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I've seen a lot of trashing of my generation by other younger folks lately across the web, I guess as a reaction to the Woodstock publicity that has been flying around on television and on the radio.

 

So let us explore something for a minute.

 

If I was asked to compile a list of my favorite 25 new artists who hit the top of the charts from 1964 through 1969... bands and artists that EVERYBODY knew, and was singing and dancing to... I would have trouble pairing the list DOWN to 25.

 

If I was asked to compile a list of my favorite 25 new artists who hit the top of the charts from 2004 through 2009... bands and artists that EVERYBODY knew, and was singing and dancing to... I would have trouble coming up with five names, let alone 25.

 

So, here we are still talking about Santana and Clapton and Hendrix et al.... and I submit to you, fellows, that it ain't MY fault. There are great guitar players today, and there were great players then... but the ones that we still talk about from my generation made major changes in the way that we approach and think about music... changes that still resonate today. If you ain't producing artists of that caliber in your generation, don't look to trash mine, what has.

 

 

"I believe that entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot."

 

Steve Martin

 

Show business: we're all here because we're not all there.

 

 

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If it's any consolation here's another observation from my teaching days (1998 to 2007): Several teenage students begin lessons and express a desire to play like thier favorite artists: Green Day, Blink 182, and you get you get the idea.....after a few lessons that entail showing them how to play songs from these artists they show signs of boredom. Then they show up for a lesson and ask a question, it seems they've kind of gotten bored with the music they've been listening to and learning to play and started digging through thier Dads record collection or something. They come in for the lesson and sit there without opening the guitar case, then they look at me and say "have you ever heard of Led Zeppelin?"(or Jimi Hendrix, or Santana.....). I pick up my guitar and play a few bars of "Heartbreaker", "Purple Haze" or "Black Magic Woman" and out comes thier guitar with a "how do you play that?".

 

Jim

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I think it's because in the 60s and 70s more people went into the music industry for a love of music. Nowadays, the people getting into music out of a desire for fame and fortune. The focus has shifted and the music suffers for it.

Ask not what your guitar can do for you, rather ask you can do for your guitar without provoking a divorce or a visit from the police.

- with profound apologies to JFK

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I wouldnt think to trash Clapton, Santana, or Page, but I disagree in saying that my generation does nothing of "high caliber." Even in my perspective and scope of things, no one of today compares to the old guys. Old dudes are great because they've paid their dues. We got John Williams, the Assads, the Romeros, etc for classical. We have EC, BB, Buddy, etc. for blues/rock. We have Vai, Satch, McLaughlin, etc to thank for fusion. We have Metheny, Benson, Scofield, etc for jazz. Hedges and Emmanuel for acoustic fingerstyle. I think as my generation grows older, it'll take the place of the "influencers" of those that came before. We're getting people with that same earnest mindset that the guys of the past had, though I would like to assert that they havent been appreciated fully yet. We have people like Li Jie, Denis Azabagic, and Ana Vidovic on classical. We have people like John Mayer and Jack White forging with their own blues. We have the likes of Andy McKee and Antoine Dufour forwarding acoustic guitar. Dweezil Zappa's coming along quite nicely with his take on his father's material.

 

Yes there are stupid people in my generation that wanna flame Clapton, Jimi, and Page, but it goes without saying how far their heads are shoved up their asses to state such things. Still, there are people in their 20s and 30s that respect the old school dudes and the great session guitarists before them. Don't clump me, a reverent 21-year-old, with the retards, please.

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82 Gibson Explorer

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I remember some of the bands that everyone was dancing to and singing along with from 64 to 69. Believe me, there was a lot of crapola music by one-hit wonders that didn't survive into the present, right along with stuff that stood the test of time.

 

We didn't have eunuch boy bands or nymphet-slut chick singers back then, but we had bubblegum bands putting out a lot of cruddy top 40 tunes that no one recalls now. My generation had the 1910 Fruitgum Company and the Archies and Tommy Roe and even worse, right along with Santana and Credence Clearwater Revival & Cream and all the others who's music is still remembered.

 

There has always been worthless music around, always will be. I personally think that the crap that's out there now is more noxious and pernicious than the stuff I remember, but even that is subjective and I might not be the most reliable source; I still think "artists" like Brittany & Christina shouldn't be allowed to sexualize 10 year olds by example. And don't get me started on twits like Paris Hilton...

Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.

 

 

 

 

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We didn't have eunuch boy bands or nymphet-slut chick singers back then, but we had bubblegum bands putting out a lot of cruddy top 40 tunes that no one recalls now.

 

Nostalgia...when people remember the best and conveniently forget all the crap that existed at the same time.

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" but I disagree in saying that my generation does nothing of "high caliber.""

 

"...there was a lot of crapola music ..."

 

What I specifically said was: "There are great guitar players today, and there were great players then... but the ones that we still talk about from my generation made major changes in the way that we approach and think about music... changes that still resonate today."

 

and:

 

" bands and artists that EVERYBODY knew, and was singing and dancing to... "

 

 

I said nothing about the 'bad' bands from any era.

 

In trying to keep on topic (yeah, like -I- ever do that...) I am speaking specifically of artists who emerged in those time periods. Artists that everybody knows, even civilians. Artists to whom we all listen.

 

 

"I believe that entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot."

 

Steve Martin

 

Show business: we're all here because we're not all there.

 

 

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So, here we are still talking about Santana and Clapton and Hendrix et al.... and I submit to you, fellows, that it ain't MY fault. There are great guitar players today, and there were great players then... but the ones that we still talk about from my generation made major changes in the way that we approach and think about music... changes that still resonate today. If you ain't producing artists of that caliber in your generation, don't look to trash mine, what has.

 

The hammer hits the nail directly on its head. This has been an ongoing argument of mine for quite some time. My parents' generation listened to Big Bands, which comprised groups of saxophones, trumpets & trombones wrapped around a rhythm section, playing swing music, the dominant strain of the evolving genre of jazz of the day. Bill & my generation created its own preferred popular music which consisted of small ensembles of electric guitar, often keyboard, & a drums/electric bass rhythm section, playing rock & roll. This constitutes a complete & total break with the music & instrumentation of the previous generation. We, as a generation, invented a new type of music. It's been 50 years now & rock & roll has long since run out of steam & new ideas, but what has the post-Woodstock generation done to create their own distinctive pop music? Squat. They are playing the same instruments & rehashing the same basic elements which were developed by the (now) old farts (Hendrix, Clapton, Page, Beck, Gilmour, etc.) who continue to be revered simply because nobody has bothered to make them irrelevant. Rock & roll made Les Paul irrelevant. This colossus of invention & musicality was pushed out by a new & vital form of music, & he recognized that & went into semi-retirement. If people are tired of hearing about how great Lennon/McCartney, Stones, Zep, Floyd, et al were, then make them irrelevant by making something which commands greater attention & respect. Don't keep doing what has already been done for 50 years by people who had the advantage of doing it for the first time. There are thousands of young musicians who are much better technical players than anybody in the 60's, but they will never ever be able to be the first person to re-invent the way the electric guitar is played & perceived, to be the first to fuse American Blues with British hard rock, the first to graft Jazz's improvisational tradition onto the standard pop song format, the first to do anything basically with respect to rock music, because there's essentially nothing left in rock to discover. The mine has been tapped out. The current generation has significantly NOT created its own signature genre of music to displace the pre-existing one. I would eagerly embrace a new genre built around marimba, tuba & glass armonica ensembles playing music primarily in 7/8, with a tendency toward Phrygian modes, which never relies on I, IV, V harmonic structures, but kids just haven't done it. So until somebody can come up with something better, which can become the cultural touchstone of current youth, & actually mean something to kids, let's stop slagging off the old guys who did just that, a half century ago.

 

Scott Fraser

Scott Fraser
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Hey Scott....

 

Just for the record...

 

Solo piano was trendy for 400 years (basically ever since the pianoforte was invented)

 

Renaissance was trendy for 200 years. Baroque was trendy for nearly 150 years. "Classical" (the actual period music, not the generalized net we throw over all of this stuff) and Romantic were trendy for nearly a century apiece.

 

Is it such a terrible thing that Rock 'n' Roll has yet to be supplanted, despite being trendy for 60 years?

 

When viewed in the light of the incredible diversification of the form over the last 40 years versus its humble beginnings in rhythm and blues, I'd say we're probably a good two or three decades out from any new forms that would be capable of supplanting R'n'R as the fashionable musical form.

