The Electric Guitar

I just want to explain one thing to producers, song-writers, musicians, and the buying pulic about rhythm. We are in a state of deterioration in popular music, and there is ONE simple answer why most of the music we are hearing on the airwaves is crap. Somehow, some way, this particular rhythmic "feel" has nestled its way into mainstream pop music, and it is literally killing the essence of what music is supposed to do. Does anyone know? "Step right up and make a mindful choice at what is killing commercial music." Can you guess? I'll give you a little clue. God did not give us a Macintosh computer or a PC to make music. Music is a privilidge given to us to exalt in the name of the Lord and whatever thing is near and dear to your heart. It is personal and natural. The Susuki and Kodaly methods of music instruction are successful because they begin when children are too young to understand there is anything that can inhibit their musical freedom and expression. Not the daunting of a collegiate music school, not the air of a lofty piano competition, not sightsinging. Human beings naturally make music as part of their soul, and this is the way it should be. Not just Soul and R&B music have soul. All good music has soul. Computers don't have soul, unless it is given to them by the programmer. "Feel" is the natural feeling of music generated by human beings interpreting music. Church music has soul. J.S. Bach has soul. Vivaldi has soul. Miles Davis has soul. Jewel has soul. "Sequenced, quantized" music has NO soul. It is the mechanical drone of a a steady stream of 8th notes not unlike the sound of a vintage Casio drum accompaniment on an organ in the mall in the early 70's. No one liked the sound of that, so "Why the fuck is everything I hear, every commerial track on the airwaves quantized to sound as such?" Please tell me it is because the producers of the bands or spots don't have enough in their budgets to pay someone to play the music for real. Please tell me they don't hire a corporate programmer that inputs the music, highlights it all with a Select All, and heads for that menu that destroys the product before it even has a chance to live and breathe. Phrases of music are like sentences. You wouldn't want to listen to someone speak in a monotone, would you? Why would anyone want to listen to music as such? The title of the instrument, the piano, was a revelation in the development of music. Originally called the Piano/Forte, it personifies the very essence of what we are talking about. Soft and loud. Not loud. Not soft. Soft and loud. Soft and loud within a phrase of music, or a spoken sentence of speech. Inflection. Soul. Humanity. Expression. Similarly to this horrid quantizing of music in the likes of Logic, Studio Vision, or Digital Performer, the electric guitar has added to the confusion. What is this? How could the premiere instrument in the formation of American Rock 'n' Roll be detrimental to the production of music? It's called the upstroke. What? Come again? That UPSTROKE. The upstroke is the acsending portion of the strum of the guitar. What a simplistic thing, or is it? I never liked the feeling of Fok Music that much. I tried playing bass in a few Hum and Strum bands, and it literally made me sick. I didn't know why then. I do now. It is because the simplistic strum of the guitar, especially the acoustic guitar is not very interesting. In fact it is downright boring. If you reflect upon the genres of music in existance, little rhythmic clave make up the grooves. Little patterns in each instrument that fit together like a glove create a "groove" that engages the listener rhythmically. It effects you physically and makes you feel the music in your body. You pat your foot. You break out a few moves. The strum of the guitar does not have this effect. One reason is, the space between the down and upstrokes of the strum are unnaturally close together. Strum, strum. Now that seems real simple, like almost anyone can do it, and that is probably true, but in real music, there is space in that there strum. If the wrist is loose, then the music can swing. Swing rebounds like a bouncing ball, not like 80's Rock. Strum ah. One is accented more than the other. In real music, nobody really would ever just strum away on the acoustic guitar. It is a crutch. It is a throw away. Good rhythm guitar players are hard to find, because you have to know the style in which you are playing and know the pattern and the feeling of the music. Rarely is it ever going to be strum, strum, strum like we are hearing all over the airwaves. Then on top of it, drums and bass can fairly easily match that strict, metronomic feel. But why would they want to? You are basically destroying all of the good musical information that has come before, taking the beautiful "feels" of music and reducing them to a mechanical, sterile, boring, unmoving wash of nothing. Lots of people have jumped on this band wagon. I even heard the SNL band playing in that so-called style. Less effort is more. Cool man. "Don't get to personal with your approach." This is shite, shite, shite, and the sooner we realize this is not the way to go with music, the more commercial music will Renaissance. Why anyone on this planet that longs to play music would ever succomb to this new low is beyond me. Fewer keyboard players in bands, because piano and guitar play different feels. At least if guitar wants to play with piano, he has to understand the pianist HAS NO UPSTROKE!!!!!!!!! There is no way humanly possible keyboard players can compete or even try and play when the band has agreed upon this metronomic feel. If that is the point, keep the keyboard players out of the game, they are succeeding. I for one as a jazz pianist have had it. Go to school, buy some records, study the music that has come before. Forget about Drum and Bass or Bass and Drum, or stay holed up in your mama's bedroom surfing porn, working on the box, and losing your soul to a disturbing trend that is ruining music. Let's not make it for long.