The WORST musical advice ever given
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- Опубліковано 27 кві 2024
- Asking all my friends to share the worst musical advice they ever had (and playing some cool guitars!)
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Hi, my name is Paul Davids! I am a guitar player, teacher, producer, and overall music enthusiast from the Netherlands! I try to inspire people from all over the world with my videos, here on UA-cam.
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52 years ago, I told my parents I was going to music school to get degrees in classical guitar. I loved it. Everyone I knew rolled their eyes and questioned my future. I'm now retired after a long career as a college professor, a Dean, and a performer.. I've had a great life.
You are the 1%. You are lucky. Other than the professor thing.
Congrats on your success!
hey friend, you are something special. I love that you followed your dreams. You aren't ever without love and support. Keep being you buddy, you are the best at it. 💜
It's not luck
Its hard work
You create you're luck by working hard and practicing
@@AB-ci6jj zzzzzzz
Worst advice I got was that it was too late to start playing at 22 "all good players started when they were kids you're just gonna sound awful forever" well guess what? It doesn't fucking matter how old are you as long as you enjoy playing and you keep practicing, you always learn that riff eventually, you may not become the next Hendrix but you *will* become a musician version of yourself and be fulfilled with who you are
I too will never be the next Hendrix, but you are absolutely right. Playing music never gets old and has been one of the most reliably joyous and fulfilling things I've done.
This. 100%
Yeah, eff that. My mother started playing the Celtic harp at 68. She loves playing. You are never too old to start. Are you less likely to make a living out of it? Maybe. It depends on what are are expecting out of it and how much you're willing to put into it.
Agree! Van Gogh didn't start painting until he was 30... never too late
So true
The best advice for me is from my mom. When I felt depression about playing guitar with comparing "them" upon any streaming sns, I said 'I can't play guitar same of them, so shoud I stopping play guitar...?',
so that my mom said 'Is the playing guitar only a privilege for the people playing well?'.
My mind was liberated with this words in moment.
thanks my mom.
god bless your mom, that's some wonderful wise words. liberating indeed.
Oh I like that!
Best advise/inspiration ever!👍
My regards for the great Mom. ❤️
Learn English.
That was awesome advice. That's a great mom!!
I always remember what my band instructor said, and I feel this applies to everything in life: “you have to sound bad to sound good.”
Don’t get discouraged
Worst advice was from my father. I told him, “Dad, when I grow up, I want to be a musician.” He looked at me and said, “Son, you can’t have it both ways.” (Old joke)
Haha, such a dad joke!
I don't get the joke. Can someone please explain?
@@renew44 You can't grow up if you're a musician, meaning that you'll always be a child if you're a musician
@@scrobble8127 Oh, I see. Couldn't have figured it out on my own. Thanks!
Why is everything stupid or bad or gross a “dad” thing now? Too many dads and not enough fathers I guess.
Wow! What an honour to be on Paul David’s Channel! Thanks ever so much for including me! Wonderful video
Man you're such an influence, both in music and with lifestyle. You seem like a cool guy to have beer with
Such a lovely surprise seeing you there! You are insane man.
@@szymondudzinski6661 wow! Thanks ever so much!
@@jacekjmazur that's very kind of you!
@@mahakali7086 creativity is king!
Thanks for including me dude, let’s meet up again soon and chat about Holland, I really miss it sometimes :-)
The “just feel it” part really hit home. When I started teaching myself guitar, I heard “you just gotta feel it” so often and I never could. Even the songs that I had nailed down, I couldn’t “feel” them. It all felt mechanical to me (use this strumming pattern then this one, play this note then this note etc.). It made me think that I would never be good at guitar because I didn’t have this natural ability to feel the music. Now after 2 years of practicing consistently, the mechanical feeling when playing is going away. I’m still nowhere near where I wanna be, but I’m getting better every day and that’s all that really matters. Practice and consistency is key!
A better version of the @just feel it” advice is “practice practice practice amd when it’s time to play, just play.”
Dude. Yessss same here. My dude and I would always be jamming and he would bust out this ridiculous solo and I would ask him how to even begin learning how to do that, and he would always say “just gotta feel it”. Same as you, I thought that something was wrong with me since I couldn’t play like that. Feeling is definitely part of jamming but you gotta develop your ear first and learn some scales.
Yea but also some people are just better at things others aren’t and some people have to practice more than others .
The worst musical advice I was ever given, was from myself. When I was starting college in 1981, I gave up on a musical career because I told myself that “I wasn’t creative.” Focus on engineering or computers and find a left-brain type of job, Kevin. In 2014, I moved to San Francisco, got serious about guitar again, rediscovered my creative side, and now I have two UA-cam channels - one that I play guitar on to use as backing tracks. If I had focused on being creative 40 years ago, what could I have accomplished? Who knows, but I’m loving being a creative now. Cheers!
Also a software engineer. Not sad that I chose to spend my life making software, but there’s no reason I shouldn’t have also been playing guitar every night and been in a band. I wish I could go back and tell myself to go ahead and try it.
I'm a Civil Engineer that had a professional career working in the music industry for 25 years. I also enjoyed a successful career in construction , mechanical and electrical engineering. Not at the same time though! I discovered that both the Arts and Science were as equally creative. For me life is not about accomplishments or 'what if's' its about no regrets. You did OK so cheers to you!
