Worst advice was from my father. I told him, “Dad, when I grow up, I want to be a musician.” He looked at me and said, “Son, you can’t have it both ways.” (Old joke)
@James Chaplin You are a breeethe of fresh air, too. I'm glad I took that breath. "Breath" is a noun. "Breathe" is a verb. I speak the truth. PS No big deal. It just sounds funny when people say "breathe of fresh air". Another common one is "You always loose your keys." This one's even better because loose can be used as a verb, as in "Loose the kraken!" Anyways, lose the "e" on the end of "breathe" and you've got "breath," which is what you take when you breathe.
52 years ago, I told my parents I was going to music school to get degrees in classical guitar. I loved it. Everyone I knew rolled their eyes and questioned my future. I'm now retired after a long career as a college professor, a Dean, and a performer.. I've had a great life.
hey friend, you are something special. I love that you followed your dreams. You aren't ever without love and support. Keep being you buddy, you are the best at it. 💜
The worst musical advice I was ever given, was from myself. When I was starting college in 1981, I gave up on a musical career because I told myself that “I wasn’t creative.” Focus on engineering or computers and find a left-brain type of job, Kevin. In 2014, I moved to San Francisco, got serious about guitar again, rediscovered my creative side, and now I have two KRplus channels - one that I play guitar on to use as backing tracks. If I had focused on being creative 40 years ago, what could I have accomplished? Who knows, but I’m loving being a creative now. Cheers!
@Eric Fletcher Many of my software engineer friends are also musicians. I think the brain patterns required are similar. My next step is playing with other people, I'm sure I'd benefit greatly from that too. Cheers and bravo, Eric!
This is totally me. I was so set on being a musician when I was 14, practiced and played as much as I could. But I never felt I was good enough or creative enough so I I gave up on that dream and settled on playing in my basement alone for 25 of the 40+ years I have played. So fast forward those 25 years, I was (oddly enough) also a software engineer who played as a hobby. Became friends with a coworker who also played and he dragged me (completely terrified) onto a stage and I can't thank him enough for that. I have advanced 100 times more in the last 15 years because I have been playing with other people. Performing and collaborating are my passion now, and I'm hoping to get a YT channel up and running in the near future. I'll never get those years back, but I am doing my best to make up for it now!
That is the opposite to the advice Leonard Cohen received from his maths lecturer at university, who told him to abandon his aspirations to be a mathematician and take up music because he wasn't creative enough for mathematics.
I am just going to say that I am 56 and I am making my first album. So, you are not the only one, I gave it up in one moment, too...for almost 30 years.
The best advice for me is from my mom. When I felt depression about playing guitar with comparing "them" upon any streaming sns, I said 'I can't play guitar same of them, so shoud I stopping play guitar...?', so that my mom said 'Is the playing guitar only a privilege for the people playing well?'. My mind was liberated with this words in moment. thanks my mom.
One of the first to help me learn told me to practice until it was good enough to present and everyone will be amazed. Forty years later.... Seriously it was good advice and spared listeners ears but it comes with a price. Those who don't make music think it comes without practice and those learning feel discouraged because they don't want to make embarrassing noises. The general public begins to think music is a gift you're born with and there's no point in trying to learn. Intermediate players with potential feel they're not worthy of letting vibrations escape that aren't perfect. Everything gets hushed in an uneasy silence. Well I am calling B.S. on that!!! Make glorious noises,stumbling first attempts,flaming train wrecks of musical bumbling. Annoy the whole neighborhood. Get the cops called if need be but create an environment where music can survive and flourish. One quiet evening the drums started and it was on. The natives are restless.
Love what you said about not wanting to make embarrassing noise! I sometimes play out at a local open mike, but am always glad for having worked up the courage to play in public. I've played since 16 and I'm 68 now and learning (finally) theory, and SO glad to understand that this knowledge brings FREEDOM with it. I hope to continue learning and improving my playing forever, and growing my confidence in playing out and playing with other musicians ... just for the love of it.
Worst advice ever was, for me, more a situation. I was just graduated from high school, and as a family we had little money. I was self taught and could play good lead guitar, but i was stuck. I wanted to learn composition and theory and make my living out of music. A year back my family could afford lessons for a year only at the local conservatory... By the time i graduated from high school i had to choose... beg for a scholarship for a traditional career and convince myself music couldn't be taken seriously, or give it a last try. I tracked my guitar teacher from that year at the conservatory and came to him with a guitar on my hand and desperate for support to stick to music. I explained to him the situation, that a couldn't pay full price he was asking for lessons, that a needed some advice to confront my family from someone i looked up to . He just said "lesson cost this amount of money (money i couldn't afford) weekly", and just left me there. After that I gave up, enrolled where my family wanted me to study, got half scholarship as my family did the effort to pay for the rest and went with their plan. Today I have a half time job that barely pays the bills and I'm trying to do something with music before it's too late (I'm 46). Will never get back those 20 years that I believed i couldn't do it. I have no doubt my family and people around me did it with best intentions at heart, trying to advice what was in my best interest (i have arthritis since i was 14, which is an important obstacle) , and I'm thankful for that, but i was deep down miserable anyway. Today I'm trying again, don't care for the latest cell phone, car or house, just want to be happy doing what I love, at least for a while.
@louis cyfer that's what I meant with a figure of speech. Learning is natural for everyone, but there's a limit on what you can do without guidance, maybe cause you can't access information, or reinventing something already known that could be learned in less time. Self taught can also be seen as self discipline and practice. Point is, information is out there more than ever, so self teaching becomes searching, practicing, organizing.
@louis cyfer obviously, I used my brain and got out of the rat race and opened a whole new world, wrote several travel books, wrote for magazines and syndicated newspapers and now retired after a successful very late start to a career. Just in time too, went through some very tough times but was worth every minute
Worst advice I was given: "You don't need to learn theory" While learning theory will not directly translate to better playing, it certainly indirectly translated in my case. I was able to join the dots better about what I'm playing and also improved my fretboard visualization to a significant degree. And I didn't even have to dive too deep into theory. Just basic knowledge about intervals, scales, modes and chord progressions was enough.
