What's more important: tone, technique, or content?

[pauldil]

What's more important in a player: tone, technique, or musical content? I know that all 3 are important, but even some great players don't always have the three going for them...

[Nollykin]

To be honest, its what you're good at. if you play well with good tone, then that is what people will know you for - and your style will emerge.

 

If you have great technique, then you are unique, and you will be well known for it...

 

if you write damn good songs, and play well, then you'll be know for your content... its what YOU prefer, and what YOU are good at.

 

Guitarists are artists. Music is our canvass, and the guitar is our paintbrush. our thoughts and feelings are the paint. ENJOY playing - dont analyse it.

 

=)

[Wickerman]

Originally posted by Nollykin:

To be honest, its what you're good at. if you play well with good tone, then that is what people will know you for - and your style will emerge.

 

If you have great technique, then you are unique, and you will be well known for it...

 

if you write damn good songs, and play well, then you'll be know for your content... its what YOU prefer, and what YOU are good at.

 

Guitarists are artists. Music is our canvass, and the guitar is our paintbrush. our thoughts and feelings are the paint. ENJOY playing - dont analyse it.

 

=)

That was beautiful man.

 

I think technique is more important. If you have great tone you're still screwed if you're sloppy and sound bad. Same with writing. If you can write beautiful, moving songs, what's it worth if you can't play 'em.

[Griffinator]

I often write songs that are beyond my capability to play. It's really frustrating. Especially when the best I can manage sounds really hack!

[fantasticsound]

Originally posted by Wickerman:

...I think technique is more important. If you have great tone you're still screwed if you're sloppy and sound bad. Same with writing. If you can write beautiful, moving songs, what's it worth if you can't play 'em.

Don't take this personally, Wick, but technique ain't shit. That's right. It means nothing. Just ask Vinnie Moore or Ingwie Malmsteen, or Frank Gambale. Technique is interesting for about... 10 minutes. Then you need to be playing great songs or you'll be nary a footnote in history, if that. Eddie Van Halen is known for being a unique technician, but it's the songs he wrote that he'll be remembered for. The technique is definitely secondary. Besides... Take Beethoven for example.. Not only couldn't he play his compositions (because many were orchestral by design), but the last few years of his life he couldn't ever hear them, except in his mind's ear. (He could find musicians to perform them, however.)

 

The trick to the question is that all are important. It's simply a question of what style of music you choose to play that dictates how important each point is.

 

But Nolly's right. Why analyze it at all? Write the best songs you can, learn to play with all the heart and discipline you can muster, and make sure your tone doesn't suck eggs. I'm spent.

[not coaster MODERATOR]

The songs that have endured through rock history are those played from the heart and part of an otherwise great song. Yngvey noodles so effortlessly and yet most of us can't exactly hum his passages nor even remember them in the shower.

 

But I can hum the solos from Nowhere Man, Time, Cinnamon Girl, STH, anything by Lindsey Buckingham, Boston, ZZ Top on and on....

 

And 99.9% of the time the solos are sitting in the middle of a great song.

 

Good tone never hurts either. Always strive for better tone.

[DC]

Content is by far the most important thing. You wanna hear McCartney sing one of his songs over an SM-58 into a Shure Vocalmaster or Mariah Carrey sing one of her songs over a Neuman/GML pre/state of the art system? I'd take Paul every time.

 

It's the heart that makes music, not tone. I hated Lennon's tone in later Beatles stuff (Casino days), all low middy and muddy. But the parts he played were so cool that it didn't matter.

 

You also need just enough technique to express your song. People that put this first are boring to me.

[WFTurner]

I would suppose in some sense, all three kinda go hand in hand. One is gonna come easier or naturally be stronger in one individual than another. I suppose the individual mix of the three in a specific individual will result in an individuals unique musical character. Hopefully. A complete lack of any one of the three would certainly represent some kind of deficit in an individual's music output. I would think so anyway.

[Nollykin]

And my point stands in all posts here

 

Enjoy the music, guys.