This is incredibly relatable
@@circlemover Thanks! I agree that creativity comes in many forms and I used mine mostly to create software for the past 40 years. Coincidentally, some of that software was for the construction industry. ;) I just wish that I hadn't lied to myself at such a young age. I might have done more with music, photography, or video along with building apps. Cheers!
@@kevinhoctor62 sounds like you accomplished a great deal to me!! And now you are rockin' in the free world again! As l have recently retired from engineering guess what? Yep... Presently building a pretty cool home studio with all them lovely audio toys... Cheers again!
Worst advice ever was, for me, more a situation. I was just graduated from high school, and as a family we had little money. I was self taught and could play good lead guitar, but i was stuck. I wanted to learn composition and theory and make my living out of music. A year back my family could afford lessons for a year only at the local conservatory... By the time i graduated from high school i had to choose... beg for a scholarship for a traditional career and convince myself music couldn't be taken seriously, or give it a last try. I tracked my guitar teacher from that year at the conservatory and came to him with a guitar on my hand and desperate for support to stick to music. I explained to him the situation, that a couldn't pay full price he was asking for lessons, that a needed some advice to confront my family from someone i looked up to . He just said "lesson cost this amount of money (money i couldn't afford) weekly", and just left me there.
After that I gave up, enrolled where my family wanted me to study, got half scholarship as my family did the effort to pay for the rest and went with their plan.
Today I have a half time job that barely pays the bills and I'm trying to do something with music before it's too late (I'm 46). Will never get back those 20 years that I believed i couldn't do it. I have no doubt my family and people around me did it with best intentions at heart, trying to advice what was in my best interest (i have arthritis since i was 14, which is an important obstacle) , and I'm thankful for that, but i was deep down miserable anyway.
Today I'm trying again, don't care for the latest cell phone, car or house, just want to be happy doing what I love, at least for a while.
Damn I hope you will succeed! Good luck and have fun! 🍀😊
To thine own self be true. Follow your heart!! Your passion!! You'll sleep much better at night. ; )
I hope you succeed living your dream. In the end, I believe it's all about the journey itself. While you follow your dreams and your happy, it's worth it!
Do what makes you happy. Society and it's expectations are well overrated.
Heya! Im in that same boat.... doing music, dont really need much else
I know the whole "learning from records" thing is very common, especially to musicians from the older generation, but after doing both I can honestly say that the *fastest* way to get better at figuring out songs using your ears is to first learn and master intervals, both melodic (played one at a time) and harmonic (played simultaneously) and to get a basic grounding in theory. Once you have that, figuring out songs by ear becomes exponentially easier, with the added bonus that you actually are able to understand what you are hearing, and can play it in different positions on your instrument, improvise your own version, etc ...
The only problem is that’s how a lot of great old guitarist got their style , they didn’t learn from theory or how others have done it they created their own technique by listening to songs and trying to play it . I think that’s partly why I find modern guitarists so boring, they sound very similar .
Yeah sure, take some time to learn intervals and solmisation as tools. But the important thing is to not noodle around. Listen to the phrase you want to learn 10 or 20 times or however often. (Ideally at full speed, if to hard: slower) Try to sing along in your head, but dont sing out loud until you have it. Then stop the recording. Try to sing it again in your head until youve got it. Then sing it out loud. If there is still something unclear: listen again. And then you start figuring out the notes- in the beginning if you are unsure about the intervals you can sing it multiple times out loud, but eventually figure it out in your head. Imagine how you play it on your instrument and then do it properly immediately.
1. Listen
2. Audiate
3. Sing (to prove your audiation was right and clear enough)
4. Figure out the notes without touching any instrument
5. Play it
Eventually you want to play melodies back you heard once. You cant noodle around to figure out the notes on stage.. so do it in your head.. once you can do it in your head its just a matter of doing it faster and the progress for that is pretty quick in my experience.
One of the first to help me learn told me to practice until it was good enough to present and everyone will be amazed.
Forty years later....
Seriously it was good advice and spared listeners ears but it comes with a price.
Those who don't make music think it comes without practice and those learning feel discouraged because they don't want to make embarrassing noises.
The general public begins to think music is a gift you're born with and there's no point in trying to learn.
Intermediate players with potential feel they're not worthy of letting vibrations escape that aren't perfect.
Everything gets hushed in an uneasy silence.
Well I am calling B.S. on that!!!
Make glorious noises,stumbling first attempts,flaming train wrecks of musical bumbling. Annoy the whole neighborhood.
Get the cops called if need be but create an environment where music can survive and flourish.
One quiet evening the drums started and it was on. The natives are restless.
I needed to hear this.
@InterPRO how did theory bring you freedom ?
@@loxng6801 theory is the language and structure of music. Get onstage and hear, we are doing a quick change blues in Am with a b6 in the change. You will know and not have a deer in the headlights look.
Daring to sound horrible (and be heard doing it) was the first hurdle I had to overcome to start learning to make music in the first place. And it took me a damn long time, all the way into my twenties!
I liked this perspective. And I will weigh in on the subject of noise as a nuisance…there are about 6 dogs on our street…when one of them starts up, they all get going if it’s lusty enough. This, is without doubt, nuisance, because there’s no armed robber, nor burglar, at 10pm, they are going at…I rattled my shed padlock, that started them…our neighbour now gone, demonstrated the psychological aspect of nuisance noise: they made the mistake of training their dog to hate me just like they did. As a result, with its uncanny hearing, when I slowly slid my key in the latch of my back door, the ‘clik, clik, clik…’ of tumblers was all it took…and it took only three tumbler clicks, for their dog to launch into an absolute tirade.
