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The Old Days

3K views 22 replies 9 participants last post by  Laobi 
#1 ·
During a discussion over the weekend with guy in his 20s at a guitar shop over the weekend I realised how many things have changed for guitar players. For me getting back into playing at this particular time for me has been great and I couldn't have been this motivated in my 20s because the resources were much harder to come by. It started with effects, then went to lessons. Here is what I observed, but some of you have 10, 20 or 30 years on me, so I'd love to hear your stories.

Back in the day, crafting your tone meant buying the right amp, 5 or 6 different pedals and running them on an endless string of 9v links.

Now, if you wish you can just buy a profiler or a software amp modeller and have 100s of tones for the price of 1.

80s - Lessons - You had to find a teacher which was often a long and hard road, often you had to settle for someone with slightly more experience than you. If you wanted to learn a new song you had to work it out for yourself or hope your favourite guitar mag tabbed it

Now, fire up Youtube and you have access to 1000s of teachers. Find a good one anywhere in the world, go on skype and you've access to some of the best teachers on the planet

80s - Guitar Heroes - You had to rely on your peers to point you in the direction of the next up and coming virtuoso.

Now - Just surf the web and there are 1000s of players who can immasculate you in the comfort of your own home.

80s - Buying an instrument - you were kind of stuck playing what your friends recommended - particularly when you were saving pocket/chore money for your dream axe

Now - Researching before parting with your hard earned cash is so much easier
 
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#2 ·
I agree that modelers are total game changers, but there are a few other things that work along with them that REALLY change the game.

Cheap, powerful computers. Make the production of music by amateurs a reality.

Cheap, high quality DAW's. For very little money an amateur can produce music of the quality that used to require a professional studio. Particularly powerful when you combine direct USB recording from a modeler.

EZ Drummer and other virtual instruments. Don't even need to be able to play drums or keyboards, you can just easily sequence it all from withing your DAW.
 
#3 ·
During a discussion over the weekend with guy in his 20s at a guitar shop over the weekend I realised how many things have changed for guitar players. For me getting back into playing at this particular time for me has been great and I couldn't have been this motivated in my 20s because the resources were much harder to come by. It started with effects, then went to lessons. Here is what I observed, but some of you have 10, 20 or 30 years on me, so I'd love to hear your stories.

80s - Lessons - You had to find a teacher which was often a long and hard road, often you had to settle for someone with slightly more experience than you. If you wanted to learn a new song you had to work it out for yourself or hope your favourite guitar mag tabbed it

Now, fire up Youtube and you have access to 1000s of teachers. Find a good one anywhere in the world, go on skype and you've access to some of the best teachers on the planet
I totally agree... it's a different world now and access to information is just insane. I remember anxiously waiting for new monthly guitar magazines to come out... for lessons and tab. Hoping for some good songs... and if you were lucky there would be at least one song you actually wanted to learn to play.

I tried to take lessons a couple times, but as an impatient teenager that wanted to rock I wasn't about to pay some old bald dude in polyester pants $25 an hour for lessons!! I finally did pay some long haired younger shredder guy for a couple of lessons... but I was pretty much dirt poor and decided to just struggle on my own and have some beer/pot money left over.

Fast forward 25 years -

Now that I got back into playing about a year and a half ago I'm having a ball. Youtube lessons, backing tracks to jam with, access to tablature on the net, a rinky-dink recording setup, etc...

All that said... there is still learning curve for a dinosaur like me. I'm ready to buy something for better recording and more versatility, but I'm hesitant to make the purchase. As soon as I do spend my money, I'm sure I'll discover what I REALLY needed... lol.
 
#4 ·
I tried to take lessons a couple times, but as an impatient teenager that wanted to rock I wasn't about to pay some old bald dude in polyester pants $25 an hour for lessons!! I finally did pay some long haired younger shredder guy for a couple of lessons... but I was pretty much dirt poor and decided to just struggle on my own and have some beer/pot money left over.

Fast forward 25 years -

Now that I got back into playing about a year and a half ago I'm having a ball. Youtube lessons, backing tracks to jam with, access to tablature on the net, a rinky-dink recording setup, etc...