 

PS: Before you crown people like Zep and Hendrix as the "guys that built the form", it is meet to recall that it was actually guys like Chubby Checker and Buddy Holly and Fats Domino that built the form, a decade and a half prior. Hendrix and Page just highlighted the point where diversification started happening rapidly, with endless new bands experimenting with mixing rock and other musical forms to create radically different flavors of the same basic style.

 

Let's not forget that, while Page, Hendrix, and Clapton were doing their respective things (all three still pretty much operating on a blues-based sensibility) you had Procol Harum and later Yes bringing classical sensibilities to rock, King Crimson delivering deconstructionism and abstract concepts, Frank Zappa bringing serious jazz and fusion to the mix, and myriad other people radically reshaping that simple I-IV-V into something previously unimaginable.

 

And those, my friend, are the unsung heroes of rock, the ones that really pushed the envelope in different directions to create the radically diverse world that is rock music today. From speed metal to hip-hop, there are so many flavors and colors in the vast spectrum of rock, if you can't find something you like, you aren't looking hard enough.

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Well Bill, I agree with the basic premis of your post. The 60's and 70's really put a premium on music as a part of the culture, and happily the guitar was a big part of that music. Of course most of us older guys don't really want to listen to much more new rock music, it's a limited form and event though we can't say everything has been done, theres not a whole lot more to do with it. It's basicly been reduced to haircuts and image, but in some respects it's always been that way.

 

I seem to remember that many of the musicians of the generation before me were saying the same things. They longed for the music they grew up with. Lots of people thought rock music was best in the 50's. Believe it or not, there were lots of people who never got into rock music at all. Jazz musicians in particular really didn't care for the whole rock phenomenon.

 

I wonder how music over the world will change as now that virtually everyone can hear what just about any musician is doing. You can't even use record sales or concert reciepts as an accurate measure of what kids are listening to, but they are probably as enamored with their music as we were. I don't follow the rappers and modern solo singers, but they seem to be immensely popular worldwide. Just because I don't care for it doesn't mean it has no meaning for the younger generation.

 

As China is emerging into the modern world, they are seeming to embrace classical music. Pianist such as Lang Lang may have more fans than any other musician in the world, it's just hard to measure based on sales alone. It's estimated that there are 25 million piano students in China today, thats just a staggering number by any standard.

 

The media has always liked the concept of simple music played by charismatic or at least interesting stars. It's not that they completely discount the musicianship or creativity, but its much easier to market a look than it is a musical innovation. Eventually the kids will find something else, some of it will be throwaway music just as always, but there will be some new art music to come along as well. Will us older rockers like whatever comes, probably not.

 

 

 

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" It's basicly been reduced to haircuts and image, but in some respects it's always been that way."

 

...and when your pants are tight and your hairs just right it's gonna be alright... ("So You Wanna Be a Rock and Roll Star", the Byrds, sometime in the 60s...)

"I believe that entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot."

 

Steve Martin

 

Show business: we're all here because we're not all there.

 

 

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"PS: Before you crown people like Zep and Hendrix as the "guys that built the form","

 

I understand what you are saying, and yes there are a lot of people responsible. But refer to the original post.... I know that I am being a PITA about that, but if we wander afield on this, we'll all end up agreeing, because what we've all observed is relevant and true. But then it does not address my original concern... in the 5 years specified during the 60s, pop music in general and a bunch of guitar players in particular made major changes in the musical lives if not the lives of almost everyone alive at the time who was under 45 years of age. Music hasn't been so affected since, unless you want to count the rise of the synthesiser and the one fingered keyboard players who ruled the 80s pop scene; and the youth culture has not been so affected until the rise of rap. But for guitar players... and it is younger guitar players who seem to raise this issue... that period in time defined what has followed.

 

And you can always find relevant sources... hell, 2 of the guys from Richenbacker wrote a paper about tapping in 1964, long before Stanley Jordan, Steve Vai, or Eddie Van Halen made it into required listening.

 

I would love to hear some smoking new approach to guitar, tied to some great songwriting and a fabulous infectious beat. But as I sit here typing this I am listening to the local public radio station run through their 913 (its 91.3 FM...) top songs. This station is pretty well known as being the alternative music station. I want to strangle myself at the insipid lyrics, whiny boy and girl singers, lame 'me, too' chord changes and sounds, and total lack of not only originality, but even vaguely interesting, music.

