Nothing against guitars, I own and play 3 guitars and I like classic rock, blues and country.
But there’s some observations on my local ‘guitar’ scene - the problem imho mostly is the rock star syndrome - guys think having guitar and knowing some blues chords makes them instantly a smash - add some overdrive and just strum on.
Rarely anyone cares about the sound, intonation, rhythm, variations, texture, dynamics - it’s like the moment guy picks up guitar he turns into a caveman.
And it’s so often in jams - guys just plug and play, pray they have a tuner - eventually it all sounds like r2d2 rubbing his butt against concrete wall - but who cares - everyone is drunk and one joint deep - just chop on.
it seems like everyone is dong sort of ‘we are rock stars’ larp - just play pretend that you are what you think you image yourself to be - who cares about the music.
What do you mean? I’m not too into Clapton - I suppose he’s good at what he does, but the mainstreamy blues rock sound is kinda meh for me, I can’t resonate with it. I like something more wilder:
Guitars, I think, has this paradox - to make a wild, visceral & out of this world sound - one has to be very skill-full in practical engineering and crafts - one has to know what every part does and where the sweet spots are and how to find them, and knowing some physics helps a lot.
There’s a lot of necessary discipline needed to make the show sound wild and crazy - I think a lot of guys don’t get this. They think it’s just plug-n-play and the spirit of Elvis will somehow magically make it happen. But it doesn’t.
I think synth and sequencers people don’t have that problem - because synth kinda needs your nerd, without understanding and knowing what is what - like adsr vs lfo vs pwm etc etc - it just won’t interesting.
sounds like r2d2 rubbing his butt against concrete wall
Best sentence of 2025.
I think, also, one problem is that when you see a good guitar player perform it looks easy and effortless. What you don’t see is all the hours before leading up to that moment. So many think: “Hey, that looks like something I can do.”.
Just a snarky answer. Clapton has somehow become emblematic to me of everything wrong with the cult of guitar. But hey, I hate Pink Floyd too, so maybe I’m not the one to ask about taste.