@Ashley Johansson _"Yes learn word definitions instead of learning how to play music and make music that sounds good with basic knowledge"_ Learning how to play music is an important part of the learning process, though. Theory is difficult to learn if you have no practical understanding. Theory is easiest to learn through real musical examples. It's not theory vs practice, it's both at the same time. The most basic theory is mostly tools that you can use to figure out how the songs you like work. But yes, you can get pretty far by just knowing the basics well. But "knowing the basics well" does include a lot of practical knowledge that you gain through learning songs. Nobody became a good musician without learning any music. Theory isn't music - it's patterns, and those patterns mean nothing if one doesn't understand how they apply to songs (learning theory without learning music is like learning grammar without learning vocabulary).
@MaggaraMarine Yes learn word definitions instead of learning how to play music and make music that sounds good with basic knowledge. You don't need 90% of music theory unless you are planning on becoming some sort of music theory scholar or you plan on becoming a professional classical composer.
@Ashley Johansson There's no such thing as "music theory degree". Learning music theory means learning the patterns behind music, and not just playing what the tab says. You can learn music theory without taking any formal lessons. Also, the "you either have it or you don't" attitude isn't very helpful either. Creativity requires knowledge. The more you learn, the easier it is to get creative. With limited tools, your expression is also going to be limited. Think about a chef. If a chef doesn't know some basic recipes or understand how the different ingredients interact with each other, it's really difficult to make food that tastes good. But when one has the basic knowledge, it's also easy to apply that knowledge to new foods, and maybe even come up with your own recipes. Everyone can get creative. Not everyone will come up with groundbreaking stuff, but everyone can learn to compose music and improvise. Composition and improvisation are skills. Also, when it comes to formal education, self-study doesn't work for everyone. Some people need a teacher. Of course that's a bit different from a music degree, but you also basically implied that you can just google everything. And while it is true that all information that you need is out there, you still need to know how to look for that information. The biggest issue with beginners is that they don't know what questions to ask. And that's why self-study doesn't work for everyone.
I know the whole "learning from records" thing is very common, especially to musicians from the older generation, but after doing both I can honestly say that the *fastest* way to get better at figuring out songs using your ears is to first learn and master intervals, both melodic (played one at a time) and harmonic (played simultaneously) and to get a basic grounding in theory. Once you have that, figuring out songs by ear becomes exponentially easier, with the added bonus that you actually are able to understand what you are hearing, and can play it in different positions on your instrument, improvise your own version, etc ...
The “just feel it” part really hit home. When I started teaching myself guitar, I heard “you just gotta feel it” so often and I never could. Even the songs that I had nailed down, I couldn’t “feel” them. It all felt mechanical to me (use this strumming pattern then this one, play this note then this note etc.). It made me think that I would never be good at guitar because I didn’t have this natural ability to feel the music. Now after 2 years of practicing consistently, the mechanical feeling when playing is going away. I’m still nowhere near where I wanna be, but I’m getting better every day and that’s all that really matters. Practice and consistency is key!
Dude. Yessss same here. My dude and I would always be jamming and he would bust out this ridiculous solo and I would ask him how to even begin learning how to do that, and he would always say “just gotta feel it”. Same as you, I thought that something was wrong with me since I couldn’t play like that. Feeling is definitely part of jamming but you gotta develop your ear first and learn some scales.
I always remember what my band instructor said, and I feel this applies to everything in life: “you have to sound bad to sound good.” Don’t get discouraged
When I was a kid, everyone said "classical is the only real music" and all these adults always tried to turn me into a classical player. I was good at it, but I didn't enjoy it, I was only doing it because I was promised that learning classical was the path to learning rock and blues and all the stuff I really liked. I loved music enough to tolerate this and work past it, and eventually picked up the guitar and started learning folk and blues on my own. I often wonder how many kids were scared away from music because of this focus on classical.
I think a lot of traditional music teaching is terrible. Too much focus on sight reading to pass certain grades but zero explanation of music theory. So even some good students who can play very well from a sheet of music cannot improvise or transpose easily or pick things out by ear. Self taught musicians, especially guitar players (e.g. me), have the opposite problem.
I've found classical is better off learned and listened to later on as you see and feel the root connections to it. Follow down the rabbit hole, don't start at the bottom of the hole or it isn't as fun.
Worst advice I got was that it was too late to start playing at 22 "all good players started when they were kids you're just gonna sound awful forever" well guess what? It doesn't fucking matter how old are you as long as you enjoy playing and you keep practicing, you always learn that riff eventually, you may not become the next Hendrix but you *will* become a musician version of yourself and be fulfilled with who you are
Well, I started playing at the age of 21. I will be 36 in a few weeks. I think I am a decent guitarist nowadays. I'm not a guitar god by any means, but I can play and compose power metal solos, so... A few months ago I started taking singing lessons. I flat out asked my teacher if I was too old for this. He said I wasn't, he said many of his students were older than me.
I was 14 years old improvising songs using big Latin style chords on our grand piano into rock like rhythms and wanted to learn classical guitar but no instructor lived within 500 miles of my house. I wanted to move to where I could learn classical guitar but my father said,”no son of mine is going to be a musician”. So I ended up in medicine retiring early but now arthritis nags my hands at age 60. I missed the boat decades ago. So nice to see so many young musicians living their dreams.
"Eventually, what you're good at will find you." Well said, Sean Daniel. I totally agree. I always wanted to be a working musician, but photography found me. Paul, your channel has quickly become my absolute favourite. Thank you for this inspiring video, and all of the others, too.
"Don't fret with the thumb, it is bad technique." Maybe it isn't traditional technique, but bad? It opened up so many options in my playing! I still thumb-fret like a mofo.
Use all the techniques - that's what they're there for! The most musically liberating skill is not necessarily to master dozens of different techniques, but to learn as many as you can well enough and then master transitioning between them without breaking the musical flow.
1:06 As Picasso once said (probably in Spanish), "learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist". Worst advice is probably "you don't need lessons". Utter, utter bollocks. *I* certainly could have done with some lessons much earlier.
Great video Paul... I don't have a "worst" advice that I can recall, so one of the best pieces of advice I learned was "if u make a mistake on a groove, repeat it" and shockingly that always works.