Now here’s what’s funny - they blame me for their dog making that racket. They complained to people I was ‘up all hours’ and ‘not normal’ and so on. Dogs are smart, they latch on devotedly to their masters’ attitudes, it would only take one miserable comment as I moved my wheelie bin and the poor mutt’s attitude was defined. From then on, I could simply slip my key in at any odd hour I got up, and the dog would satisfyingly respond, awakening their entire household…I mean, that’s funny.
But what I really wanted to say was, if you like the person making the noise, it’s not half as bad. If you don’t like them, anything, even a terribly small and normal amount of anything, is magnified. Then there’s children, for some people, inescapable and normal racket…but is it?! It’s the decent thing to give way, and compromise, but not ALL the time. That’s meek, not decent. Take care all anyway, just press on with music however you decide, that’s the important thing. Do you.
Worst musical advice I was given was to push through and keep hammering if you don’t get something. That led to major burnout and actually led to retiring from playing live because I fell out of love with it.
Never force yourself to do something you love.
Brilliant. Thanks.
I resonated with this so much. Never force yourself to do something you love. Such a good quote!
I was 14 years old improvising songs using big Latin style chords on our grand piano into rock like rhythms and wanted to learn classical guitar but no instructor lived within 500 miles of my house. I wanted to move to where I could learn classical guitar but my father said,”no son of mine is going to be a musician”. So I ended up in medicine retiring early but now arthritis nags my hands at age 60. I missed the boat decades ago. So nice to see so many young musicians living their dreams.
Worst advice I was given: "You don't need to learn theory"
While learning theory will not directly translate to better playing, it certainly indirectly translated in my case. I was able to join the dots better about what I'm playing and also improved my fretboard visualization to a significant degree. And I didn't even have to dive too deep into theory. Just basic knowledge about intervals, scales, modes and chord progressions was enough.
Thanks, as a beginner guitarist I have had trouble figuring out what things to learn and especially whether or not I should learn theory. I am going to try to learn these things. Thanks again for your comment.
When it comes to art, you either have it or you don't. Having a music theory degree won't save you from not being able to create anything.
@@ashleyjohansson230 But not having the tools and having to stumble around in the dark every single time is going to result in a lot of ideas forgotten before they can be performed or written down.
@@ashleyjohansson230 bullshit on the first statement - humans are creative and everyone can improve. talent is a platform, but studying/practicing with intent will help you get better at anything.
i'm a very verbal person and i found that having names for the things i was hearing helped improve my ear.
I came to guitar relatively late as I was poor and a lefty, didn't get any chances to try it as a youth and many people told me when I was 20 that it was already too late to make anything of it. I started that year and now I am 40 and guitar is now intrinsically part of who I am. I'm not a great player at all, but what I CAN do absolutely sings to my soul and I just love the journey of learning more and getting a little bit better each day. This channel has been a huge part of that in recent years, so thank you Paul
Similar story for me, lefty and all. I started at 20 for a bit but I didn't commit till around 45. I see my improvement over the past couple years. It's all like therapy for me. Paul is great at helping me get out of ruts.
You are an inspiration for people like me...
Keep going...
Basically, "Stick with your comfort zone."
In college, I had been playing violin in my local P&W band, like background fills and basic countermelodies and stuff. After our leader graduated, I learned guitar to be the leader (singing and rhythm guitar), and got many people advising me to go back to violin just because they liked that and no one was filling that role anymore. But now, leading music with guitar is pretty much my full-time job.
Thank you for inviting me to be a part of such an insightful video, Paul! Such an honor. Thank you for all you do for the music world!
I freakin' LOVE this! All my fave youtubers hanging out and giving concrete advice from personal experience. Everyone seems genuinely nice and willing to share to us..
"Learn the basics first."
Nothing wrong with knowing the basics, but you can start anywhere. If you want to start with tapping with both hands on the guitar, go for it. I think motivation comes when you start to be able to play something you think sounds good. Then you want to learn more, including the basics.
My advice is: Make learning fun.
Right? Who cares if you don't develop as quickly or efficiently as possible. No one has that foresight. If you don't think you'll ever want to strum chords, why should you learn them? If you don't care about going fast, you don't need to.
100% I think the upper echelons of Guitarists (in terms of technique/skill) and especially ones who "Almost made it" are bitter about the sonic capabilities of those less technical but having fun. You need to believe in the music before you believe in yourself. The idea of validating yourself first through being able to 'hang' is an elitist myth, as old as time. If you are reading this while thinking 'ah that guitarist is shit' check your bitterness VU meter.
That is hardly a worst advice ever, actually is a pretty good advice. If that the worst you have ever gotten, shit, you have been adviced by the Olympus gods of music your whole life
@@rmv9194
Some people like the systematic approach, however, so it might not be the worst advice for everyone.
I had plenty of good advice when I was a kid, being taught by a very good trombone teacher. But the approach of "basics first" made it a bore for me, so I quit.
An advice that made me quit. That's bad.
Then I took up music again as an adult, and have spent thousands of hours practicing, jamming, and performing. I could play seriously difficult things before I knew the basics. When the next difficult thing required me to learn another basic skill, I learned that basic skill.
Thanks for including me! Loved getting to hear everyone else’s answers ⚡️
I learned classical guitar first and I gotta say I struggle with jazz, its a completely different animal. Your teacher's advice was just wrong.