[Jedi]

If you're not coming from the heart, tone and technique are meaningless. What does it matter, if a person uses great words but has nothing to say. And sure you can appreciate the art of creating a good tone, and you can appreciate the art and discipline to have good technique, but appreciation lasts about 2 seconds. After that, what have you got? Music is not to be just appreciated, Music is to be experienced.

 

Jedi

[Jedi]

I got interrupted by a phone call and posted before I got kicked off line.

 

Now, Nollykin is right on. Don't analyze, utilize. One can't experience something and think about it at the same time. If you're thinking about something, what you are experiencing is your thoughts, not the thing in and of itself.

 

Now, the better the technique and tone, the better the content is communicated, but without the content, what you have is a big clanging cymbal, and notes but notes but notes........

 

Jedi

[fantasticsound]

A postscript;

 

One of my best friends, and collaborator in bands and songwriting, was barely a singer and keyboard player when we met. Over the years he's taught himself to play simple keys and sequence, improved his vocal ability, taught himself to play drums, then guitar, then bass, because he could never keep a stable group of decent musicians together to create his works as he desired them to be.

 

None of his playing comes close to virtuosity. That he would gladly admit. However, as was state in a previous post, he plays well enough to translate his songs to recordings. Sounds a little condescending, coming from his buddy who's played guitar for 26 years, huh? Here's the trick...

 

His songs and recordings put me to shame. I'm a mediocre songwriter and arranger. He's a natural. The guy writes rings around me. Outside of a few tunes I've written, my best work has been contributions to his songs. If I never improve in my songwriting, no one may ever know who I am, in the larger world of music. He, on the other hand, has a good chance of making a mark that a larger audience will know, and enjoy.

 

I hope this better expresses my feelings on the subject, without insulting anyones opinion. (Sorry if I sounded harsh, Wick. Just passionate about songwriting, even if it ain't my strong suit.)

[strat0124]

In the liner notes of ZZ's last CD, a picture said "Tone, Taste, and Tenacity".....to me that says it all.

[Kevin F]

What's more important in a player: tone, technique, or musical content?

Yes

 

Kev

[Rusrantaol.com]

I think the way it works is a good guitarist can have any 2, a great guitarist has all three. Rus

[TurboDog]

Hey folks, tone comes from technique.

 

You could put SRV on different amps and axes, and it still sounds like SRV. His tone was all about his technique.

 

The same can be said for many players. How many different guitars has EVH played over the years? And amps? Still has the same general tone.

 

Technique isn't just shredding. It's everything you are physically doing on a guitar. It's fretting chords, muting, bending, hammer-ons/pull-offs, tapping, picking styles, etc. It's how clean or messy you play. It's everything.

 

Technique is what makes it possible to be artitstic. Look at it this way, technique is the road you must travel to get to artistry.

 

For beginners, technique is especially important. Look at any disciple, ie sports, martial arts, music, whatever. The basics are always taught first, to give a student a solid foundation to build on.

 

Now, if technique to you means speed arpeggios, sweeps, fret tapping, etc, then obviously you don't have to have that to be a great musician.

 

Here's a good question...who do you think has better technique, SRV or Malmsteen?

[Griffinator]

Geez, Turbo - put me in a bind...

 

Malmsteen's got amazing technique - but he cheats with those scalloped-fret Strats - if you've ever heard him play an acoustic he is SLOP CITY.

 

OTOH, SRV is just totally sloppy. His sound is firmly rooted in that sloppiness - if it was tight, it wouldn't be SRV.

 

I think SRV wins, though - because he's got soul - something Yngwie doesn't know anything about.

[TurboDog]

You're cheating Griff. Technique only question.

 

And hey, I'm slop city on an acoustic too.

[Nollykin]

I'm just sloppy. Period teehee

[Griffinator]

Originally posted by TurboDog:

You're cheating Griff. Technique only question.

 

And hey, I'm slop city on an acoustic too.

OK, without the "soul" part, Yngwie wins the technique contest.

 

As far as sloppy on an acoustic, I am too - but Yngwie is supposed to be some kind of guitar "god" - and yet Al DiMeola could hand him his lunch on an acoustic.

[Sylver]

It's all about the feel! Albert King could squeeze more out of one note that any speedster could in a flurry.