I came to guitar relatively late as I was poor and a lefty, didn't get any chances to try it as a youth and many people told me when I was 20 that it was already too late to make anything of it. I started that year and now I am 40 and guitar is now intrinsically part of who I am. I'm not a great player at all, but what I CAN do absolutely sings to my soul and I just love the journey of learning more and getting a little bit better each day. This channel has been a huge part of that in recent years, so thank you Paul
Similar story for me, lefty and all. I started at 20 for a bit but I didn't commit till around 45. I see my improvement over the past couple years. It's all like therapy for me. Paul is great at helping me get out of ruts.
I only recall of one real bad advice, so, that's how my memory selected “the worst”, but that is certainly not the worst. That one was from a previous bad fellow musician (in the sense that, if he was not the worst musicien I played with, there was only one other musician I played with that was worst then him). So his advice was: “Do quick notes constantly to tune your guitare”, well, if you're into thrash or death or black metal or anything where your notes do not really have time to decay, that is certainly a good advice, in all other cases, it's not (as already mentioned), what is funny is that the band where we were playing together was quite downtempo (but he came from the thrash metal field).
I freakin' LOVE this! All my fave youtubers hanging out and giving concrete advice from personal experience. Everyone seems genuinely nice and willing to share to us..
The band I was in while I was in college broke up. Some of the guys had this notion that we were too old to keep playing, it was silly, we'll never get signed or tour so why keep doing it. I don't have a career playing music but I never quit. Most of those guys don't play anymore which is a shame because they were all incredibly talented. My dad will be 84. He never had a career in music, a record deal, toured, or anything, but he never quit. I live to fill those shoes. "Do what you love and f*ckin send it."
I had a music teacher who used to say something along the lines of "Practice makes perfect is the worst advice you can get or give. The truer statement is 'Practice makes permanent'. If you practice one technique and style, you'll end up only being good at that technique and style."
Paul, you are such an inspiration to me, and I just love the channel you have worked to create and make so amazing. Thank you so much for everything and taking the time out of YOUR life to share and enlighten us in the wonder of music.🎸🤘🏼❤️
What a fantastic video! I loved hearing about everyone's experiences. And oh man, bad advice, I've heard a lot of it. Basically any variation of "guitar is dead" has never been even remotely correct. "Just feel it", which I've heard before, made me laugh because it's such a directionless piece of advice for a beginner. Everyone is indeed on their own path and their own timeline. There are so many different ways to make music and so many different ways to present yourself.
I feel the high action one. High action was actually holding me back. Once I got it as low as possible without unwanted noise, my guitar and bass playing improved immensely. Same for the long practice. I got a better ear the more I jammed with people. Even though I did vocals, I still picked useful stuff up from the talented musicians that were around me. It helped me in every aspect of music playing and writing. I was always told to stop doing vocals, but in my case, growing up, I was the only kid in my town who could “scream”, so everyone wanted me to jam with them. Guitarists and drummers were ever two steps. So i did vocals and bass, because that’s what no one else was doing, so it made me kind of a commodity haha I was what everyone wanted but couldn’t find. I never had high hopes for anything musically, but having other people who were clearly skilled and well practiced tell me that I was the best around at what I did gave me so much motivation and confidence and I just embraced it. I ended up teaching other people how to do vocals that were interested. Then I was able to jam with musicians and other vocalists alike. Those were good times. I’ve since moved across the country and now I’m in the boonies and most people around here play country, and uhhh….metal vocals and that dont mix well, so most of my days are spent practicing bass and guitar more seriously rather than just picking them up here and there and noodling while resting my voice.
The worst advice I ever got was from myself. As a teenager I told myself "I know what I'm doing. I got this." I had so many teachers and mentors in my life that I didn't listen to because I thought I was right about everything already.
when i started playing, every older musician told me i was losing my time playing Metal and i should learn other genres so i can have a "serious music career". None of the bands of those older dudes lasted more than a year or two, while my Death Metal band lasted more than 10 years and played shows all along my country. Play what you actually like and do it with passion. Don't play to what other people want you to play.
Paul, what a great video you've made! seeing all these familiar faces sharing some personal wisdoms just feels so cool, feel's we're a big community, you know, wherever we all are. brilliant video, you've touched on something way more dearer than music here. thank you
What a great upload - absolutely enjoyed Thank u to everyone in this video for tips anecdotes and wonderful contributions to you tube - was great to see everyone here
I really love watching these kind of videos, because while growing up all my life I've been told by my family and friends that I can't make a living doing what I like, i.e. playing guitar and making music. Against everybody's advice I saved up money as a 13 year old and bought a crappy knock-off strat and started practicing even without an amp and completely self-taught. I then enrolled to college, and later university, and graduated with Audio Production degree. While studying the technical side of music production, I was also writing and producing my own songs, playing guitar in a small band, and getting much better at it (we even did a few Hendrix covers as I could play a lot of his songs even in my late teens). Was also collecting gear over many years, got a really good Marshal head and cab, managed to slowly acquire a decent collection of pedals, and even saved up money for an expensive Fender American Deluxe Strat in natural ash body (it was FSR, so has long been discontinued since then). I also built a small home studio, nothing fancy, but I had all the essentials, a DAW, a pair of decent monitors, an interface, a few dynamic and condenser mics, stands, cables and so on. I was working part time as a freelance sound engineer and some of the gigs we played were also paid but that wasn't nearly enough to live off. So this was all while living at my parents', who constantly kept reminding me that I'm putting money into music and getting nothing out of it. At 24 I had to move out because of the constant pressure from them to "get a real job" and I just couldn't take any more fighting. And a year later I guess some sort of switch went off in my head and I realised that everyone was right, pursuing career in music just isn't working out. Whatever I tried to do, it wasn't paying the bills. I was struggling financially, so I gave up. Sold ALL my gear to pay some debts (I still get chest pains every time I think about how I sold my American limited edition strat + 6 other guitars, my amazing amp and pedals etc.) So I did get a "real" job and now 6 years later I'm 31 and I'm absolutely regretting that decision. I am literally dying on the inside a little bit every day I have to go to my "NORMAL" job, live from payday to payday, have no passion or interests in life. I stopped socialising (covid didn't help), played videogames every time I wasn't at work just to escape reality, and started developing depression and maybe some sort of early mid-life crisis or something. And all I could remember is the last time I was truly happy was when I was playing guitar, jamming with my band, writing music, and staying up all night mixing a track we just recorded. So a couple of months ago I used all my savings and bought a strat, an audio interface, a pair of half-decent monitors (HS-7s), a cheap 1x12 combo practice amp, a multi-FX pedal board, and I'm trying to get back into music. Unfortunately after nearly 7 years of not doing anything music related, I have to re-learn most of it - how to play guitar, how to record, mix etc. And I keep feeling like maybe it's too late now, I lost a lot of valuable time and if I didn't give up that day, I could've been closer to my dream job or possibly even made it big with my band. Which brings me back to my original point - I LOVE these kind of videos because they motivate me to practice, write and produce music again, and pursue my passion in life. Sorry for the wall of text, that's like literally my life story in this one comment. Thanks for making videos to motivate people like me to do what we love.