 

I thought that Dave Mathews might bring a wave of new playing. (And in 1996/7 I was in a band that was writing and playing similarly, in that the singer would show up with lyrics and a beat, and I'd write broad modal chords and combine forms to try to keep things interesting.) I hoped that the fingerstyle guitar form might catch on, but it is clear that this is always going to be a niche market. So it is not that I'm some old fart who never listened to a record after "Ohh, That Smell". I want to be challenged. I want to be engaged. I'm looking to be impressed. But likely candidates seem few and far between; and no one seems to grab the whole Western world the way that even the Blues Magoos or the Electric Prunes did, let alone Hendrix, Creem, et al.

"I believe that entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot."

 

Steve Martin

 

Show business: we're all here because we're not all there.

 

 

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as far as new music goes it is all personal opinion, isn't it?

most of what i listen to has not been recorded before 1980.

i am a bit of a metal head but i love everything.

 

i will not discount new music because of my impression of what the artists are in it for. i am sure there were tons of artists into music for the wrong reasons in the past as well.

 

if i hear it and like it i will listen to it.

but that being said i am not from the camp that believes everything from the past was awesome and new music sucks.

i understand we hold our memories dear to us but i know there are bands that have benefited from riding the Classic rock bandwagon.

 

i also know there are bands that are here only to be disposable soundtracks to the majority of listeners.

my biggest complaint isn't the quality of music or artists but rather the shift away from giving the listener credit to have the ability to want more than a straight beat with a structured 3 min song. Hotel California has a minute of instrument only music before the vocals even start.

record companies don't have the balls to allow that now.

most young bands have little say when they get "chosen" as the next new thing.

in the past there was more opportunity for the artist to create and be led to make more interesting mixes.

one of the reasons i love Metal is the bands in general have more happening during a song than what you hear on the radio.

part of the romance for older music is that the performance is more organic.

but in general i have no desire to listen to Clapton 24/7 any more than i do the Beatles.

it is personal preference.

 

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"PS: Before you crown people like Zep and Hendrix as the "guys that built the form","

 

I understand what you are saying, and yes there are a lot of people responsible. But refer to the original post.... I know that I am being a PITA about that, but if we wander afield on this, we'll all end up agreeing, because what we've all observed is relevant and true. But then it does not address my original concern... in the 5 years specified during the 60s, pop music in general and a bunch of guitar players in particular made major changes in the musical lives if not the lives of almost everyone alive at the time who was under 45 years of age. Music hasn't been so affected since, unless you want to count the rise of the synthesiser and the one fingered keyboard players who ruled the 80s pop scene; and the youth culture has not been so affected until the rise of rap. But for guitar players... and it is younger guitar players who seem to raise this issue... that period in time defined what has followed.

 

Again, I point to the diversification as the reason for this. There are so many musicians playing highly specialized forms of the music that only appeal to niche markets. People that are really into music (as in, not just there for sonic wallpaper) tend to be just as specialized with their tastes. Radio stations only want to play what they perceive as middle-of-the-road type material which, unfortunately, sounds like regurgitated versions of the stuff we used to listen to way back when. Doesn't mean innovators aren't out there, just means those innovators don't get heard because the average casual listener doesn't want to be challenged.

 

And you can always find relevant sources... hell, 2 of the guys from Richenbacker wrote a paper about tapping in 1964, long before Stanley Jordan, Steve Vai, or Eddie Van Halen made it into required listening.

 

Yepper. Earliest recorded finger tapping I'm aware of was Mick Box (Uriah Heep) on Salisbury in 1970. I'm sure that's not the earliest example.

 

I would love to hear some smoking new approach to guitar, tied to some great songwriting and a fabulous infectious beat.

 

I don't think one exists. With the dizzying array of guitar techniques already well established, from flamenco to legato, I cannot possibly imagine a "new" way to play the instrument.

 

It's going to take an astonishing new instrument that sounds like nothing we've heard before to make an appearance before the monolith that is rock music will make way for a new genre. You and I will probably be either dead or too old to care by the time that happens.

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"the average casual listener doesn't want to be challenged."

 

I don't believe this, but it all plays into that series of articles that I wrote years and years ago involving the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allowed the corporations to take over the radio stations and turn them into advertising vehicles instead of entertainment vehicles. The average user no longer has the opportunity to be challenged... at least, not by corporate radio.