All that said... there is still learning curve for a dinosaur like me. I'm ready to buy something for better recording and more versatility, but I'm hesitant to make the purchase. As soon as I do spend my money, I'm sure I'll discover what I REALLY needed... lol.
Every town on the planet where there were guitars there was always that bald guy in polyester who taught classical, charged way beyond what anyone wanted to pay, lived alone and even to my fairly undeveloped mid teen senses had an air about him of being slightly rapey, if you had to go to the bathroom you were always slightly afraid you'd open the wrong door and find his past pupils. Yes, I went to one once, he told me where each note was on the sheet FACE in the gaps etc., handed me a sheet and said learn that for next time. Didn't even play it for me, I worked out the notes, but had no idea of the tempo, so not wanting to end up in that room that I suspected existed I didn't go back. I then found a late teen blues rock guy who we used to pay in cigarettes and beer, he was slightly better than us, but taught what we wanted to learn.

Being a dinosaur too I'm feeling that curve, but I'm sure you're finding that you can now see the path up the mountain to excellence whereas 20 years ago it was a sheer cliff. I hear it in your playing you're now doing things with ease that a year and a half ago were just otherworldly. What keeps me going is not being satisfied with anything I do for longer than 10 seconds, it's probably obsessive actually. But what the hell, it's a harmless obsession and isn't going to get me killed, divorced maybe, but killed no.
 
#6 ·
80's - time but no patience
Now - patience but no time

At least now my inner twelve year old is living the dream of owning all the guitars I couldn't have possibly conceived of owning when I was actually twelve! Turns out - if you were a Vai, Satch or Gilbert fan back in the day, and you were only knee high to a grasshopper, you're mid-life crisis is gonna ROCK!
 
#7 · (Edited)
Here's a different take on the old days versus today:

20 years ago - half the people who shared your rock and roll studio died of drugs, got put in jail, or are homeless directly because of drugs/alcohol, and of course there was constant bickering

now- the pain of such a legacy makes certain people deny that any of that happened

I actually had an argument with band member who now has a cushy life over if there were some hard times and unfortunate deaths. The best way for him to remember his good, deceased friends (people we worked and bonded with) was to maintain they never existed or he never knew them! It's one thing when you are famous, under enormous stress and band members die (Zep, Stones, Temptations, etc) but really pathetic when you are unsigned, unknown townies but with same body count. This kind of reminds me of talking to old WWII veterans who forgot the awful stuff they went through but remember Glenn Miller and the great AAF band and how those years were the "best" years of their lives. My dad chalks it up to say there's no point in remembering the miserable times but remember the music and other things. Only years later did I actually hear some of what really happened but it just wasn't a soldier's place to ever talk about it. I guess we all have scars.
 
#8 ·
So much of this resonates with me!

Re: tone
I'd go further to say that crafting your tone back in the 80's was 100% trial and error. Unless you some how, as a child, had access/ability to spend many thousands of dollars purchasing the exact rack you saw in a magazine with one of your favourite guitarists standing in front of it.

There was no "real" information available anywhere to say how one's tone was created, or how to get that metal tone and why you couldn't get it at home with a Crate solid state combo.

If you didn't know someone locally that already had that tone you wanted, you were **** out of luck.

Re: lessons
I can't help but think I would be so much further ahead than I am now if youtube had existed when I was a kid. There's quite a lot of misinformation printed in the various "heavy metal guitar", and "speed licks" books.

There are some new people out there sharing video's that show the "real way" to achieve the ability to play fast or sound a certain way. Troy Grady, especially, being one of them.

Growing up I could never find a guitar teacher that actually played the music I liked, or even knew of the guitarists that I liked. So I had to learn from books.

Re: Instruments and finding new music
As a child I use to catch a bus and a train to get to my local music store just to grab the latest Ibanez catalog. Whenever a new one came in, I'd get a phone call. The owner use to spend time talking to me and made sure I got a new catalog.

When I grew up and started earning money, I ended up spending thousands of dollars at that store. That store owner was a smart man.

I first found out about Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert, and JP (Dream Theater) from an Ibanez catalog.

Around the same time that I started getting the catalogs, I also started buying Guitar For The Practicing Musician and Guitar World magazines.

With no ability to hear any of the music these guitar guys were creating, I had to go to a local CD shop and order in their music. I then had to wait 2-4months for the CD's to arrive.