About 60 years ago my mother and I went to a music store to buy my first guitar. The salesman asked to see my hands and told me I didn't have the right shaped fingers for guitar and that I should consider piano. I'm 71 now and I play one of my 9 guitars every day for a couple of hours .... seek advice but listen to your heart.
Well done Paul, really dug this one! The worst advice (and possibly the best too) was from an interview with Billy Corgan in a small local zine in Santa Barbara that I read while studying for my music degree. It was something to the effect of "Don't learn other peoples songs. It's a waste of time, write your own." Of course by this time I had learned many covers! And I still do because it's fun and you learn so much from learning songs you love, and even ones you don't. Cheers!
Pete thorn was 100% on point I remember at my first gig we were sound checking and our bassist told me to turn down...I regret listening to her at all because NO ONE could hear my guitar when the whole band came in. Never again. I'm never turning down.
Love it ❤️ ! Thank you Paul and to all the great Musicians in this video. You are all loved and appreciated for just existing, breathing and continuing to paint the universe with colorful Music!
The worst advice I got, I probably gave myself some 30 years ago, when I found out that each chord could be looked at as having its own scale I thought that is way too hard! Now her I am 30 years later 3 years into my deep dive on theory and loving it - thinking, why did I ever listen to myself!! Love your channel and your approach, Adam - Australia.
When taking a master class with a known classical guitar performer, she told me when I was practicing to imagine I was sitting on a trap door over a pit of alligators. If I made a mistake the door may open and I would fall. For months and months this took the joy of just playing out of my life. Hey I want my money back.
Hey Paul, it was a pleasure to meet you there and spend a couple minutes chatting, you were by far the nicest guy from big youtube channels! Keep it like that
Thanks for making this video! So cathartic to watch these. Mine was a variation on Philip Conrad's example of bad advice: "Picasso had his pink/blue periods where he painted realistically before he broke the rules. Therefore, you need to learn how to play classical guitar before you can learn to play any other style." I understand the gist of this version of the advice and even agree with it in some areas, albeit in moderation. In my personal case, it went too damn far. For years, I was pushed to follow this advice and this kept me away from learning what had originally attracted me to the instrument: jazz and rock. It turned me off the instrument and music entirely for years and I've had a love/hate relationship with both ever since, even though I did graduate with a degree in classical guitar performance. It's a miracle I still play sometimes, but now I mostly stick to experimental and metal.
Damn, PD!!! This is a GOAT video. 🐐 I’ve shared with all my younger friends and their kids. This isn’t music advice… it’s life advice. Thanks for working so hard to make this video happen. Truly epic my friend. BEDANKT!!!!!
I remember my first guitar teacher when I was 12, was a drunk. Then my second was a know it all who told me NOT to pay attention to the circle of 5ths. Instead his idea of to have me repeat different variations of the C minor penatonic scale.... I remember always thinking "Oh, he must know better than me etc..." I eventually went with my gut and stopped giving this guy my money and the "useless" (his words not mine) taught me all of the keys, modes, and my understanding of how they relate to one another. Best decision.
WOW, all good stuff...I didn't play musical instruments as a kid because I was told you had to do all of these structured things over and over...so now I play drums (a bit) and learning guitar...and having the time of my life finding new artists to emulate and learn from!...sure, there are some rudiments you need to know, but it is just as important to ENJOY the practice.
More Great Content by Paul David’s. I don’t know how he does it, but mini guitar-based channels have come and gone the 10 years I’ve used the KRplus platform. But Paul Davids Channel just seems to keep on producing. On an intellectual,technical, and emotional level, He entertains me and keeps me investing thank you
Hell Yea, Paul is back this man has taught me more about playing guitar than just how to play chords. He inspired me to jeep looking for what I sounded like rather than trying to sound like someone else.
Worst musical advice I was given was to push through and keep hammering if you don’t get something. That led to major burnout and actually led to retiring from playing live because I fell out of love with it. Never force yourself to do something you love.
For me, when I was playing guitar with a band. And then friends told me to learn music theory and scale to play guitar better. But turned out that I could play guitar well enough to make my own rig in my own way without learning scales. Well about 15yrs later I am still trying to learn scales tho lol
My first guitar teacher in the 80s told me you’ll never get anywhere playing guitar by yourself in your room. Great advice for the time (pre-internet), encouraged me to join bands and jam with other musicians. Fast forward to today and with social media, many people have become very successful playing guitar alone in their rooms. Who knows if this will continue as everything changes. So the lesson is, what might be good logical advice today may not be good advice in the future.
i never really got any substantial advice, but my advice is: record yourself, listen to it and then decide, if it's good! you like it? keep going. you don't? keep trying!
Basically, "Stick with your comfort zone." In college, I had been playing violin in my local P&W band, like background fills and basic countermelodies and stuff. After our leader graduated, I learned guitar to be the leader (singing and rhythm guitar), and got many people advising me to go back to violin just because they liked that and no one was filling that role anymore. But now, leading music with guitar is pretty much my full-time job.
My teacher always told me the same thing. He always said to focus. For context, I have always been fascinated by the world of timbre. I guess my teacher didn't understand that timbre is just as important as any other aspect of music. Instead of practicing scales on bass constantly, I went and did my own thing. Now I have friends who call me and ask me to design sounds for them whenever they need a cool tone.
