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Finding Your Unique Sound: The Balance Between Note-For-Note and Personal Expression in Learning Songs · The Steve Stine Podcast

• 0:36
  Steve: learning songs note for note versus the struggles that you have or the realism of playing, and this is a really great topic of conversation that we should probably look at at least a little bit.
• 0:49
  Steve: Before there was YouTube, there was a bunch of people like me that were learning songs by ear, from a buddy, you know, maybe from a magazine, maybe maybe not, and that's how we learn how to play.
• 1:04
  Steve: So everything wasn't always exact, okay.
• 1:09
  Steve: Then YouTube came and you got all these YouTubers now that are going, or people on YouTube.
• 1:13
  Steve: I should say not YouTubers, but people on YouTube.
• 1:15
  Steve: That's not how so-and-so played, whatever.
• 1:19
  Steve: And here's the thing that I always think is really interesting is when you, for instance, if you watch Jimmy Page play Whole Lotta Love live, it's not exactly the same as it was on the studio version, right, the solo is not going to be the same.
• 1:35
  Steve: You listen to the Allman Brothers play whatever in memory of Elizabeth Reed.
• 1:40
  Steve: They're not even the song's not even close.
• 1:42
  Steve: Well, the structure is kind of close, but then the rest of it's just a jam, right.
• 1:47
  Steve: You listen to Randy Rhoads play Crazy Train.
• 1:49
  Steve: He's got the solo a certain way on the on the record.
• 1:52
  Steve: And then you listen to live audio.
• 1:55
  Steve: I've never really seen video, but live audio of him playing, and the solo isn't the same.
• 1:59
  Steve: So your job is to decide how accurate you feel like it needs to be.
• 2:11
  Steve: You know, and I'll show you some examples, but you know, I'm not trying to change the structure of the song, I'm not trying to change the most important elements of the song, but I do need to approach it because I'm a human being and I'm not jimmy page and I'm not randy rhodes and I'm not you know whoever, and, conversely, they're not me either.
• 2:28
  Steve: Right, we're all different.
• 2:29
  Steve: So that's something to think about now.
• 2:33
  Steve: The second thing is positional stuff.
• 2:34
  Steve: So let me start with this.
• 2:35
  Steve: I always use the same example.
• 2:37
  Steve: It's a great place to begin.
• 2:38
  Steve: So if I was playing playing Paranoid by Tony Iommi, which, again, I had played for years before I ever saw Tony Iommi actually play it, because when you're a kid, how do you see somebody play unless you go see him in concert, right?
• 2:52
  Steve: So I come to find out later.
• 2:54
  Steve: He plays it at the 12th fret Up there.
• 3:00
  Steve: Okay, never occurred to me as a kid, because when I was learning how to play it, I just went to the 5th string and I learned how to play it there.
• 3:10
  Steve: So you'll get somebody on YouTube that will go.
• 3:13
  Steve: I love YouTube for this stuff.
• 3:14
  Steve: That's wrong.
• 3:16
  Steve: He doesn't play it there, he plays it at the 12th fret, first of all.
• 3:22
  Steve: The pitches are the same.
• 3:23
  Steve: What's most important is, how does it feel to you and how does it look in your brain for memorization?
• 3:31
  Steve: To you Now, paranoid's a pretty easy example, but as you keep going it gets more complex with different songs.
• 3:39
  Steve: Paranoid one's not right or wrong, it's just I'm not playing it in the same position that Tony Iommi is, and I have never lost an ounce of sleep on that.
• 3:48
  Steve: It's never bothered me in the least.
• 3:51
  Steve: Now, when you watch live videos of other guitar players that Ozzy has had, guess where 95% of them play Paranoid Right here.
• 4:00
  Steve: So that would mean all of them are wrong too.
• 4:03
  Steve: And again, in somebody's mind that's fine.
• 4:07
  Steve: In their minds it doesn't matter, as long as they're playing it the way it sounds good to them, the way it makes sense in their brain.
• 4:14
  Steve: They're good to go and they're doing their thing.
• 4:17
  Steve: So that's step.
• 4:19
  Steve: Number one is positional when you're learning other people's songs.
• 4:23
  Steve: Now, if I'm playing, you know I'm not changing the structure.
• 4:33
  Steve: I'm not doing that right.
• 4:34
  Steve: I'm not changing it into something else.
• 4:35
  Steve: I'm going to keep the structure the same, because that riff is very important.
• 4:37
  Steve: But let me show you something.
• 4:38
  Steve: If I went like this, which is the riff now watch.
• 4:46
  Steve: So one time I'm playing the A up here and one time I'm playing the A here, which is right?
