by the previous generation of educators - and this is something that has been going on unchecked for years. So let's change things...

Want some suggestions? When I was teaching, the syllabus insisted that I played my class Debussy's La Mer and banged on about 'impressionism in music'. Boring. I could see the kids glaze over after the first few sentences... Until, that is, I suggested that possibly modern day film music had carried on the tradition of painting pictures with music. Take Star Wars, for instance... You should have seen the change in mood in the classroom that day - Star Wars? Now you're talking, matey! Using this root I was able to get across loads of information - did they realise that the instrument at the beginning of Jaws was a double bass? No? Well now you know what one sounds like. Job done!

So come on, people - everyone agrees that music is an important art form so why not teach the next generation in a way that holds their imagination and let them discover the classics in their own time, eh?

Going Bespoke: Slight Return

For a few months we followed the making of my Fylde Falstaff guitar in pictures which were provided by its maker, Roger Bucknall. In actual fact, Roger sent me 50 pictures in all and I didn't publish them all, fearing that the amount of space they would take up here would cause some sort of bandwidth catastrophe in the process!

But if you're at all interested in how an acoustic guitar is made, then I'd invite you to check out the 'director's cut' - a photo album comprising all of the photos, neatly captioned, with comments telling you what is going on in each. The album can be found here.

If you have any questions, send me a message via the iTalk Guitar site and you might also like to check out the brand new Fylde Guitars site, too.

Oh, and this one goes to 11, too...

Every so often I find myself hunting through the videos on You Tube to find something in particular and, being a very helpful site, they tend to recommend me videos that they think I will enjoy based on my various searches. So I'm usually met with a menu of random Family Guy snippets, something about the latest endeavours of the SAS (don't ask) or some super-widdley guitar hero doing his best to rid the world of actual melody forever.

There seems to be a kind of worrying genre beginning to spring up, however, and that concerns the fiery young amateur axe merchant who is seeking credentials for his playing by submitting something to the site. You can usually spot it straight away - the title is a dead giveaway. Just to give you some idea, I'm talking about videos that call themselves something like '18 year old boy plays Eddie Van Halen's 'Eruption' solo' or '14 year old boy plays Yngwie Malmsteen solo'. Things like that. I must say that it always makes me grin a bit because I instantly recall Spinal Tap's excellent Nigel Tufnel saying that Jimmy Page was 24 when he wrote 'Stairway To Heaven' but he could play it when he was 12. I mean, isn't it the same thing?

The fact is that it's easy to imitate, hard to innovate and so if you've mastered a difficult guitar showpiece in your early teens then good for you - it shows that you are developing technically along the exact right lines. But please don't take it as anything more than that, OK?
I have personally met young players who have mastered some very complex guitar pieces, but it's rarely an indication of extreme talent, just dilligent - and often blinkered - hard graft to the exclusion of everything else.

To illustrate what I mean, there is a story about a young boy who went into a music shop in the north of England and asked to try a guitar. Once plugged in he proceeded to play a simply breathtaking rendition of 'Eruption'. In the shop at the time was a seasoned player who plucked himself a guitar from the wall, plugged in and said to the kid, 'Let's play a blues together!'. The boy looked up and said, 'What's a blues?'

Going Bespoke: End Game

We have now reached journey's end in the tale of the making of my new Fylde Falstaff acoustic guitar - it's now home with me and settling in to its new surroundings nicely.
Last Tuesday (ie the 27th Jan) I went up to Penrith to collect the guitar and Roger treated me to a look around his workshop while I was there. Having been a guitar journalist for 17 years or so (and a guitarist for around twice as long) I have a great interest in how guitars are made and I must say the look around was fascinating - from the bare wood to the finished product in segmented stages. Great stuff - and I'm hugely indebted to Roger Bucknall for taking the time out to show me around.
Here's a pic of me with Roger in Penrith - grinning broadly having just had the Falstaff placed in my hands...





Now that I'm home, I'm looking forward to sitting down and spending some time with the new instrument - at present, work commitments have stacked up a bit and virtually all my time is taken up with writing; but heck, the weekend will soon be here and I'm aiming at grabbing some 'quality time' for me and the Falstaff. Here's a pic of her in my living room...





As I say, I haven't had too much time to sit and play so far, but initial noodlings have revealed a good, bright, well-balanced tone which is both sweet and profound. The harmonics are crystal clear and the sustain goes on forever. In short, I'm happy.
Before too long, I'm going to be in the studio again and I'll make sure that there's an MP3 of what the Falstaff sounds like available on the iTalk Guitar site so you can hear how sweetly she sings!

Going Bespoke: The Finishing Line

The photostory of the master craftsmen at Fylde guitars making my new Falstaff acoustic is now complete with these three final pictures - although I will be posting a couple after I pick it up, no doubt!
This first picture shows the guitar awaiting its first set of strings...



Once the strings have been put on, there is a bit of final adjustment to be carried out down at the nut...



Now, the guitar is ready for its first tune up. Obviously I've yet to hear it myself, but Roger Bucknall emailed me to say that it 'sounds lovely'.



So there you have it - the making of a Fylde Falstaff acoustic guitar from the day the wood was chosen right up to the time when it's all strung up and ready to come out to play.