Great vid 👍 Paul is spot on at the end, everyone needs something different at different times in their life. There really isn’t good or bad advice, there’s just advice that is or isn’t right for you at a particular time
9:55 Pauls point about the same advice being great for someone and bad for someone else may be the most important part in this video. Signal music studio’s point is that is not studying and just feeling it is bad and Adam Neely’s point is that the just having fun and playing with other people is much better than practicing for hours. These points almost completely contradict each other. Now I don’t know much about Signal music studio, but I imagine he might come from a rock and pop background. Here this advice is thrown around a ton and people don’t practice enough. It’s a real shame. I know that Adam Neely comes from a very studious jazz background at Berklee, where people may be concentrating too much on perfecting themselves and not focusing on what music is really meant for: playing with and for other people. So as Paul said, take all advice with a grain of salt and always use logic and common sense to figure out what advice is good for you!
@Paul Speed Yes, I agree with you. However, Adam Neely explicitly said "the worst advice I've ever been given is: if you practice long hours you will become good at music. I don't believe that". He explicitly said that practicing long hours will not make you good. I do believe that statement does contradict the statement "make sure to practice and study". Of course, practicing and learning music theory does not at all contradict playing with and for others. However, I do not believe that these were the statements made in the video, hence my clarification in the comment. But thanks for pointing it out, it is a very important point. One should of course do both!
The actual bad advice you reference: "ignore the technical side", "just practice by yourself and you will get better". The opposite of these is not "pay attention only to the technical side" and "always play with other people exclusively". It is "make sure you pay attention to the technical side" and "make sure you play with or for others often"... neither of which oppose each other.
Worst advice I got was from myself, at age 18, when I first started playing electric guitar after playing exclusively acoustic fingerpicking and flat picking for 6 years. Of course I was terrible on electric at first (it didn’t help that my 1st electric guitar was terrible). I told myself I was not cut out to be an electric player and should go back to playing acoustic only. Luckily, I didn’t listen to myself.
Like so many others in the comments, the worst advice I got was from myself. When I was young, I struggled so much to understand things on the guitar and I chalked it up to just not being cut out for it, in spite of being quite inventive making my own sounds and riffs. Thankfully, I've always been too stubborn and tenacious to give up so I never did. Now that I'm in my fifties, I love the guitar now more than ever and look forward to learning more and more. As Jude Gold says on his podcast "Keep it alive 'till your 95!"
Coming from someone who's a sound engineer first and a guitar player second, I have to disagree with Pete Thorn. Especially in smaller venues, the engineer is asking the guitar player to turn down to control stage volume. The guitar will be amplified through the PA and when the engineer isn't fighting your guitar amp to have vocals hear, the entire mix is better and the audience thinks your band is better. Trust the sound engineer, its their job to make you sound good.
Practicing with a metronome and being in time is a good thing but the bad advice I’ve gotten is that when playing with a band that every note should be on a click. A former band mate was always “nudging” the guitar in the recordings and completely removing any feel from the song and made the guitar sound like it was made by a computer.
Thanks for sticking with our interests believe in yourself and try to be yourself and create music and keep at it and watch people that want to hurt your spirit dont let them break your spirit take advice and dont try to be to busy at first simple is great to learn from rick beato
It's so cool seeing all the different shapes of guitars on YT and specifically at the NAMM show... Just confirms to me how NOTHING compares to the coolness and the beauty of a Telecaster!!!!!!!!!!!!
My late father, when I told him I was first considering putting together a band, asked what I would do, since I didn't own an instrument at the time. I said I would write the songs, and he scoffed at the importance of that. Little did he understand how many great players can't write songs. I didn't start a band then, but I did start learning about songwriting, and it's made music many time smore interesting and personally rewarding for me.
8:10 Gotta be technically able to express yourself, but I think this advice is what separates the do-ers from the wannabes when talking about creativity. "Feeling it" isn't enough, but once you have a musical foundation, don't be afraid to put away the Van Halen tabs once in a while and play around with your own ideas in complete freedom. Multi-track software like garage band makes it super easy to lay down an original rhythm and improvise over it.
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Worst advice was from my father. I told him, “Dad, when I grow up, I want to be a musician.” He looked at me and said, “Son, you can’t have it both ways.” (Old joke)
@Joey Mormann you literally don't understand what a dad joke means, please stop whining
@Joey Mormann bad jokes are “dad” jokes because parents are inherently not “cool”. So things that are lame are associated with parents
It's true because it's funny.
This sucks
fuck, he was right. musicians cant wash their clothes/cook/pay bills without their mommy enabler.
Love this video. Fun memories and oh I had missed everyone!
Mary, love your channel, and the collab with you and Paul on the RHCP song was amazing!
@James Chaplin You are a breeethe of fresh air, too. I'm glad I took that breath. "Breath" is a noun. "Breathe" is a verb. I speak the truth.
PS No big deal. It just sounds funny when people say "breathe of fresh air". Another common one is "You always loose your keys." This one's even better because loose can be used as a verb, as in "Loose the kraken!" Anyways, lose the "e" on the end of "breathe" and you've got "breath," which is what you take when you breathe.
@Mr. Doggo Where the hell is he, then? I need help!
You are a breathe of fresh air in a male dominated art form .
Thank you for not listening to that music exec! We love your music!
52 years ago, I told my parents I was going to music school to get degrees in classical guitar. I loved it. Everyone I knew rolled their eyes and questioned my future. I'm now retired after a long career as a college professor, a Dean, and a performer.. I've had a great life.
It's not luck
Its hard work
You create you're luck by working hard and practicing
hey friend, you are something special. I love that you followed your dreams. You aren't ever without love and support. Keep being you buddy, you are the best at it. 💜
Congrats on your success!
You are the 1%. You are lucky. Other than the professor thing.
The worst musical advice I was ever given, was from myself. When I was starting college in 1981, I gave up on a musical career because I told myself that “I wasn’t creative.” Focus on engineering or computers and find a left-brain type of job, Kevin. In 2014, I moved to San Francisco, got serious about guitar again, rediscovered my creative side, and now I have two KRplus channels - one that I play guitar on to use as backing tracks. If I had focused on being creative 40 years ago, what could I have accomplished? Who knows, but I’m loving being a creative now. Cheers!
@Eric Fletcher Many of my software engineer friends are also musicians. I think the brain patterns required are similar. My next step is playing with other people, I'm sure I'd benefit greatly from that too. Cheers and bravo, Eric!
