Is playing too easy now a days...

I noticed the thread about someone complaining about watered down tabs or lessons and thought to myself man you guys have it too easy nowadays. Back when i was first learning guitar there was no such thing as interent videos and tabs. If you wanted to learn a song you did by your ear and maybe seeing the group live and watching the guitar players hands. Today you have the actual artist showing how to play that exact mind boggling riff on video and everything in the world is tabbed out. You can go to youtube and see a bunch of guys showing exactly how to play something.....What ever happened to hard work lol

Yup. I remember sitting on my piano bench with a tape deck, trying to figure out songs I taped off the radio.

If you asked someone for a tab back then, you got a diet soda.

JJ

that reminds me there is even digital players that slow down stuff at correct pitch so that immposssible to figure run is like daaaah daaaah ddddaaah lllllllllllllllllllllooooooooooooooooooooolllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

A rare group portrait of JJ and MGM:

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JJ

Ukulele JJ said:

A rare group portrait of JJ and MGM:

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JJ

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LOL


but honestly, I think to get something right those tabs and stuff are a tool, but the hard work's still there. most of the time tabs (or chords, I do not really work with tabs...) aren't entirely correct and you gotta figure it out by yourself anyway.

and what happened to the really good old days, when you learned simple melodies from another bagpipe player by ear? oh wait, those are still there, it's called traditional folk (or "organic dancefloor"^^)

i think your lucky to have learned like that because when it comes to learning anything by ear I'm just lost.

Hehehe

The easiest is when you get high def video and audio and slow it down. Even some of the most complicated and fastest songs can be figured out.

The technology is there, and I'm going to use it. Hey, if we didn't use newer technology, it would be a lot harder to buy from you, MGM.

If it weren't for easy access music, I still wouldn't have an ukulele.

Ukulele JJ said:

A rare group portrait of JJ and MGM:

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JJ

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lolz

I have to explain to many people my age (older) who like me tried but gave up on music when they were young that they should give it another go, how it's so much easier today. It really is.

MGM, I know you have an excellent point and I absolutely agree with you 100%, but some perverse part of me still wants to ask how deep the snow was on the way to school when you were a lad! :rofl:

SSB has an excellent point, the same technology has made you our go to guy of UAS supply. Many of us browse your listings like this :drool: , and envy your mastery of the stringed instrument and cool confidence evident in your flying fingers in your sapmle videos!

You're certainly one of MY heroes! :bowdown:

And I really mean that, totally seriously.

In my view (having played instruments through both "eras") - its just technology, and all it has done is helped to speed up some facets of learning.

In the past, you either played by ear, you took lessons, you got the chords from a mate or you bought a song book.

All the internet has done (like with a lot of things) is brought availability of the song knowledge much easier to get hold of - nothing, however, has changed when it comes to beginners trying to

a) get to understand fingering (strength, sore fingertips, chord changing at will etc)
b) learning the rhythms and the chords themselves.

So, in my view, no, not easier these days, possibly faster in getting the educational material, but from that point on it is surely exactly the same.

I play by ear, always have, always will. So, I did it the way that MGM said he did in the "old days". I remember figuring out the entire lead to "Man I'll Never Be" (Boston). I played it onstage with my Les Paul. I learned all the rhythm and leads I played that way... guess I still do.

Figuring out songs by ear is fun!

...


Sorry, I'll go back to my nerd cave.

Yep.
When I started playing, you could find tablature once in a while in magazines, but that was usually just a lick or two and then grossly inaccurate.