Your entry here was so validating @Philip Conrad, since I received similar advice (I posted the whole thing in the comments above it you're interested in the original). In my case, trying to follow it almost ruined my career in music. My biggest regret is that I didn't have your reaction, to just brush it off as pretentious and move on. Brilliant, mate!
9:55 Pauls point about the same advice being great for someone and bad for someone else may be the most important part in this video. Signal music studio’s point is that is not studying and just feeling it is bad and Adam Neely’s point is that the just having fun and playing with other people is much better than practicing for hours. These points almost completely contradict each other. Now I don’t know much about Signal music studio, but I imagine he might come from a rock and pop background. Here this advice is thrown around a ton and people don’t practice enough. It’s a real shame. I know that Adam Neely comes from a very studious jazz background at Berklee, where people may be concentrating too much on perfecting themselves and not focusing on what music is really meant for: playing with and for other people. So as Paul said, take all advice with a grain of salt and always use logic and common sense to figure out what advice is good for you!
The actual bad advice you reference: "ignore the technical side", "just practice by yourself and you will get better". The opposite of these is not "pay attention only to the technical side" and "always play with other people exclusively". It is "make sure you pay attention to the technical side" and "make sure you play with or for others often"... neither of which oppose each other.
@@PaulSpeed42 Yes, I agree with you. However, Adam Neely explicitly said "the worst advice I've ever been given is: if you practice long hours you will become good at music. I don't believe that". He explicitly said that practicing long hours will not make you good. I do believe that statement does contradict the statement "make sure to practice and study".
Of course, practicing and learning music theory does not at all contradict playing with and for others. However, I do not believe that these were the statements made in the video, hence my clarification in the comment. But thanks for pointing it out, it is a very important point. One should of course do both!
What a great video. Thanks for putting it together Paul and team!! ❤️
Glad I was here for this session 💯👊
When I was a kid, everyone said "classical is the only real music" and all these adults always tried to turn me into a classical player. I was good at it, but I didn't enjoy it, I was only doing it because I was promised that learning classical was the path to learning rock and blues and all the stuff I really liked. I loved music enough to tolerate this and work past it, and eventually picked up the guitar and started learning folk and blues on my own. I often wonder how many kids were scared away from music because of this focus on classical.
I've found classical is better off learned and listened to later on as you see and feel the root connections to it. Follow down the rabbit hole, don't start at the bottom of the hole or it isn't as fun.
Garbage on a piece of bread is really the only food. Trust me I eat it all the time
I also feel like that’s the wrong order, you can’t know jazz just by learning classical…more the other way around
I think a lot of traditional music teaching is terrible. Too much focus on sight reading to pass certain grades but zero explanation of music theory. So even some good students who can play very well from a sheet of music cannot improvise or transpose easily or pick things out by ear.
Self taught musicians, especially guitar players (e.g. me), have the opposite problem.
Here, I was one!
Thanks to this archaic top-down approach to music, I never paid attention to music class in school. I didn't care to learn something that seemed to only be good for impressing some arrogant, boring old snobs. And then I thought I was completely unmusical because I had no freaking clue what the class was talking about when analyzing classical pieces (forgetting that I just didn't know because I refused to learn it earlier) and that discouraged me from learning an instrument (because you totally need to understand how Beethoven's 9th Symphony is composed to play Foo Fighters' The Pretender on Guitar, lol).
Before I received music education in school, I would often play around on the keyboard in our basement or use old baby toys and other random junk to recreate the soundtracks of my favorite games from my parents' NES console. But then I learned I can't do music, cause I don't know the circle of fifths, can't read notation and have my worst grades in music.
Now I sing in a band, learn guitar and am still searching for a good/quick way to learn theory...
"Eventually, what you're good at will find you." Well said, Sean Daniel. I totally agree. I always wanted to be a working musician, but photography found me.
Paul, your channel has quickly become my absolute favourite. Thank you for this inspiring video, and all of the others, too.
Thanks Paul! Love you, and love your friends.
Awesome video Paul. Thank you so much for debunking these toxic attitudes towards music. It's so refreshing
I love this “worst advice” question. Some of it applies to sooo many other aspects of life…
Listening to this was actually pretty inspirational. I'm still early in my journey (basically the beginning) but I'm not giving up. I don't remember who it was, but I genuinely heard from someone that guitar would be too hard to learn unless I started as a kid; when in reality any age can learn if you have the drive and desire to learn.
Really good! Having those other camera angles during the interviews was a nice touch -legit brodda
Great video Paul...
I don't have a "worst" advice that I can recall, so one of the best pieces of advice I learned was "if u make a mistake on a groove, repeat it" and shockingly that always works.
I’d like to hear an example… but it makes sense in a way
Some of the best things I've ever played were originally discovered by making a mistake. Just do it again, and it sounds like you meant it all along.
If you play it wrong once it's a mistake, if you play it wrong twice it's jazz!
Paul, you are such an inspiration to me, and I just love the channel you have worked to create and make so amazing. Thank you so much for everything and taking the time out of YOUR life to share and enlighten us in the wonder of music.🎸🤘🏼❤️
I really enjoyed this video! Thanks for putting so much effort into making these epic vids. By the way that moveable pickup guitar is wild.
Great topic Paul! Thank you for bringing all your colleagues together - that's why you are the best!
I love your conclusions. You always hit the point and it's inspiring. Thanks man!