When I got the music I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was mind blowing. Especially because my idea of "great" before hearing them was C.C. Deville and Kirk Hammett!! (I tell a lie, I was also into Jimmy Page...but he wasn't flashy in the same way, and my young ears wanted shreddy metal tones)

Basically, because of the players Ibanez had on their roster, and the above experience with getting music based solely off what their guitars looked like, I ended up only wanting Ibanez guitars. During my formative years no other brand was even considered.

I associated that style of playing and note choice directly with the brand and pointy guitars.
 
#9 ·
Great thread idea!

The internet and inexpensive home recording certainly are game changers. It's actually very liberating! I made an album in a somewhat pro studio in the 90's with my band and spent about $3k. Now I've made six or seven for probably $300 in total for all. Yeah, the quality isn't as good but it isn't bad either. I had actually quit playing guitar from about 2000 to 2005 because it was frustrating prior to that, like a job, with very little spiritual reward. Now, thanks to home recording, I can make the records I've dreamed of making in high school practically for free now - and have people all over the world hear my work! No label, no nothing! Words can't describe how incredibly grateful I am to simply have access to such things.
The internet is awesome for learning stuff too. An amazing resource!
 
#10 ·
I would say I'm fortunate that my whole life of playing guitar has been within the last 7 years, with the Internet being prominent in this generation, I can look up anything at all, and when I have a problem with say, picking, I just type in "Guthrie govan alternate picking lesson" and work it out.

It's also much easier to figure out music I would assume, I try most of the time to not use tab unless it's something o have to learn but have no desire for, and I have an app called "anytune" that can slow down music without changing the pitch. It's got tons of features I don't even know how to work, but my favorite is setting loops, so if I'm trying to figure out just the notes to a particular passage I can just loop it and not have to stop every 5 seconds and manually rewind it like you all probably had to do with records or CDs.

^unfortunately though, the Internet cannot help my run on sentence tendencies.
 
#17 · (Edited)
Oh well what's the big deal about run on sentences since even though you run all of your thoughts into one sentence your thoughts are there and those that care enough about what you have to say will simply read through and their brains will add their own punctuation where it should be and they will have little to no trouble reading your post and will respond to your thoughts and questions without the hassle of having to pick apart your writing since they are more interested in what you have to say instead of how you say it.
And if you can read that, it means you care enough to read it and understand it. :)
 
#11 ·
@ Fire - I had most of what other people do as mid life crises in my late 20s and 30s, so guitar is probably my real mid life crisis. About the writing, thank you very much, I wish I could put my thoughts into notes though. The only writing I ever took part in was a sideline I had once translating documents, they say everyone has a book in them, but I don't think I could even write a paragraph without landing in hot water.

@Goodvaibes - So true, money and advice were the factors in the 80s, now it's time. The great thing now is that without spending a lot you can still pick up your dream guitars.

@63 - It's a strange one. When I was growing up Dublin was awash with heroin, so the warnings that it would basically turn you into a walking zombie who could only think and speak at the speed of a passing snail were there. Because of its availability and price heroin was the "scumbag drug of choice" many addicts had come from families who were involved in petty crime and sometimes OC. As a result, most people with a modicum of sense avoided. However, I knew some people I was with in bands who ended up hopeless junkies. These were mainly smart guys (one guy was effortlessly top of my class all the way through school and aced his first 2 years of uni), I noticed it was usually the guy who suffered from a terrible sense of self consciousness and stage fright who would usually get absolutely rat arsed in order to perform. They seemed to be more susceptible to try chasing the dragon and that was usually the gateway. I wasn't immune to getting wasted, but as I couldn't play ripped to the tits I saved my drinking for post gig. The thing I remember most was these guys had a habit of taking someone else along on their journey and despite at first trying to talk sense to them, at some point you had to completely abandon them to their fate. It was a cold thing to do, but the thing they usually became bore no resemblance to the friend you once liked and they couldn't be trusted not to steal everything that wasn't glued to the floor. You're right, from my memory music did seem to create a few more of them than you otherwise found.

@ Will - I agree, total trial and error. You had to know a friend who was good at that sort of thing. I was very lucky to have a friend who as a teen had stalked Def Leppard when they were recording an album here (he was in his mid teens, about 2 years older than me and a huge fan). Steve Clark was really cool to him, let him hang in the studio, taught him how to eq amps, guitar tricks, setups and effects. I would go to this guy every time I got a new amp, pedal, guitar and watch him create some magic with it, then tape all the knobs to the exact position he had placed them before taking them home. He was the only guy I knew who could do this properly and you were in luck if you wanted the standard range of rock sounds, anything else you were on your own.

