Too many guitar players spoil the block

Sorry to see so many talented & sincere new people coming out to the street & wasting their talent playing on a noisy corner to a crowd who's not listening & wearing out their pipes to their own dismay.

It seems as if there are so many to give to that the vast unwashed masses couldn't have a clue if Jimmy Hendrix was raised from the Dead to entertain them.

The recipe to Success:

1) BE FIRST

2) BE DIFFERENT

I'd like to see something I've never seen/heard before & I myself make my living on the street.

Spanging is only for emergencies!

 

I can play the coffee can.

 

body percussionist here, baby.

 

There is no first when it comes to music. Seeing as music is an art not competitive curling. Now being different can be good but at the same time look at the trends of music . Rock, punk, grunge, whatever we have now. The real recipe to success if you're going to try and spell it out is follow trend before it sells out.

 

I hate trends.
I hate trend setters.
I hate trendies.
I hate people that follow crowd because 'it's cool to like something'.

I am, however, a musician that plays drums, guitar, bass and keyboard. I write pieces of music using a mutli-tracker to blend music from different instruments together. This forms music which is polyphonic in texture and is a breath of fresh air amongst this mass of trend-fuelled garbage.

Primarily Metal with 70's Psychedelic Rock influences and a sprinkling of trance-like ambience.

Fuck success; play for YOURSELF.

 

OK, yeah, there are lots of takes on those famous adages, but THINK DIFFERENT made the Mac Insanely Great & worked for Jobs.

Just saying what I've observed, that music is based on people hearing your sound--if you can be heard, good. But if it's lost in the noice of traffic & there are 20 on the street & nobody's making much change, then go to a fire-eating act or something that's too tough to follow.

I like to see people succeed, not fail. I'm a good guitarist too, but don't make nearly as much on the street (compared to a gig in a restaurant, for example) or compared to doing other stuff in public. Love to all guitarists, but there's a factor & electrified is not usually permitted. Don't cast your pearls before swine guitarists. Cut a CD & have it on hand...

 

And number three.... always spell correctly and write legibly, unless it's your signature... then, have fun with it.

 

Dude, I think you're missing the point of music here. While I understand that you've been dissappointed with music as of late, you need to understand that music isn't about being the best, judging who's best, or even if there IS a best. What makes music so great is that you can show how you REALLY feel about things that you may be scared to talk about otherwise, or don't know how to quite phrase it to get your full point across. Music has no boundries, no limitations, and no rules (no matter what you're theory teacher tells you!!), and that is truly what makes it so great!!! If you have found a way that expresses your deepest emotions and helps you send a message that otherwise couldn't be sent, then you have found your creative niche as a musician.

 

That is the truth.
But in the media world of 'mainstream', the music industry holds a lot of money and so you find various artists with little talent that use music as a way to climb the ladder of celebrity/recognised status and, in turn, get richer.
A lot of people who limit their listening range to mainstream pop or r'n'b obviously musn't understand where true music can go and how interesting and emotionally moving it can be. It has the power to completely change the listeners mood; psychedelic trance being a prime example.
It's marketing - if people keep buying it, then the mainstream artists will keep producing it.

 

There are way to many guitarists in this world. The sad part is I think most of them only play it because it's "cool". If you want to learn music, there are tons of instruments out there. Guitar isn't the only choice.

</short rant> (trust me, you don't want me to go further into this.)

 

as far as street performing goes, the more fun you are having, the more successful you will be. also when i was on the streets, many people were reluctant to play together, thinking that they would only get half the money. this proved to be false many times, because when you playwith more than one person, you are less scary and the 50/50 split is alot more than you woulda made solo. as far as the greatest guitar player ever title goes, man that shit happens after your dead, so dont let it or any competition influence your decision. just make your music, and enjoy yourself, and like when you write a story you have to write it for the audience that will read it, when you play music for money, you gotto play it for the audience thats listening. ive seen many great musicians go avante gaurd on thier audience, and the only people enjoying it are the musicians on the stage and the musicians in the crowd, and you cant make no money off of them, because they all got gigs of thier own.
i always did best (moneetarily) with the chicken song and the brittney spears pepsi comercial songs, but when i noticed a tru blugrasser listening, sure i would go on an yoddle and play some mountain music. when i saw a hippie, it was always a dead song, if theirs kids around, you play some kid music. just be patient, have fun, make some money. write your artsy stuff and play it for yourself, when youre not tryin to make money.

 

-

 

I never said that everybody picked it up because it was cool... It's just something that I see a lot, and it's really annoying...

 

Danny Gatton is probably one of the best guitarists out there. Well was one of the best and most underrated. A select few have even heard of them. Was he famous? No. Did he make a contribution to the world of music. Yes

 

Yes. I play because creating music makes me happy, not to be a big money maker. That's what art is all about.

 

Psychedelic trance is the shit!

 

Again, as a street artist, living in human flesh & sleeping in my van, as existential as I think I am, getting paid validates me somewhat...
Just as food is a physical necessity that I sometimes do without, I have to like eat to live. So, my van needs gas & car insurance to keep the pigs from towing it away.

I paint for a week sometimes without anything but compliments, but let's face it, good words are nothing without the occasional good deed. Americans are fucking lousy tippers compared to other people & I've lived in dozens of other countries for more than 20 years. Hey--if you have to make a visa trip to get a chop on your passport, you need cash, right? Europeans rock compared to stingy Americans who you have to SPANGE off of like a goddamed beggar in order to get them to realize you have less than they have & are needy even though you are full of TALENT!

I started this thread. I live by selling my paintings in one of the cheapest little rich man's towns on either coast. But I also play the guitar. A hell of a lot better than some of the mediocre Dylan wannabe's I hear on a daily basis, usuing their guitar like they're masturbating & playing to the wind. Mediocre is the operative word. There are several on every block...

Every once in a while you get somebody good at whatever instrument they play. The rest are only selfishly engrossed in some form of introverted self-agrandizement. They might as well be meditating in an orange yurt hoping to bring peace to the world--or better yet, jerking off with headphones & playing air guitar to Led Zepplin & continue on with their delusions of grandeur in their little, "So You Wanna Be A Rock & Roll Star..." diminutive make-believe world of fame & self-glory.

To Hell with Mediocre Crap that sounds oh so good in someone's own head, but lousy on the street & only bores people. I'm waiting for the guy with the cane on Live at the Apollo to usher them off the fucking curb.

 

Rule 1. Do what you want and what feel natural do not go away from something that feel right because it is a "trend" or because someone else thinks it's annoying. I love to see really cool people playing guitar on the street, and it's not always some stupid trent, it can be some normal lady walking, feeling a song comming on so she puts her book bag on the ground, sits on it and plays because she feel like it.

 

Yes but if a tree falls in the woods and no lifeform hears it, does it make a sound, or just vibrations?

What good is communication if no one hears it?

Okay so I agree that you shouldn't change your music to make it more marketable or accessible, if that isn't what you want to communicate, but any musician who actually wants to communicate with other people should be trying to get his art out to as many people as possible, as efficiently as possible.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be successful, as long as you don't compromise your artistic integrity in the process.

 

Maybe, just maybe some people play guitar because the love the instrumenyt and they are not all hung up on how cool they look or caring about who sees them. I play guitar because I love the sound it makes, and I love the power I feel holding it, not to look cool and not to become the cliche' teen. I see a lot of people playing on the street and sometimes I wanna sit down and join them, what's wrong with that? Why can't someone do something, not caring what someone thinks of them, whatever happened to freedom? What ever happen to (exuse my french) "who gives a shit?" attitude?