Thank you, Paul. You, Sir, brought tears to my eyes at the end of the video… There is not an absolute truth, listen a lot, then use what you need!
Paul, you also have an instinct for what makes a good video. Instead of a boring walk thru you had a great idea of interviewing guitarists on a valuable question while giving highlights of NAMM. Well done.
Hello Vance. How are you doing?
Thanks for this, inspiring as always!!
I'm happy to see these amazing stories from amazing people! It is motivating in many ways! Thank you!
Absolutely fascinating Paul, and great to see so many guitarists I follow giving their opinion. Only missing Rick Beato and Laura Cox!
Love this video. Fun memories and oh I had missed everyone!
i love your music. once i get a guitar, i will eat your channel alive. and pauls' to
Would love to hear what happened to the record label producer that gave you a reason. Keep being you! Even the percussion you use in your songs is a direct expression that you convey in your music. You’re gifted in music dynamics. Still can’t understand their logic!
You really knocked it out of the park on Under the Bridge!
Jesus Christ loves you!
Thank you for not listening to that music exec! We love your music!
I love the epilogue. Because that's exactly it, what can be the worst advice for somebody can be exactly what somebody else needs to hear.
Thanks for doing this video, Paul. It's nice to feel the joy and the passion from all these great people as they open up about their experiences.
Great summation at the end, Paul. Well done.
The real treat here was the enthusiasm everyone had to be involved ... thanks for the effort it took Paul it was worth it
This is one of the most informative, helpful videos, put in a easy to digest format, I have ever watched. Great job, Paul!
What a great upload - absolutely enjoyed
Thank u to everyone in this video for tips anecdotes and wonderful contributions to you tube - was great to see everyone here
Dude, you're awesome. Thanks for this, and everything!
My high school music teacher played the Tuba. He told all of us passionate guitar players that “the guitar is not a real instrument”. He made us play our electric guitars at the end of year concert unplugged. Fuck that guy. Most of us went on to form successful metal bands. The previous music teacher who he replaced was great and even came to my first gig. I’m a teacher now and I would never do anything to discourage anyone from playing any instrument.
Ewww he sounds like a real loser. What kinda self respecting musician would call another instrument not a real instrument. Anything that can make music is a real instrument. Hell if you can make a recorder sound good then it’s a real instrument haha
I hate that attitude so much. Just because you don't like guitar doesn't mean it's not "real". Neither does the fact that it needs electricity and an amp
This video felt like a 2 min video, never a dull moment great stuff
This was great! I loved hearing all those stories plus seeing all those great instruments.
The closing was perfect paul 💛
Adam Neely hit the nail right on the head. Playing with other musicians is a really great way to grow and improve. Especially in an era where so much music is just one person recoding in a small studio.
The way you ended the video with your own views made it a hundred times more meaningful. Thank you ❤️❤️❤️
Awesome, thanks for placing your passion up here for all of us to enjoy!!!
Great, great video and perfect final thoughts!
Thanks for making this video! So cathartic to watch these.
Mine was a variation on Philip Conrad's example of bad advice: "Picasso had his pink/blue periods where he painted realistically before he broke the rules. Therefore, you need to learn how to play classical guitar before you can learn to play any other style."
I understand the gist of this version of the advice and even agree with it in some areas, albeit in moderation. In my personal case, it went too damn far. For years, I was pushed to follow this advice and this kept me away from learning what had originally attracted me to the instrument: jazz and rock. It turned me off the instrument and music entirely for years and I've had a love/hate relationship with both ever since, even though I did graduate with a degree in classical guitar performance. It's a miracle I still play sometimes, but now I mostly stick to experimental and metal.
While so much of YT is the same old stuff Paul seems to always come up with some interesting and informative ideas. My good advice is to watch his videos.
So many of my fave UA-camrs here and a couple of new ones- thanks Paul
Excellent video, So Inspiring ! Thanks !
Cool video as always from Paul. 🙂
But man, I hate the look of headless guitars so much...
Well done Paul, really dug this one! The worst advice (and possibly the best too) was from an interview with Billy Corgan in a small local zine in Santa Barbara that I read while studying for my music degree. It was something to the effect of "Don't learn other peoples songs. It's a waste of time, write your own." Of course by this time I had learned many covers! And I still do because it's fun and you learn so much from learning songs you love, and even ones you don't. Cheers!
This was a great subject for your show. Really enjoyed it
Great video, Paul. Loved the insights from some of my favourite music people.
Great video, good info. Not trying to be ironic but I've heard people be advised not to seek out private instruction because you can learn it all on YT. YT is a great resource (love your channel!) but can't beat a personal mentor that resonates with you.
you gave yourself a lot more than 30 seconds, Paul ;) Great video as usual! Loved the first "worst advice": "You just need to feel it".
Awesome video! Thanks, Paul
I really love your videos mate, always super interesting and helpful 🤘
1:06 As Picasso once said (probably in Spanish), "learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist".
Worst advice is probably "you don't need lessons". Utter, utter bollocks. *I* certainly could have done with some lessons much earlier.
"Don't fret with the thumb, it is bad technique."
Maybe it isn't traditional technique, but bad? It opened up so many options in my playing! I still thumb-fret like a mofo.
Use all the techniques - that's what they're there for! The most musically liberating skill is not necessarily to master dozens of different techniques, but to learn as many as you can well enough and then master transitioning between them without breaking the musical flow.