This is totally me. I was so set on being a musician when I was 14, practiced and played as much as I could. But I never felt I was good enough or creative enough so I I gave up on that dream and settled on playing in my basement alone for 25 of the 40+ years I have played. So fast forward those 25 years, I was (oddly enough) also a software engineer who played as a hobby. Became friends with a coworker who also played and he dragged me (completely terrified) onto a stage and I can't thank him enough for that. I have advanced 100 times more in the last 15 years because I have been playing with other people. Performing and collaborating are my passion now, and I'm hoping to get a YT channel up and running in the near future. I'll never get those years back, but I am doing my best to make up for it now!
That is the opposite to the advice Leonard Cohen received from his maths lecturer at university, who told him to abandon his aspirations to be a mathematician and take up music because he wasn't creative enough for mathematics.
@Ben Taylor Impressive! Congrats!
I am just going to say that I am 56 and I am making my first album. So, you are not the only one, I gave it up in one moment, too...for almost 30 years.
The best advice for me is from my mom. When I felt depression about playing guitar with comparing "them" upon any streaming sns, I said 'I can't play guitar same of them, so shoud I stopping play guitar...?',
so that my mom said 'Is the playing guitar only a privilege for the people playing well?'.
My mind was liberated with this words in moment.
thanks my mom.
Best advise/inspiration ever!👍
My regards for the great Mom. ❤️
Oh I like that!
god bless your mom, that's some wonderful wise words. liberating indeed.
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One of the first to help me learn told me to practice until it was good enough to present and everyone will be amazed.
Forty years later....
Seriously it was good advice and spared listeners ears but it comes with a price.
Those who don't make music think it comes without practice and those learning feel discouraged because they don't want to make embarrassing noises.
The general public begins to think music is a gift you're born with and there's no point in trying to learn.
Intermediate players with potential feel they're not worthy of letting vibrations escape that aren't perfect.
Everything gets hushed in an uneasy silence.
Well I am calling B.S. on that!!!
Make glorious noises,stumbling first attempts,flaming train wrecks of musical bumbling. Annoy the whole neighborhood.
Get the cops called if need be but create an environment where music can survive and flourish.
One quiet evening the drums started and it was on. The natives are restless.
@InterPRO how did theory bring you freedom ?
I needed to hear this.
Love what you said about not wanting to make embarrassing noise! I sometimes play out at a local open mike, but am always glad for having worked up the courage to play in public. I've played since 16 and I'm 68 now and learning (finally) theory, and SO glad to understand that this knowledge brings FREEDOM with it. I hope to continue learning and improving my playing forever, and growing my confidence in playing out and playing with other musicians ... just for the love of it.
Worst advice ever was, for me, more a situation. I was just graduated from high school, and as a family we had little money. I was self taught and could play good lead guitar, but i was stuck. I wanted to learn composition and theory and make my living out of music. A year back my family could afford lessons for a year only at the local conservatory... By the time i graduated from high school i had to choose... beg for a scholarship for a traditional career and convince myself music couldn't be taken seriously, or give it a last try. I tracked my guitar teacher from that year at the conservatory and came to him with a guitar on my hand and desperate for support to stick to music. I explained to him the situation, that a couldn't pay full price he was asking for lessons, that a needed some advice to confront my family from someone i looked up to . He just said "lesson cost this amount of money (money i couldn't afford) weekly", and just left me there.
After that I gave up, enrolled where my family wanted me to study, got half scholarship as my family did the effort to pay for the rest and went with their plan.
Today I have a half time job that barely pays the bills and I'm trying to do something with music before it's too late (I'm 46). Will never get back those 20 years that I believed i couldn't do it. I have no doubt my family and people around me did it with best intentions at heart, trying to advice what was in my best interest (i have arthritis since i was 14, which is an important obstacle) , and I'm thankful for that, but i was deep down miserable anyway.
Today I'm trying again, don't care for the latest cell phone, car or house, just want to be happy doing what I love, at least for a while.
Way to go! Rock on man! "It's never too late to be what you might have been"! I wish you success and fulfillment on your journey
@louis cyfer that's what I meant with a figure of speech. Learning is natural for everyone, but there's a limit on what you can do without guidance, maybe cause you can't access information, or reinventing something already known that could be learned in less time.
Self taught can also be seen as self discipline and practice. Point is, information is out there more than ever, so self teaching becomes searching, practicing, organizing.
@Fernando Toro yes we can,
but watching, copying, reading is not being your own teacher.
@louis cyfer obviously, I used my brain and got out of the rat race and opened a whole new world, wrote several travel books, wrote for magazines and syndicated newspapers and now retired after a successful very late start to a career. Just in time too, went through some very tough times but was worth every minute
@D C nice! Being happy on what you do can be a luxury these days.
Worst advice I was given: "You don't need to learn theory"
While learning theory will not directly translate to better playing, it certainly indirectly translated in my case. I was able to join the dots better about what I'm playing and also improved my fretboard visualization to a significant degree. And I didn't even have to dive too deep into theory. Just basic knowledge about intervals, scales, modes and chord progressions was enough.
@Ashley Johansson And which one are you?... the "have it" or the "you don't"?
Yes theory is such a great thing especially if you want to write songs. Like you said you dont have to know alot because a little goes a long way
@Ashley Johansson _"Yes learn word definitions instead of learning how to play music and make music that sounds good with basic knowledge"_
Learning how to play music is an important part of the learning process, though. Theory is difficult to learn if you have no practical understanding. Theory is easiest to learn through real musical examples. It's not theory vs practice, it's both at the same time. The most basic theory is mostly tools that you can use to figure out how the songs you like work. But yes, you can get pretty far by just knowing the basics well. But "knowing the basics well" does include a lot of practical knowledge that you gain through learning songs.
Nobody became a good musician without learning any music. Theory isn't music - it's patterns, and those patterns mean nothing if one doesn't understand how they apply to songs (learning theory without learning music is like learning grammar without learning vocabulary).
@MaggaraMarine Yes learn word definitions instead of learning how to play music and make music that sounds good with basic knowledge. You don't need 90% of music theory unless you are planning on becoming some sort of music theory scholar or you plan on becoming a professional classical composer.
@Ashley Johansson There's no such thing as "music theory degree". Learning music theory means learning the patterns behind music, and not just playing what the tab says. You can learn music theory without taking any formal lessons.