I went through much the same with reference to instruments. When it comes to instruments, Dublin was a total backwater then (it still is to a great extent, population of about 1.5million means low economies of scale and reduced choice). When I was a kid it was all Fender, Gibson and their clones. For a little while Washburn and Aria were hot, but then something happened about 15 years ago the 60/70 somethings became the market with the most disposable income (combine this with rural areas which are dominated by country music) and as a result the place is Fender/Gibson heaven again. There is one chain who handle Ibanez, so your only choice is the SH market or internet.

@ Mike - It is totally liberating. I remember us having to pay just for a decently recorded demo tape. You can now buy all the software for the same price as a sound engineer for a day. I too think it is the best time so far for someone who wants to learn music and improve their skills. The only downside is that anytime I meet a recording DJ or working sound engineer I tend to ask them how they do X or Y, write it down when they're out of sight and try it at home.
 
#13 ·
I almost always use it because there's always a few notes in fast passages that end up being wrong if I learn it without slowing it down

Plus for things where dynamics and vibrato and such make the song, it's easier to hear which the mojo is being added.

Also I'd say most tab is unreliable, especially when attempting to wield it in a band setting with unison parts.
 
#14 ·
To me the internet is one of the amazing things in modern history. Name whatever interest or topic you want and the internet allows you to learn so much more in such a condensed timeframe it's amazing.

On top of that, the internet has allowed me to meet a ton of people who share my interests who I would have otherwise never known.
 
#15 ·
I've met some of my greatest friends through the Internet and I've never even met them in person.

It must seem awfully strange for people who grew up the last 20-30 years before the Internet, where you actualy had to meet someone and if they lived 1000 miles away it was a "pen pal". Now one message and you're connected.
 
#19 · (Edited)
Since people are talking about gear this post will date me. I could be the oldest member here being that we are talking about electric guitars and RGs with double locking tremolos.

Old days - Most of us kids played "folk" guitars because they were referred to as such as popularly played in that style. Few called it a classical guitar which is what most call it now. Folk was big because when I got into playing, Joan Baez was still the "it" thing.

Today - I still have a very similar nylon string and used it last week at an open mic and folk is still big even though many may have no idea who Joan Baez is.

Old days - I used different electrics like the Les Paul or Telecaster from the USA or "Japanese guitars" like Ibanez Blazer which were considered good budget instruments. Some friends had similar budget instruments like the Ibanez AS200 or Ibanez Artist. We all considered Japanese guitars really good values and almost as good as American guitars.

Today - Japanese Ibanezes are no longer considered budget and American guitars are almost as good as MIJ Ibanezes and ESPs. The good thing is that the Les Paul or the Stratocaster are cheaper than similarly equipped Japanese guitars.

Old days - MXR Distortion + and Boss Chorus or Flanger which would force us to have to stand different ways in the studio to avoid annoying hiss and hum.

Today - Sky is the limit since the roll out of the PC

Old days - This really cool new band of spirited young lads called AC/DC hailing from the UK and Australia.

Today - Same band but with Malcolm Young's 58 year old nephew replacing him at rhythm guitar.
 
#20 ·
One great thing about the Internet is it allows you to scratch any itch in terms of listening to music. You can listen to a whole album on Youtube before buying it. Most importantly, it exposes you to so much more, I think, in terms of styles of music and lets you have access to it a lot easier.
My last several purchases for digital music:
"The Aristocrats" - The Aristocrats
"Erotic Cakes" - Guthrie Govan
"The Time" - Morris Day and The Time
"Led Zeppelin III" - Led Zeppelin
"Steel Wheels" - The Rolling Stones
"Your Filthy Little Mouth" - DLR

While I greatly miss the record store I can relatively find what I want to listen to when I want to listen to it. This IMO is HUGE in not only one's development as a musician but as a person too. :D

Also, I've probably said it a billion times but I wish I had access to Rich's site when I was 14. That and others like it are a big help to new players.
 
#23 ·
@Kyle. I agree that the web can be great for putting people in touch. I also feel that with a few exceptions you can generally tell a lot about the character of a person by the way they relate to other people. The old real world addage "if someone is a prick/bitch to a waiter/waitress then they're not a person you want in your circle of friends" has served me well in life, on the web as in real life you will notice cliques developing, if someone is a dick to a new person or someone outside their particular clique you may do well to assume that they're a person to be avoided. There are lots of clues in what a person writes to their character.