Fretting with the thumb is the best advice
I've tried to but I still can't lol. I do pick with my pinky though
Thumbing the fret is the best technique , which dummy said that
@@greyarea1004 A classical guitarist. I understand if it is unorthodox in classical guitar but I wouldn't call it a bad technique for sure.
Great advices, awesome people, nice gear! Thanks Paul for all these!
Paul, your video production skills are as gorgeous as your guitar playing skills. Phenomenal content - thank you.
i never really got any substantial advice, but my advice is: record yourself, listen to it and then decide, if it's good!
you like it? keep going. you don't? keep trying!
When I told some family members I wanted to pick up the guitar they basicly told me it would be pointless since nobody in our family had a musical ear.
Nobody really discouraged me like that, but now that I put in some practice my family thinks I am naturally talented, lol. I assure you I'm not. I have gained so much pleasure from guitar over the years and 0 talent was required. Talent is overrated.
@@laurelrunlaurelrun talent is nonexistent. People use the word talent to justify their own inherit lack of skill in a field, attributing anybody who is able to learn efficiently or who is good as naturally gifted and that they could never be that because they arent naturally gifted. It just surves to downplay my achievements and my hard work, I hate when people attribute shit I have practiced painfully and forced myself to do slogging through clinically diagnosed depression as some kind of genetic fluke. Never listen to that shit because that stuff rubs off, those words become ingrained and soon you start to believe that you arent as lucky as the gilmours and hendrixes out there and it just makes you want to give up like all the small people that belittle anything you make of yourself
Great vid 👍
Paul is spot on at the end, everyone needs something different at different times in their life. There really isn’t good or bad advice, there’s just advice that is or isn’t right for you at a particular time
That ending is so true! Thank you so much, Paul Davids!
I've been playing guitar for 42 years, and I only about three years ago, I discovered the wonderful world of tone and dynamics, that you get when you turn down the guitar volume pot. All these years I'd always played with the volume pot up full... It has transformed my sound... I guess most guitarist discover this much earlier in their playing career..:)
The guy who sold me my 1st guitar told me: Volume pot always 100% up. I guess he was wrong.
Actually, no. Very few guitar players play with their fingers, use low output pickups, or turn down and vary their guitar volume! Congrats for figuring this out. Jimmy Page definitely did this ALOT!
No, most guitarists and bassists I know play with their volume on 10 all the time because they think turning their volume down causes tone suck(when it's really the opposite). I have been playing slightly longer than you at 46 years, but I had the advantage that my first guitar hero was my Uncle Bil, he showed me all his secrets; turn the guitar volume down, amp volume up, use dynamics in playing, how to induce feedback, finger tapping(2 years before Van Halen 1)playing slide, alternate tunings, etc... I forgot about my volume control on the guitar after so many years playing channel switching master volume amps(they didn't exist when I started playing) until I started playing Blues in the 1990's, THEN I remembered his advice!
It's great to hear this feedback from musicians who have found their their musical path . . . or maybe one path in their life. Thanks!
Paul, Your channel is the best man. Gotta hand it to you. Saludos desde Mexico!
Thank you so much for this amazing video Paul,
How much wisdom and intelligence are cast in him, a life experience.
Thanks!
I’d like to counter this with the best musical advice ever given… by you! You did a video on the five things you would do if you could start from the beginning with guitar playing. The number one thing you listed was… Learn to play the piano. It was the beginning of the lockdown when I saw that video in 2020 and I did that very thing, went out and bought a piano. I’ve been a drummer my whole life and tinkered with guitar for the last 20 years and really struggled with theory. Once I got the piano all became clear instantly on how things work in musical theory. And being a drummer my whole life I already had the percussion thing down so it was just a matter of learning chords. Within just a month or two I wrote my first song on piano and now I don’t know how I ever did music before learning piano. Thank you! Best advice ever!
Definitely second this, the tuning scheme of the fretboard and the fact that none of the frets reveal which notes they contain without you memorizing them, makes guitar incredibly mysterious for most people because it's logic isn't intuitive, even though it can be picked up and strummed by anyone and felt out intuitively. Piano really helps you build skills that let you tackle the guitar how you want to because it's note layout is linear and transparent.
I watched Adam Neely's best guitar advice video and you and Mary Spender's cover on the mountains. It inspired me to write a song. Excellent content as always!!
Great attitude and a great way to feature these other contributors to the craft.
You make wonderful videos. With an emphasis on wonder. I wish there were better words for the warmth that I feel watching you with all these fantastic people.
The thing is, we're all sort of different so obviously we respond differently to different things.
I've heard all of that advice and so so much more over the last 40 years, and the thing is, I can think of certain people in particular that I've known that could use one of those bits of advice.
For instance, and this used to be beyond obvious; a lot of musicians need to learn when to turn down, especially us guitarists. I used to intentionally turn down to get the rest of the band to turn down just so they could hear me and the drums, because at a certain point it's so loud it's difficult to actually hear the different parts and the drummer is no longer able to play with as much finesse because they have to concentrate on playing louder and the mix just becomes a giant mess.
Unless you're in a huge venue where you need to mic the drums, play at the volume your drummer plays at naturally.
Note: Pete is so sonically aware that I don't dispute the issue he's run into though either. I've had sound guys say all sorts of different things to me. As as a recording engineer who has mixed live sound here and there, the reason they want him to turn down is valid. But as a guitarist, especially because I've played a lot of metal, I fully understand what Pete is saying too. What most people, including some guitarists, don't know is that guitar being on the edge of feedback is a _magical_ place.