Also, the "you either have it or you don't" attitude isn't very helpful either. Creativity requires knowledge. The more you learn, the easier it is to get creative. With limited tools, your expression is also going to be limited. Think about a chef. If a chef doesn't know some basic recipes or understand how the different ingredients interact with each other, it's really difficult to make food that tastes good. But when one has the basic knowledge, it's also easy to apply that knowledge to new foods, and maybe even come up with your own recipes.
Everyone can get creative. Not everyone will come up with groundbreaking stuff, but everyone can learn to compose music and improvise. Composition and improvisation are skills.
Also, when it comes to formal education, self-study doesn't work for everyone. Some people need a teacher. Of course that's a bit different from a music degree, but you also basically implied that you can just google everything. And while it is true that all information that you need is out there, you still need to know how to look for that information. The biggest issue with beginners is that they don't know what questions to ask. And that's why self-study doesn't work for everyone.
Thanks for including me dude, let’s meet up again soon and chat about Holland, I really miss it sometimes :-)
I know the whole "learning from records" thing is very common, especially to musicians from the older generation, but after doing both I can honestly say that the *fastest* way to get better at figuring out songs using your ears is to first learn and master intervals, both melodic (played one at a time) and harmonic (played simultaneously) and to get a basic grounding in theory. Once you have that, figuring out songs by ear becomes exponentially easier, with the added bonus that you actually are able to understand what you are hearing, and can play it in different positions on your instrument, improvise your own version, etc ...
The “just feel it” part really hit home. When I started teaching myself guitar, I heard “you just gotta feel it” so often and I never could. Even the songs that I had nailed down, I couldn’t “feel” them. It all felt mechanical to me (use this strumming pattern then this one, play this note then this note etc.). It made me think that I would never be good at guitar because I didn’t have this natural ability to feel the music. Now after 2 years of practicing consistently, the mechanical feeling when playing is going away. I’m still nowhere near where I wanna be, but I’m getting better every day and that’s all that really matters. Practice and consistency is key!
Dude. Yessss same here. My dude and I would always be jamming and he would bust out this ridiculous solo and I would ask him how to even begin learning how to do that, and he would always say “just gotta feel it”. Same as you, I thought that something was wrong with me since I couldn’t play like that. Feeling is definitely part of jamming but you gotta develop your ear first and learn some scales.
A better version of the @just feel it” advice is “practice practice practice amd when it’s time to play, just play.”
I always remember what my band instructor said, and I feel this applies to everything in life: “you have to sound bad to sound good.”
Don’t get discouraged
When I was a kid, everyone said "classical is the only real music" and all these adults always tried to turn me into a classical player. I was good at it, but I didn't enjoy it, I was only doing it because I was promised that learning classical was the path to learning rock and blues and all the stuff I really liked. I loved music enough to tolerate this and work past it, and eventually picked up the guitar and started learning folk and blues on my own. I often wonder how many kids were scared away from music because of this focus on classical.
I think a lot of traditional music teaching is terrible. Too much focus on sight reading to pass certain grades but zero explanation of music theory. So even some good students who can play very well from a sheet of music cannot improvise or transpose easily or pick things out by ear.
Self taught musicians, especially guitar players (e.g. me), have the opposite problem.
I also feel like that’s the wrong order, you can’t know jazz just by learning classical…more the other way around
Garbage on a piece of bread is really the only food. Trust me I eat it all the time
I've found classical is better off learned and listened to later on as you see and feel the root connections to it. Follow down the rabbit hole, don't start at the bottom of the hole or it isn't as fun.
Worst advice I got was that it was too late to start playing at 22 "all good players started when they were kids you're just gonna sound awful forever" well guess what? It doesn't fucking matter how old are you as long as you enjoy playing and you keep practicing, you always learn that riff eventually, you may not become the next Hendrix but you *will* become a musician version of yourself and be fulfilled with who you are
Wow. That was ridiculous advice. My condolences. I have a 70+ y/o student and he improved immensely in the time I taught him.
i started playing guitar at 11 y/o and i still suck, so that advice is BS
That's the spirit ! Same here haha
Well, I started playing at the age of 21. I will be 36 in a few weeks. I think I am a decent guitarist nowadays. I'm not a guitar god by any means, but I can play and compose power metal solos, so...
A few months ago I started taking singing lessons. I flat out asked my teacher if I was too old for this. He said I wasn't, he said many of his students were older than me.
You are absolutely right!!!
If your soul is still young you can start learning music at any age...
I was 14 years old improvising songs using big Latin style chords on our grand piano into rock like rhythms and wanted to learn classical guitar but no instructor lived within 500 miles of my house. I wanted to move to where I could learn classical guitar but my father said,”no son of mine is going to be a musician”. So I ended up in medicine retiring early but now arthritis nags my hands at age 60. I missed the boat decades ago. So nice to see so many young musicians living their dreams.
"Eventually, what you're good at will find you." Well said, Sean Daniel. I totally agree. I always wanted to be a working musician, but photography found me.
Paul, your channel has quickly become my absolute favourite. Thank you for this inspiring video, and all of the others, too.
"Don't fret with the thumb, it is bad technique."
Maybe it isn't traditional technique, but bad? It opened up so many options in my playing! I still thumb-fret like a mofo.
Fretting with the thumb is the best advice
Use all the techniques - that's what they're there for! The most musically liberating skill is not necessarily to master dozens of different techniques, but to learn as many as you can well enough and then master transitioning between them without breaking the musical flow.
1:06 As Picasso once said (probably in Spanish), "learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist".
Worst advice is probably "you don't need lessons". Utter, utter bollocks. *I* certainly could have done with some lessons much earlier.
Great video Paul...
I don't have a "worst" advice that I can recall, so one of the best pieces of advice I learned was "if u make a mistake on a groove, repeat it" and shockingly that always works.
I’d like to hear an example… but it makes sense in a way
I came to guitar relatively late as I was poor and a lefty, didn't get any chances to try it as a youth and many people told me when I was 20 that it was already too late to make anything of it. I started that year and now I am 40 and guitar is now intrinsically part of who I am. I'm not a great player at all, but what I CAN do absolutely sings to my soul and I just love the journey of learning more and getting a little bit better each day. This channel has been a huge part of that in recent years, so thank you Paul
You are an inspiration for people like me...
Keep going...
Similar story for me, lefty and all. I started at 20 for a bit but I didn't commit till around 45. I see my improvement over the past couple years. It's all like therapy for me. Paul is great at helping me get out of ruts.
