By PT
In the fictional world of Marvel Comics, the X-Men and their fellow Mutants are the next stage in human evolution. They are a group of people drastically different from anything that has come before. Science even questions whether Mutants can be considered the same species as us average humans. The Mutants’ sudden presence is met with concern, fascination and fear among the general public. Something drastic has changed, and most people aren’t ready for shifting times.
I wonder if the next ten years will present a similar shift in the world of guitarists.
With the constant, easy access to nearly limitless free instructional materials and the emergence of higher quality inexpensive gear, will we see a crop of Internet trained super-guitarists emerging in the near future?
I am torn. Here are my thoughts for and against this idea.
For -
Let’s say there is a thirteen year-old boy who wants to learn to play gypsy jazz. (It could happen…) In the pre-Internet era, good luck to him! His only options would be to either find a gypsy jazz player to instruct him, or to just try to figure it out himself.
Today, a YouTube search for ‘gypsy jazz guitar lesson’ nets 1,690 results. Will they all be quality lessons that will actually help our hypothetical young guitarist? No way. But if even 10% are useful, that’s 169 lessons for Django Jr. to work his way though! Not bad.
To sweeten the deal even further, most young guitarists now have access to recording software, amazing amp simulators and quality effects... often on their cell phones.
With the plethora of free materials available, how can today’s dedicated learner help but be better equipped?
Against –
Part of the coolness of guitar has always been the ‘secret knowledge’ factor. If material is too easily available, it may not be as appealing to learn.
More importantly, the abundance of tablature and video lessons make it unnecessary for guitarists to figure out a song from the recording.
So when you look at it that way, the next generation of guitarists might be worse (at least ear-wise) than those that came before.
And if the Internet was such a boon to guitar-knowledge, wouldn’t that explosion of talent have already happened?
I am left undecided. Either way, the next few years will be an interesting time. What do you think?
PT is the co-host of the guitar talk podcast Six-String Bliss. He also writes fiction and has been known to throw a little disc golf. He lives in the birthplace of country music
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3 comments:
There have been other changes in the past. Way back the only new music you would hear was from wandering minstrels. Then people started writing down music and eventually printing it. Much later we got radio, TV, guitar magazines, VHS and eventually the internet. Guitar tab was made available fairly early on. On-line video is pretty recent. I think Youtube is only about 6 years old.
So there have always been new ways to hear and learn music and I'm not sure these have ever reduced quality, but have made it more available. Now someone in rural Africa can hear music from all over the world and make their music available to all.
It's changed a lot since I started learning via tab in magazines and the occasional flexidisk. My kids have access to just about any music and tab or lessons.
I have learnt some stuff by ear, but it's not a strong point. I may work on that this year, but will still be looking up lessons. The problem now is too much choice and finding the good stuff. In some cases it's still worth paying to get guaranteed quality.
Interesting times
Great post PT (as always). Very thought provoking.
I don't think there is going to be a new super-breed of precocious guitarists overwhelming us too soon. Whilst you're right, access to decent lessons, tips and help about almost any genre of music are only a few mouse clicks away, what hasn't changed is that, in order to master the instrument you still have to put in hours and hours of practice. Until someone comes up with a solution to that one us old guys are safe (for now).
I agree with the AGAINST factors, Young musicians are very lazy, I'm living proof of that and the thousands of emails i get from people who have watched my video lessons are mostly asking if i can help them out more because they just dont get it, or in my opinion they are just way to lazy to be bothered to put in the practice time. there has never been a better time to play guitar and there is so much information out there that its can be very confusing and over whelming. i have recently started to try to learn more by ear and its my life goal to do so... if there wasnt all this FREE content on the internet then we would be pushed to figure it out for ourselves thus making us better musicians.
Modern music teachers are to blame as well, telling students to look up information on you tube or go on the internet for content... thats not teaching, thats being lazy and taking peoples money you havnt worked for..
so in conclusion my opinion is that there is too much free content out there and its making things easier for people to initially learn so when it comes to crunch time they can not handle the pressures of hard work to accomplish great music... so Yes i think the next generation of guitarists will be worse off on a professional level
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