Anyway, each of those *where appropriate* can be good advice. Other than _"give up, the guitar is dead."_ That's purely ego-maniacally spawned ignorance. Fools have been saying that about rock and roll since at least the 1960's. That really is the most ignorant musician advice I ever heard.
Here's my advice as a guitar instructor since the 1980's: have fun.
If you want to be good, make practicing fun. If you want to be really good, *also* make playing with other musicians fun. If you want to be great, *also* learn to love the audience and the audience will love you back. ^-^
Paul, I think you nailed it in the outro, there might be advice good for one but bad for others. The importance is to be open to listen, but then also have the awareness to assess things you are told. Keeping that in mind, i think there can only be one bad advice: That is NO ADVICE!
Hello Florian. How are you doing?
Probably my favorite video you’ve done. This was great!
Very nice, clever, useful and enjoyable video indeed. Thanks a lot for posting.
Best advise my parents got was from my one and only piano teacher when I was 10-11 yrs old. About to move to another part of the country she told them not to waste money on another teacher because I would figure it out myself.
Great video!
"Just quit". I followed that self-advice for 30yrs due to severe stage fright which I still suffer from, but not as bad (reason coming). Also convinced myself blues was dying and nobody wanted to listen to it anymore. Stopped playing altogether (I do blues organ & piano). Art of Guitar dude (Mike?) changed that as well with a video he made about stage fright. A few months back I reconnected with an old friend and drummer of the band at the time who went pro. He reinforced what ?Mike? had said. He also reinforced the "To get better, practice... but ALWAYS play with people better than you and your skills will rise quick." I still think I suck... yet the friend and anyone who's around when I smash a keyboard at a store clamor about my 'greatness'. Yeah... no, sorry... I'm no Jimmy Smith, Joey DeFrancesco, Pinetop Perkins, etc. Obviously still torn, but I can probably get on a stage now and still suck... pair of shades to hide behind might help. As far as guitar... I can do the C-D-G-Am-Em cowboy chords. Went neck deep when I picked it up 2 yrs ago and bought tons of guitars. Sold all but 2 (kept Gretsch Electromatic and Squier CV60 Jazzmaster (1st & 2nd I ever bought)) and kept the Fender Tone Master Twin Blonde as well as several pedals. Spent a lot of money on Fender Play when I started and paid for 2 yrs using it about 2 weeks total initially. I'll pick it up again... but still watch and enjoy Paul's videos as well as a lot of the people in the video who I respect.
Voltaire said: 'perfect' is the enemy of good. You're a musician. No more over-thinking - just do it.
I see everything, including music, as riding my bike, just get on it and freakin ride it. Focus on the wind and not get hit by a car, how u do it, how beautiful u do it, it matters not, just go and have some fun on the bike.
Your videos are always awesome!
What a great video ! Thanks as always Paul for sharing
I had a teacher tell me my thumb should never come over the top of the neck - he would always try to push it down when I was playing. The bad part is I believed him at first until I watched all of my heroes play. Goodbye bad guitar teacher.
Yeah this is one that's not exactly bad info. It's jsut in the begging its better practice because what you're trying to train your hand to do. Then later on it's engrand in you to have good hand posture and you can start manoeuvring your hand and thumb to places when you need to move it. Like you'll get people who will say they were told to look at the fret board and not the picking hand and vice versa. The teachers most likely are picking up on a bad habit but they've not explained look. This is jsut for now. Eventually I want you to not look at it but right now you need to do xyz. But you ditched that teacher so probs never got the day when he goes right. Remember that thumb thing? Well we're going to try this riff out and in order to do it proficiently your going to have to wrap your thumb round the neck. OR even use your thumb on the E string :|
Like David Gilmour. His thumb is up there.
He must be a classical guitarist
Saying someone is a "bad" guitar teacher for teaching technique in the same way Segovia taught it doesn't make your point very well. It would seem you had a teacher who was classically trained (or at least classically informed) when you needed (or at least wanted) was one who was not. "Not a good fit" is a long way from "not a good teacher".
You guys all make great points, thank you. I wish the teacher would have explained it.
the one that hit the hardest for me was Sean Daniel's - "go all in, quit everything etc". Most of the people who've told me that aren't even musicians themselves lol
It’s superrrrrr cliche. Yeah go homeless, lose your house. It part of the “success” story
Unless you have a super supportive family and friends, being homeless and hungry with no insurance is a truly bad experience.
Also, if the bandmates are not serious about being at practice or gigs, you never get off the ground.
And location matters.
@@ewokwarrior2656 Even if the other band members are extremely serious, you can still get trapped in some bad situations by going all in. Captain Beefheart's Magic Band would be a prime example.
At 55 years old I was told I was too old to start playing. I’m 77 now and playing in a band, still learning everyday, cut a CD and arranging songs. Having the time of my life, too.
FANTASTIC segment. Especially your addition at the end.
For me as a self-learner the worst advise was the one you find everywhere in cheap guitar books and articles in the internet: "Learn the chords, learn the popular picking patters, do the tabs - that's it". And I've got stuck in that loop for years, just learning tabs, not knowing a single note on my guitar lol. Only after changing my life-style and starting giving more time to my guitar and thinking more on the music I listen to, I'm now learning music theory on a 20 yo stage piano and practice notes and scales on guitar.
