There is Hope for Youth Yet

In my view, that's a considerable flaw, and one often heard in acoustic guitar covers of electric guitar tunes. It's much harder to play electric music on acoustic than the other way around.
 
musket said:
In my view, that's a considerable flaw, and one often heard in acoustic guitar covers of electric guitar tunes. It's much harder to play electric music on acoustic than the other way around.
Click to expand...

but she is not trying to
 
Uh, no, it's a cover of something old, arranged for acoustic fingerstyle guitar. I doubt it's the only one. There are probably dozens.
 
musket said:
Uh, no, it's a cover of something old, arranged for acoustic fingerstyle guitar. I doubt it's the only one. There are probably dozens.
Click to expand...

by playing it differently it's a new thing


not a poor copy
 
Look John. It's a nice arrangement. But it lacks the essence of the tune, which any good cover should have. It's an ambitious arrangement; maybe it just needs more practice.
 
musket said:
Look John. It's a nice arrangement. But it lacks the essence of the tune, which any good cover should have. It's an ambitious arrangement; maybe it just needs more practice.
Click to expand...

I suggest appreciation


of whatever I'm speaking of
 
I do appreciate it. Like I said, nice arrangement. And an ambitious one. It just needs more work. She can't play it fluently yet. She's also not in the zone-- if she were, she wouldn't be looking at the camera for approval.

Pierre Bensusan was eighteen when he came up with this. He's in the zone, not even looking at the fretboard and obviously not seeing the camera, turned totally inward. This kind of fluency usually takes many years to acquire; he had it very young.

 
If I played guitar like Hendrix, you'd say 'Wow, he plays like Hendrix'.
If I painted like Picasso you'd say 'Wow, he paints like Picasso'.

If anything, be yourself.
 
Dave Woody said:
If I played guitar like Hendrix, you'd say 'Wow, he plays like Hendrix'.
If I painted like Picasso you'd say 'Wow, he paints like Picasso'.

If anything, be yourself.
Click to expand...

Some wise guy (Wilde, perhaps?) said "be yourself - everyone else is already taken." :)
 
Tesler-Mabe doesn't sound like Hendrix. She's playing a Hendrix tune, but sounds like herself playing Hendrix, especially in the solo, which is not an exact copy. Her control of legato is even better than Jimi's.

Her cover of Isn't She Lovely sounds like her. No one would mistake her cover of Pride and Joy for Stevie Ray's; she doesn't run monster strings tuned down a half step, she double-times the tremolo picking and sticks in the 12th fret harmonics.

When I could still play I sat in with bands that covered Albert King, BB King, Otis Rush, Guitar Slim, T-Bone Walker, Howlin' Wolf (Hubert Sumlin) and Jimmy Reed (Eddie Nolan) tunes. But I didn't sound like those guys. I sounded like myself playing those guy's tunes.

Excellent example: Clapton playing Born Under a Bad Sign. It's an Albert tune, but Clapton sounds like Clapton, not Albert. Stevie Ray's playing on Texas Flood doesn't sound like Larry Davis. Danny Gatton playing Mystery Train doesn't sound like Scotty Moore.

She does try to sound exactly like the originals on the History of Rock Tones thang, and does a pretty good job of it.

Coming up with original material is a whole different ball game. Far as I can tell this is all her. I don't especially like delay tricks, but her control of double-stop bends is complete. I believe she was seventeen on this one. She's nineteen now; give her time.


There's also always the possibility that "being yourself" sucks.
 
Last edited:
The literary critic, Harold Bloom, argued that all of the greatest artists (and of course he was speaking of literature) involved a strong "misreading" of their predecessors. I would be hard put to think of any artist of any merit in whom I cannot see his or her predecessors and influences.
 
I had a teacher for acoustic blues when I was sixteen, so I learned tunes by Mississippi John Hurt (the first I ever learned was Spikedriver's Blues), Rev Gary Davis, Blind Boy Fuller, Robert Johnson, both Willie Browns etc). For electric I had no teacher, so me and my friends would put LPs on the turntable and try to figure out the chords, progressions and leads of favorite songs. This was par for the course back then, when there were no books, tapes or videos about how to play rock and roll (I only had a little blackface Fender Champ so I couldn't understand how Keith got his sound on Satisfaction--I'd never heard of a fuzz box). This was the way you learned, by imitation. You didn't spring full born from the brow of Zeus with your own style.
 
I couldn't even do this at twenty, I can tell ya that. She'd been playing for only two years. This is a take on Clapton's version, not the original by Freddie King.

How many fourteen year old kids born in 2001 even know who the Blues Breakers were?

 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top