• 4:59
  Steve: And the answer is, who freaking cares?
• 5:02
  Steve: What matters is what makes sense to you, what feels good to you, because you're the one that has to play it.
• 5:10
  Steve: You might be the one that has to perform it on stage.
• 5:13
  Steve: Who cares what some YouTube dude thinks?
• 5:17
  Steve: It doesn't make any difference.
• 5:19
  Steve: You're not changing it.
• 5:21
  Steve: You're.
• 5:21
  Steve: You know the structure of the song.
• 5:23
  Steve: You're playing it in a way that makes sense to you, that feels good to your fingers, in your brain.
• 5:30
  Steve: You see, Now, if it's important to you to play it exactly the same way that Randy Rhodes did, then God bless you.
• 5:37
  Steve: I think that's wonderful.
• 5:38
  Steve: Then do that.
• 5:38
  Steve: That doesn't make somebody else wrong, though.
• 5:41
  Steve: Randy hasn't been here for a long time and Randy's one of my favorite guitar players on the planet.
• 5:47
  Steve: I'm just saying this is music.
• 5:51
  Steve: There's a million other things that are far more important than whether you're playing the A here or the A here, if that's where we're going to get stuck in the weeds.
• 5:58
  Steve: How are we ever going to finish the song, right?
• 6:01
  Steve: So that's what you need to think about, and we could keep going with this.
• 6:04
  Steve: I mean, when it moves to the next thing, it goes D, e, open chords, fifth string power chords what do you want, Right?
• 6:19
  Steve: And then you get to.
• 6:26
  Steve: So you got this open a, that I'm doing this kind of palm meeting, and then somebody will go well, you know, he does a gallop in the third section of the fourth part of the fifth segment.
• 6:38
  Steve: Okay.
• 6:42
  Steve: So that's what you're going to focus on.
• 6:43
  Steve: Now, again, I'm not saying that that's wrong.
• 6:45
  Steve: What I'm saying is, in the real world, when you are a performing musician and you're learning all kinds of songs and you're playing in bands and all these other things, if that's where you're going to get hung up, this is going to be a really tough road for you, because what's most important is how does it feel to you, how does it look to you, what makes sense in your technique, in your skill set?
• 7:08
  Steve: That's what you need to focus on.
• 7:10
  Steve: If you think it's important to do it exactly the way that the record was, then again, god bless you.
• 7:16
  Steve: I think that's great.
• 7:16
  Steve: That's what you should do.
• 7:18
  Steve: Okay, what I'm saying is you could listen to 10 different versions of Randy playing that and they're all going to be subtly different.
• 7:25
  Steve: Why?
• 7:25
  Steve: Because he's a human being and when he was in the studio it was a moment in time and he did it away.
• 7:32
  Steve: And after he's done the song 500 times, it might be a little different than the way he did it in the studio.
• 7:38
  Steve: He didn't change the structure necessarily.
• 7:40
  Steve: He's just changing subtle elements about it.
• 7:44
  Steve: So when you approach songs, I always want you to think about that.
• 7:48
  Steve: Okay, I mean, there's a million examples I could give you of this, but ultimately, my point is is when you get together with other musicians and jam, if it's going to get that refined to where you know, oh, you should have played it there instead of here on the fretboard.
• 8:03
  Steve: Well, again, if you're finding benefit in that, that's great.
• 8:09
  Steve: What I often think is, people are thinking that way because they've never and I can't say this for sure because I don't know everybody but if you've played in bands before and you've played out or you've toured or something like that, you know that music is somewhat flexible, a bit because you're the one playing it.
• 8:25
  Steve: Right.
• 8:27
  Steve: If Joe Satriani right now is trying to cover Eddie Van Halen's stuff because he's playing with Sammy Hagar, he's obviously not going to play it exactly the same, as he's not the guitar player.
• 8:36
  Steve: He's not the same guitar player as Eddie Van Halen.
• 8:39
  Steve: They're both amazing guitar players, but they're both very different.
• 8:42
  Steve: Just like if Eddie was alive and you asked him to play a Satriani song, it's not going to sound exactly the same.
• 8:47
  Steve: So why is it that we think that that's the goal for us?
• 8:52
  Steve: Right?
• 8:53
  Steve: We need to develop us as well.
• 8:56
  Steve: So I'm going to let this go, but I just want you to think about that a little bit.
• 8:59
  Steve: In you know, when you're going through the process of learning songs, figuring out what's most important and why and how you're going to approach that that makes the most sense to you, so your execution of that song is as good as it can possibly be in a way that works for you.