 

" With the dizzying array of guitar techniques already well established, from flamenco to legato,.."

 

might as well shut down the patent office, because everything that could be invented already HAS been invented? I think that idea was promoted before 1900. You might be right, but I hope not.

"I believe that entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot."

 

Steve Martin

 

Show business: we're all here because we're not all there.

 

 

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Well, the difference between my statement and the one that was made in 1900 was they were looking at a much, much bigger canvas upon which to paint.

 

There are only so many things you can do with six strings and a plank of wood. And people have done an incredible amount of things with them, playing with their feet, their teeth, fingers, elbows... oh yeah, and picks! :thu:... They've played chords in every imaginable position in every imaginable tuning, from two string inversions and power chords all the way up through stacked 13b9's in full six string glory. They've insinuated chords, dropping roots, thirds, fifths, just playing the 7/11/13 extensions. There are books that catalog every possible chord you could build on a guitar short of being Edward Scissorhands with prosthetic fingertips...

 

Then there's the actual lead playing. What hasn't been done there? Trem picking, legato, sweeps, tapping, two-hand tapping, artificial and natural harmonics, bends, the list just goes on and on and on.

 

I guess I'm saying if there's another way to play a guitar out there that's completely different than all the ways we currently do it, it's going to be quite the paradigm shift...

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While part of me resists the idea that gear should determine musical possibilities, facts are facts-without a revolution in the guitar and/or in the way musical sound is delivered, like amplification or effected sound, it`s highly unlikely that any broad new frontiers are going to be discovered. Then it has to be something that`s a much of a blast as cranking up an amp and blasting out a smokin lead-well that narrows the scope even further.

 

Here`s one thought I had this afternoon-if there was a way to free sound from physical sources, like having holographic speakers that you could position anywhere in space, it would change the whole idea of performance-instruments could come in from under your feet, over your head, anywhere. Sound guys could become like spatial composers, explode and recombine music in all kinds of ways.

Same old surprises, brand new cliches-

 

Skipsounds on Soundclick:

www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandid=602491

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I've said it before, the time of the guitar as the dominant instrument in popular music has passed. Today the computer has supplanted it with access to virtually every instrument at the fingertips of composers/songwriters/producers/musicians. Guitar remains part of the mix but it is no longer the focus.

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"I've said it before, the time of the guitar as the dominant instrument in popular music has passed. "

 

You can say it all you want, but the fact remains that the airwaves are filled with bands spanking guitars, all using the same sounds, and playing the same chords, using the same beats and mostly whiny lyrics. "Popular Music" clearly does not agree with your assessment. Composers are not performers. Yes, big lead guitar solos have gone away (wheeew... thank goodness...) but that seems to be because nobody can play a melody anymore, they've all learned licks off of records and have run out of different ways to string the same old tired licks together... either that or they never got out of the "chord" section of the software that taught them how to play.

"I believe that entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot."

 

Steve Martin

 

Show business: we're all here because we're not all there.

 

 

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"I've said it before, the time of the guitar as the dominant instrument in popular music has passed. "

 

You can say it all you want, but the fact remains that the airwaves are filled with bands spanking guitars, all using the same sounds, and playing the same chords, using the same beats and mostly whiny lyrics. "Popular Music" clearly does not agree with your assessment. Composers are not performers. Yes, big lead guitar solos have gone away (wheeew... thank goodness...) but that seems to be because nobody can play a melody anymore, they've all learned licks off of records and have run out of different ways to string the same old tired licks together... either that or they never got out of the "chord" section of the software that taught them how to play.

 

Maybe it's because I'm exposed to so much (of what passes for) R&B music at work these days that I'm getting that impression. It's all built around sampled strings, sampled beats, synths and autotuned vocals with a bit of guitar or sax tossed in as sweetener. It seems to be the type of stuff that's dominating the charts. The vi,IV,V,I progression seems to be everywhere...

 

Like you, I'm an old fart fingerstyle acoustic player. The current trends don't interest me, I make the music I want to hear.

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"I'm exposed to so much (of what passes for) R&B music ..."

 

Fortunately for me (more or less...) since I've gotten injured I don't leave the house much, and I get to hear what I want to hear.