I see these little kids now who can shred it up and I wonder what I'd be like now if I'd had the internet, digital tuners, a DWS, digital modeling amps, all these instructional videos, so on and so on instead of the little old lady with the worthless "oahu method" lessons and LPs slowed down to 16 rpm. ld:

I don't read tabs, I don't read music, only know how to play by ear. Always tuned by ear too and surprised to learn how many people don't know how to without their electronic digital tuners. 'Ukulele has gotten SO technical too with so many musical theories trying to figure out questions that nobody really cared to ask 30 to 40 year ago.
Quality 'ukuleles are more affordable than ever, and learning is easier than ever so more people play than ever before. I love looking for new Youtube artists and watch them grow, and giving them words of encouragement something that couldn't be done 10 years ago.

you guys are right we have it too easy now.
But also, having proper chops and musical sense is something that comes naturally imo.
Some people I know cannot jam along to a chord progression to save their life but can play these super fast and elaborate metal songs.

I wish I could play by ear. I'd love to be able to strum along with my uke CDs....but I have no clue where to start. I can hear (and presumably approximate) the strum pattern, but I don't have a clue what chords they're using....

I got my first guitar when I was 11. It was 1971.

I struggled for years trying to learn to play guitar and bass. In those days I wanted to be Eric Clapton or Jimmy Page. (Even age 11 I realised that Hendrix was a world of his own, and that there was no point aspiring to that!)

I just got good enough to play bass in a band by the time I was 18 (1978).

I was still crap. Not for want of hard work or practice, but because I have little natural talent.

With the advent of technological aids to learning - the last 10 years - I've made more progress than I did in the preceding 25 years of struggling. CDs, DVDs, the web, Youtube... This stuff is GREAT.

Just because we old guys didn't have it when we started learning doesn't make it bad. It doesn't mean we have to work less hard. It just means that learning more stuff is possible for more people.

Without this broad access I would not have been able to discover instruments that have worked for me far better than guitar ever did - mandolin, fiddle, ukulele etc.

As for the folk tradition... I know and can play scores of jigs, reels, hornpipes, polkas, slides, set dances, folk songs... Some of which were taught to me in the old way, some of which I learned by ear from the recordings of The Dubliners, Archie Fisher, Tannahill Weavers, Woody Guthrie, Planxty, Bothy Band - But far more that I have learned about from the Internet.

Learning music hasn't been made easy, it has been made easIER. Horizons have been opened up, repertoires expanded.

Tunes and songs that would have sunk into obscurity and been lost have found new audiences and have been preserved.

This stuff is a miracle for music.

Ahnko Honu said:

I don't read tabs, I don't read music, only know how to play by ear. Always tuned by ear too and surprised to learn how many people don't know how to without their electronic digital tuners.

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As a classically trained guitarist, I read music. But with the different tuning and scale, I found it hard to relate and read as naturally. So, at the suggestion of someone here (Lori, I think it was) I learned to play uke reading tabs. I had always been rather anti-tab, but it allowed me to get up to snuff pretty quick. Luckily, there's a good amount of classical uke tabs out there these days, or at least enough to keep me plenty busy.

I really like things done in powertab that includes standard notation so I know what I'm trying to play and can visualize/hear it in my mind. I don't get that with plain text tabs.

As far as electronic tuners go, why not? It's not a badge of honor for me to say I tune by ear when I can tune with a clip-on in a fraction of the time.

Yes, there's a lot of resources on the net that weren't available to prior generations. Not the least of which is communities like UU, where you can meet others into your particular "niche" and get help, encouragement and feedback. Many of us are "lone ukers" who don't have anyone else we can share the passion with in real life.

Mayercaster said:

Some people I know cannot jam along to a chord progression to save their life but can play these super fast and elaborate metal songs.

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This is totally me.

Now what I think is happening is more people are playing without the theory that the older people like me had crammed into their heads. So you an play but beyond that say sight reading off sheet music or transposing or even switching it to another instrument is just not going to happen.

Lol Mike I agree with you. I guess it's also because some people may be too used to have everything so at hand.

For example, there are absolutely no Uke shops in my country, thus no Ukes here, thus no teachers. So all I can do if I want to learn how to play the Uke is buy it off the internet (like I did indeed ) and enjoy a community like this which is like a goldmine.

In the other hand, someone who has bunch of Uke teachers, communities, shops, and so on to choose from may "afford" being like that