@ Will. You were only about 5 years behind me, the notes bring back memories. In my teens I was totally blind as to whom was attracted to me, so I would regularly give up on a girl I liked and "friendzone" her only for her to either get totally frustrated with me and ignore me or leap on me when I least expected it. I never really got hazed by parents/siblings, it was generally the girls friends and my own friends who took care of that. I also kept girlfriends well away from my own family because during my teens my dad was a prankster who saw it as his personal mission to haze me in increasingly elaborate ways (probably encouraged by my continuous acts of revenge). The inter school mail system at my school was dangerous and best avoided as you could find yourself in intimate correspondence with the school forger (Tom who would provide you with a sick note from your mother for just £2 and a handwriting sample), so in my school you would talk to her friends, this was also risky, if the friend liked you and was jealous they would sow seeds of discourse, so you had to find the nice friend for an honest opinion. I think social networking makes it easier in some ways, but in other ways it creates a permanent record so the silly things you do (personally for me it was trying to serenade a girl while drunk with an out of tune acoustic - I was at outside the wrong window and serenaded her mother instead who teased me relentlessly). Today there would be a video out there and deniability is now removed. People say rash things during breakups/arguments and with social media there is more of a tendency to type angry words for all to see, so I think for todays youth social media is a minefield, but there is also more opportunity for a person to share their true selves.

You were probably better off getting rid of all the old correspondence, I always had a policy of removing correspondence/photos etc., when beginning something new because for a new gf it can be quite irritating particularly as when we fall in love we think that person is the one, it's human nature, but doesn't inspire the confidence of a new partner when they find direct evidence of you serially finding the "one".

@ Meechy. The John Williams thing made me hum Star Wars and do a double take. It's nice to keep a note from such an innocent age. Although I think if you had been "wandering the earth seeking your fortune" into your early 30s and kept multiple chains of correspondence your fiance would probably feel a little uncomfortable about it. Regarding web communication, I feel there are lots of other cues to the genuineness of a person, there are patterns, phrases and subtleties that tell you a lot about a person. Those who put on a mask will find the mask always slips. As for the you/Rich/ladder/innuendo thing, that's more group banter that you would find among any group of people meeting up in real life, it's not that Rich or anyone else (I hope) is doing this in a private setting, so in the way to view it as a bunch of colleagues joking around, mostly it's funny and harmless, sometimes there are buttons that only become apparent when pushed just as in real life which serve as the interpersonal boundry setters. As an example, I have a long time colleague who is *** (not camp in any way) , in a group setting he and I would have absolutely no boundries banter wise in a group setting whereas I would be much more reserved with other colleagues for the simple reason that we know it's purely banter. I tend to view things said in a thread as public discussion and open to banter whereas in private messages (unless in jest) one has to be more careful. I have a simple rule regarding web comunication, if idiots are tolerated or even encouraged it's not a place where I want to spend time or provide input. I feel cyberspace is a mirror of reality, if you're honest, open and courteous and demand the same from those with whom you communicate, then as long as you're somewhat streetwise you won't go too far wrong.

@63. The folk thing was well before me, but I feel my generation missed out on aspects of it like composition, storytelling and techniques such as fingerpicking. There's something magical about that era.

So true about the Japanese vs American thing. Even in the late 80s when I started playing there was a certain snobbery towards Japanese instruments. I had both and it was my style of play which directed what I kept. The pedals bring back nightmares from rehearsal studios where the phase of a pedal or the fact that it wasn't properly grounded would interfere with every other amp in the room. It's scary when you look back at idols who were in their 20s when you were in your teens. When I see SV now I think of the old pictures of Dr. Norton on the antivirus boxes, how he aged with each incarnation of the product, that didn't make me feel old, but seeing SV age does as in the late 80s/90s he hardly changed, but when you look at the album covers you can see the progression.

@ Mike. That's what I love, the choice. I remember FZ albums used to have a little address on the back which was prefaced by something like "If you live in a socially retarded area and can't find a record, just mail this address", it was virtually impossible to hear anyone until the media approved and they had basically made it. Now, the world is your oyster. This is definitely one resource I wish I'd had access to in my teens.
 
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