 

But when we listen to the radio, we listen to the local public radio station, which has always been the alternative station in town since WYDD crashed and burned 25 years ago. It is kind of a cross between adult contemporary and college radio. You'll never hear R&B, but when Jamiroquai showed up, they got play. You'll never hear AC/DC, but Lou Reed? maybe, possibly, rarely. And it is almost all modern guitar bands such as you see playing on Saturday Night Live. Mostly guys or gals strumming as hard as they can...Townsend-come-pseudo-punk. Get my share of R&B from the kids driving up and down the street though. (g)

"I believe that entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot."

 

Steve Martin

 

Show business: we're all here because we're not all there.

 

 

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Hey Scott....

Just for the record...

Solo piano was trendy for 400 years (basically ever since the pianoforte was invented)

Renaissance was trendy for 200 years. Baroque was trendy for nearly 150 years. "Classical" (the actual period music, not the generalized net we throw over all of this stuff) and Romantic were trendy for nearly a century apiece.

 

While debatable, this is not relevant to Bill's question, since there's no realistic analogy between European formal culture of preceding centuries & American mid-20th century society where formal culture & popular culture are deeply divergent & massively impacted by technology & mass media. There's simply no point in trying to say one has meaning for the other as it concerns music in this context.

 

Is it such a terrible thing that Rock 'n' Roll has yet to be supplanted, despite being trendy for 60 years?

 

It is imperative that the artist be creative. Would it be a terrible thing for painting if Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg & Mark Rothko were just rehashing Monet's water lilies? Yes, it would because it would indicate a dead art form.

 

When viewed in the light of the incredible diversification of the form over the last 40 years versus its humble beginnings in rhythm and blues, I'd say we're probably a good two or three decades out from any new forms that would be capable of supplanting R'n'R as the fashionable musical form.

 

OK, that's pretty optimistic. I'd like to be so optimistic myself, but I'm just seeing endless minor variations on things that have already been done to death. However, my point is more along the lines that Jazz didn't stop developing because it was pushed out of dominance as the primary music informing popular culture by rock. It continued as the relevant music for its generation while rock & roll proceeded to dominate media, commerce, culture etc, because it was music of the current youth generation of the 50's & 60's.

 

PS: Before you crown people like Zep and Hendrix as the "guys that built the form", it is meet to recall that it was actually guys like Chubby Checker and Buddy Holly and Fats Domino that built the form, a decade and a half prior. Hendrix and Page just highlighted the point where diversification started happening rapidly, with endless new bands experimenting with mixing rock and other musical forms to create radically different flavors of the same basic style.

 

Again, this is not really the point of the debate, and while I made no attempt to list the innovators exhaustively, it is certainly worth noting that nobody departed from the sound, style & technique of all his predecessors as thoroughly as Hendrix did, & as similarly Armstrong, Parker & Coltrane did.

 

Let's not forget that, while Page, Hendrix, and Clapton were doing their respective things (all three still pretty much operating on a blues-based sensibility) you had Procol Harum and later Yes bringing classical sensibilities to rock, King Crimson delivering deconstructionism and abstract concepts, Frank Zappa bringing serious jazz and fusion to the mix, and myriad other people radically reshaping that simple I-IV-V into something previously unimaginable.

 

You state this as though it is somehow contrary to what I said. However, note that all of these did their primary innovative work in the 60's, spilling over into 70's, with a few more lasting into the 80's. (Please let's not argue that King Crimson still mounts an occasional tour & are still musically vital. They've always been a fringe influence, well out of the mainstream, & mainstream pop culture is what is under discussion here.)

 

And those, my friend, are the unsung heroes of rock, the ones that really pushed the envelope in different directions to create the radically diverse world that is rock music today. From speed metal to hip-hop, there are so many flavors and colors in the vast spectrum of rock, if you can't find something you like, you aren't looking hard enough.

 

You are arguing a different topic than the question posed by Bill & responded to by me. Yet while I agree there are individuals who bring creative ideas to rock, an entire generation has passed which did not bring into being a previously unheard music, which was antagonistic to the values of the parental generation, & which formed a generational sonic signature unique to that group.

 

Scott Fraser

Scott Fraser
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Yet while I agree there are individuals who bring creative ideas to rock, an entire generation has passed which did not bring into being a previously unheard music, which was antagonistic to the values of the parental generation, & which formed a generational sonic signature unique to that group.