[Tedster]

Was in the studio the other night. Oh, I get depressed about my guitar chops. I don't suck, but I'm not great either. I was voicing to the engineer feeling sorry for myself that "There are at least 100 guys here in KC who could chops-wise mop the floor with me." And he said, "Yep. But, so what? It's not about chops. Guys with chops are a dime a dozen. The songwriters are what counts".

 

Well, that didn't make me feel any better, 'cause I suck at that too .

 

But, I guess the point is...if I wrote a piece of music that was valid, that I couldn't play...I'd find someone who could. No harm in that. The conductor of an orchestra might not be able to execute a brilliant violin solo, and yet he's the guy that bows during the applause.

[TurboDog]

Okay, my point with the Malmsteen vs. SRV question was to show that SRV was awesome with his technique. You can't get his tone and style without beating the hell out of the guitar, and still fretting almost flawlessly. Nobody has technique like SRV. So nobody sounds like him.

 

Technique is tone. It's style. It's all the physical things you do to get your sound.

 

You can't say Malmsteen had better technique. He may have been faster or cleaner (debateable) but he couldn't do half the things that SRV did. They both have their own technique, which leads to their own sound/tone/stlye. Without that technique, they couldnt express themselves.

 

See?

[gtrmac]

I think it's 90% heart. So I guess that means the content. Seems like the rest comes from a need to be able to express what is in the soul. I have acquired a fair amount of technique but to me it's a by-product and the need to express what was in my heart has always ben the driving force. I think that songwriting skill is a technique too which is developed from practice and study but the inspired songwriters are coming from the heart also. As far as tone I think that is partly from technique but with electric guitar you have to have superior instruments to have good tone. The same is true with acoustic but in this case the technique is even more important. A good instrument is still essential. Stevie Ray Vaughn had excellent guitars and amps by the way. I read that he used over 30 different amplifiers on his last couple albums, sometimes several at once to get a certain tone. So I guess I feel that if you have good technique you need a good instrument to show it completely. I think the worst combination is all technique with no content and bad tone.

[Wickerman]

Originally posted by TurboDog:

Hey folks, tone comes from technique.

 

You could put SRV on different amps and axes, and it still sounds like SRV. His tone was all about his technique.

 

The same can be said for many players. How many different guitars has EVH played over the years? And amps? Still has the same general tone.

 

Technique isn't just shredding. It's everything you are physically doing on a guitar. It's fretting chords, muting, bending, hammer-ons/pull-offs, tapping, picking styles, etc. It's how clean or messy you play. It's everything.

 

Technique is what makes it possible to be artitstic. Look at it this way, technique is the road you must travel to get to artistry.

 

For beginners, technique is especially important. Look at any disciple, ie sports, martial arts, music, whatever. The basics are always taught first, to give a student a solid foundation to build on.

 

Now, if technique to you means speed arpeggios, sweeps, fret tapping, etc, then obviously you don't have to have that to be a great musician.

 

Here's a good question...who do you think has better technique, SRV or Malmsteen?

...Yeah, that's what I ment to say.

[pauldil]

I know that some of what I consider my best stuff has been sloppy beacause it came at a time when I was really reaching for things I had not played before - a sequence of notes I heard/felt at a given moment. So to me, at that point in time, the content of my playing was key and I didn't care as much about the technique or tone. But at that same instant, what did the listener in the audience hear? If they didn't know my style of playing, or where I was going with the idea, or if I couldn't pull the idea off, I probably just came off as a sloppy player. Should one take the safe road and play something more comfortable and familiar to the listener while still trying to maintain interest and feel? But then again, once in a great while, when I actually do nail one of those fleeting instants of inspiration, it just feels so good!!

[Gator Wing]

Well, I don't know for sure. But my GIT guitar teacher will claim he isn't the best guitar player one will ever hear (is that technique or technical skill?). But he knows what notes/chords to play together to make music (what is that called? oh yeah - theory) and his phrasing is fantastic. But he says you have to feel it (as he points to his heart) to be a good guitar player. And all his modesty aside, he is really very good.