And the second one - the same level bad, maybe even more depressive in a time perspective was: "you don't that more expensive guitar, you're only starting". Bullshit, you gotta buy what you feel connection to, otherwise you're just holding a tool. I wanted a Cort cr 280 and there were none in my town. The nearest shop that had them was 3 hours drive in one direction. So this guy at our local music store gives me a different les-paulish guitar, but more flat, thinner, with different body proportions, and says it's not worse, it's just different and it's even a bit cheaper, but it's just as cool. So my mom who didn't fancy a drive and wanted to save some of our non-existent finances started supporting the man and I'd got the guitar I didn't really want. I never felt connected to it, it felt wrong to have it and I was only feeling cheated looking at it.
I would put the second one down to a matter of context.
In your case, wanting to spend a little extra for a Cort guitar would have definitely been worth it just for the difference in craftsmanship alone. Where I would consider stepping in is when someone turns their noses up at the Corts and Squiers of the world and insist on buying a $4,000+ brand name instrument as their "starter" guitar.
That's why I prefer to say "High end gear does not replace practice."
Both of those are great. For the second, I delayed purchasing a high-quality instrument for over 10 years, during which my enthusiasm for playing never waned, but I felt like I needed to get to the point where I was limited by the guitar before moving on, even though I could afford it. It's not terrible advice for a total novice, but upgrading has shifted my desire to play into an even higher gear. Sounding good, feeling good, looking good with style, perfect action, intonation, level frets, good controls, proper adjustability, great sounding tone from quality pickups and materials. The sense of pride and positive reinforcement from those 'extras' added up to what has probably been my single most productive year as a musician in terms of ability. Don't be a decadent gearhead dad that just collects expensive toys that sit in the case, but if you love to play, if your cheap guitar just continues to spark joy and you keep coming back to it instinctively over a couple years, and you can afford it, don't be intimidated to step up. It might take you to the next level.
See and I'm a self-taught guitarist who also spent considerable time learning to pick out specific instruments in a mix so I could learn songs by ear. It took me probably 3 guitar tabs to determine that I have 0 trust in the guitar community to tab anything correctly (have since come the the same conclusion about piano scores, since trying to learn a song or two on piano), and thus I gave up on tab and try to learn everything by ear. With that I also started writing, very much with a process of play notes and keep the ones that sound good. But recently I have been trying to think more about theory and scales and the like, not really from books or anything, just thinking about what notes or scales I'm playing when I play, and it has improved my ability to freestyle and the like.
In regard to guitars... I learned on my brother's guitar, but when he moved out, I immediately bought my own guitar that was such trash it really motivated me to buy something nicer. Because my parents weren't exactly well off, I knew I was going to be paying for it myself, so I went in to the local guitar store one day to try some guitars and decide what I was saving up for. I told the guy I was thinking PRS, and he showed me one that had been traded in not long before. I played it, loved the sound, loved the look, and it cost less than I had in savings, so I pulled the trigger and bought it. It spent several years as my only guitar before I went on something of a frenzy and bought something like 4 guitars in 3 years. Nowadays it's the cheapest electric guitar I own, but it has a special place in my heart due to those years where it was my only one. I'll probably never sell it.
I struggled under terrible music teachers of all kinds for years and then one day a good friend of mine posted that he had been hired as a guitar instructor; I knew from a distance that he was extremely good, and until then had basically just resolved to never bother him about music, because I had assumed that electric guitarists who are actually good have to regularly fight off fawning amateurs nerding out and trying to weasel into their bands..... 🤷♀️ However, when I saw his post, I decided to just start browsing inexpensive used guitars and IF the right instrument presented itself, I'd sign up for his class. Well..... Within 15 minutes at the first place I looked, it did. I've always been a visual artist, creative in a whole different field, and incredibly opinionated about how things are made-just meaning that the odds of liking what I found so quickly were extremely low. Finding the right starter instrument, practically just via an intuitive connection, something that made me excited just by picking it up, was critical to how I made my decision to even begin studying guitar at all.
Since then.... I've watched a lot of videos about how other musicians guitar-shop: the features they require, how guitars are manufactured, tonewood voodoo, etc.... And my conclusion is that it's really NO different from simply picking out a pair of shoes. 😆 You just gotta try a bunch on, see what's comfortable enough to walk a figurative journey of 10,000 miles in, and certainly self-image has a lot to do with it too, no matter what the snooty purist academic musicians say. I've had that guitar for eight years now, and even though I'm still crazy hard on myself musically (sad story about my instructor friend.... RIP 😭) at least I still love my instrument. I ended up putting metallic steampunk decals all over it, including quality false-inlay stickers on the fretboard..... As a convert from the visual arts, I practically couldn't help it. 😄 I've tried a few other guitars just to learn what the differences are, and still can't believe my luck. I even got a bass at one point, and so far my particular bass is the only one in the world that I actually like and connect with...and that too was a used cheapie. 🤷♀️ Personal selection really does count for a LOT-otherwise, it's like walking that figurative 10,000-mile journey in shoes that somebody else picked out for you!! 😟
YES! "Good" or "bad" advice can be _very_ subjective, so do not hang all your aspirations onto just one point of view.
Absolutely excellent vid. I’m just learning guitar at the tender age of 67.
I’m still waiting fir my lefty GLPC 57 reissue, having ordered it 2 years ago!
Interesting and useful as usually. Thank You.