 

Hip-hop doesn't count? The sound of it, focused on rhythmic vocal work that is not singing, accompanied most prominently by drum machines, sampling, and record-scratching DJs, was a new thing. And as for values, hip-hop was (and is) perfectly happy to play up criminality, misogyny, and materialism to degrees that were (and are) well outside of received opinion.

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I guess I'm saying if there's another way to play a guitar out there that's completely different than all the ways we currently do it, it's going to be quite the paradigm shift...

 

Well, it's probably too much to hope for, but if all the techniques that can be developed on a guitar have already been explored and exploited, maybe people, guitarists as well as their audience, will get past being dazzled by technique and start exploring the heart and soul of the composer and the performer. Devising music like that is much harder than learning how to pack 164 notes into a 120 BPM measure, and there will be fewer who can pull it off. Technical brilliance is just a matter of practice, and well-formed bones & musculature in the hands, wrists and forearms. Truly soulful music comes from a place which holds things that can't be taught. That is what makes guitar and any other instrument's music is inexhaustible, because souls are so different from person to person.

 

Somebody said once that you can't put in what God left out, and I believe it's true. A good artist with well-developed technical skills can sculpt a very life-like statue of a human being. A really good artist with imagination and well-developed technical skills can sculpt a stature that tells a story and makes you nod your head and say, "I know what he means." But a GREAT artist can sculpt a statue which tells a story that renders anyone who sees it that possesses the sensitivity of an armadillo emotional and makes them laugh or cry. I don't believe that can be taught very successfully to someone who doesn't already have that gift, ya gots it or ya don't. The problem with most people is they can't see or quantify a difference between the "Wow! That's amazing" response and the response that makes you say "Oh God, my heart is breaking!"

 

Most of the music that has been bought and sold throughout the history of mankind has been made by good artists with well-developed technical skills, and it's mostly fluff that was here and gone with the artist who made it. But then, a Mozart, or a Lizst, or a Cohan, or a Wolf, or a Miles doesn't come along very often, and in between their appearances, people have to listen to something...

Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.

 

 

 

 

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Hip-hop doesn't count? The sound of it, focused on rhythmic vocal work that is not singing, accompanied most prominently by drum machines, sampling, and record-scratching DJs, was a new thing. And as for values, hip-hop was (and is) perfectly happy to play up criminality, misogyny, and materialism to degrees that were (and are) well outside of received opinion.

 

Might could be. I've always felt hip-hop/rap to be an outgrowth or subset of R&B & disco, though I know its defenders consider it a unique form, not a branch of other genres. The fact that it is not based around guitars goes a long way toward making that point, too. I think maybe the question might revolve around whether hip-hop is still an undercurrent overshadowed by a more dominant white culture or is it the true mainstream?

 

Scott Fraser

Scott Fraser
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Hip-hop doesn't count?

 

Sure it counts, all the way up to 20 if it can get it's shoes off... :rimshot:

 

nah. They quit school before they got that far.

"I believe that entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot."

 

Steve Martin

 

Show business: we're all here because we're not all there.

 

 

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Hip-hop doesn't count? The sound of it, focused on rhythmic vocal work that is not singing, accompanied most prominently by drum machines, sampling, and record-scratching DJs, was a new thing. And as for values, hip-hop was (and is) perfectly happy to play up criminality, misogyny, and materialism to degrees that were (and are) well outside of received opinion.

 

Might could be. I've always felt hip-hop/rap to be an outgrowth or subset of R&B & disco, though I know its defenders consider it a unique form, not a branch of other genres. The fact that it is not based around guitars goes a long way toward making that point, too. I think maybe the question might revolve around whether hip-hop is still an undercurrent overshadowed by a more dominant white culture or is it the true mainstream?

 

Scott Fraser

 

It's mainstream alright.

 

But in the grand scheme, it will merely be a blip on the musical radar, because it's already played out. There's nowhere left to go with it.

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There have been a few times, like when Roland came out with the VG88, or when 7 string guitars became common on the shelves and I thought, wow this really ought to shake things up-and it didn`t happen. I think ultimately those were just variations, not revolution. Same with the computer-it is an evolution to be sure, but very few artists-maybe Brian Eno is one-have put it to use for anything other than making composing or recording more convenient.

Same old surprises, brand new cliches-

 

Skipsounds on Soundclick:

www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandid=602491

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