I only recall of one real bad advice, so, that's how my memory selected “the worst”, but that is certainly not the worst. That one was from a previous bad fellow musician (in the sense that, if he was not the worst musicien I played with, there was only one other musician I played with that was worst then him). So his advice was: “Do quick notes constantly to tune your guitare”, well, if you're into thrash or death or black metal or anything where your notes do not really have time to decay, that is certainly a good advice, in all other cases, it's not (as already mentioned), what is funny is that the band where we were playing together was quite downtempo (but he came from the thrash metal field).
I freakin' LOVE this! All my fave youtubers hanging out and giving concrete advice from personal experience. Everyone seems genuinely nice and willing to share to us..
Wow! What an honour to be on Paul David’s Channel! Thanks ever so much for including me! Wonderful video
@Ned Williams wow! Thanks ever so much Ned! That's very kind of you!
Warren, you are amazing. And I have learned so much about recording and producing from you.
@Gavin Glass you're very kind! Thanks ever so much
You are amazing Warren! All heart.
@Mal-2 KSC Haha yes, many hair is very low n the list of things to worry about! I appreciate the great comment!
The band I was in while I was in college broke up. Some of the guys had this notion that we were too old to keep playing, it was silly, we'll never get signed or tour so why keep doing it. I don't have a career playing music but I never quit. Most of those guys don't play anymore which is a shame because they were all incredibly talented. My dad will be 84. He never had a career in music, a record deal, toured, or anything, but he never quit. I live to fill those shoes. "Do what you love and f*ckin send it."
Thank you, Paul. You, Sir, brought tears to my eyes at the end of the video… There is not an absolute truth, listen a lot, then use what you need!
I had a music teacher who used to say something along the lines of "Practice makes perfect is the worst advice you can get or give. The truer statement is 'Practice makes permanent'. If you practice one technique and style, you'll end up only being good at that technique and style."
Paul, you are such an inspiration to me, and I just love the channel you have worked to create and make so amazing. Thank you so much for everything and taking the time out of YOUR life to share and enlighten us in the wonder of music.🎸🤘🏼❤️
Thank you so much for this amazing video Paul,
How much wisdom and intelligence are cast in him, a life experience.
Thanks!
What a fantastic video! I loved hearing about everyone's experiences. And oh man, bad advice, I've heard a lot of it. Basically any variation of "guitar is dead" has never been even remotely correct. "Just feel it", which I've heard before, made me laugh because it's such a directionless piece of advice for a beginner. Everyone is indeed on their own path and their own timeline. There are so many different ways to make music and so many different ways to present yourself.
Absolutely fascinating Paul, and great to see so many guitarists I follow giving their opinion. Only missing Rick Beato and Laura Cox!
I feel the high action one. High action was actually holding me back. Once I got it as low as possible without unwanted noise, my guitar and bass playing improved immensely. Same for the long practice. I got a better ear the more I jammed with people. Even though I did vocals, I still picked useful stuff up from the talented musicians that were around me. It helped me in every aspect of music playing and writing. I was always told to stop doing vocals, but in my case, growing up, I was the only kid in my town who could “scream”, so everyone wanted me to jam with them. Guitarists and drummers were ever two steps. So i did vocals and bass, because that’s what no one else was doing, so it made me kind of a commodity haha I was what everyone wanted but couldn’t find. I never had high hopes for anything musically, but having other people who were clearly skilled and well practiced tell me that I was the best around at what I did gave me so much motivation and confidence and I just embraced it. I ended up teaching other people how to do vocals that were interested. Then I was able to jam with musicians and other vocalists alike. Those were good times. I’ve since moved across the country and now I’m in the boonies and most people around here play country, and uhhh….metal vocals and that dont mix well, so most of my days are spent practicing bass and guitar more seriously rather than just picking them up here and there and noodling while resting my voice.
The worst advice I ever got was from myself. As a teenager I told myself "I know what I'm doing. I got this." I had so many teachers and mentors in my life that I didn't listen to because I thought I was right about everything already.
when i started playing, every older musician told me i was losing my time playing Metal and i should learn other genres so i can have a "serious music career". None of the bands of those older dudes lasted more than a year or two, while my Death Metal band lasted more than 10 years and played shows all along my country.
Play what you actually like and do it with passion. Don't play to what other people want you to play.
Paul, what a great video you've made! seeing all these familiar faces sharing some personal wisdoms just feels so cool, feel's we're a big community, you know, wherever we all are. brilliant video, you've touched on something way more dearer than music here. thank you
What a great upload - absolutely enjoyed
Thank u to everyone in this video for tips anecdotes and wonderful contributions to you tube - was great to see everyone here
I really love watching these kind of videos, because while growing up all my life I've been told by my family and friends that I can't make a living doing what I like, i.e. playing guitar and making music. Against everybody's advice I saved up money as a 13 year old and bought a crappy knock-off strat and started practicing even without an amp and completely self-taught. I then enrolled to college, and later university, and graduated with Audio Production degree. While studying the technical side of music production, I was also writing and producing my own songs, playing guitar in a small band, and getting much better at it (we even did a few Hendrix covers as I could play a lot of his songs even in my late teens). Was also collecting gear over many years, got a really good Marshal head and cab, managed to slowly acquire a decent collection of pedals, and even saved up money for an expensive Fender American Deluxe Strat in natural ash body (it was FSR, so has long been discontinued since then). I also built a small home studio, nothing fancy, but I had all the essentials, a DAW, a pair of decent monitors, an interface, a few dynamic and condenser mics, stands, cables and so on. I was working part time as a freelance sound engineer and some of the gigs we played were also paid but that wasn't nearly enough to live off.
So this was all while living at my parents', who constantly kept reminding me that I'm putting money into music and getting nothing out of it. At 24 I had to move out because of the constant pressure from them to "get a real job" and I just couldn't take any more fighting. And a year later I guess some sort of switch went off in my head and I realised that everyone was right, pursuing career in music just isn't working out. Whatever I tried to do, it wasn't paying the bills. I was struggling financially, so I gave up. Sold ALL my gear to pay some debts (I still get chest pains every time I think about how I sold my American limited edition strat + 6 other guitars, my amazing amp and pedals etc.)
So I did get a "real" job and now 6 years later I'm 31 and I'm absolutely regretting that decision. I am literally dying on the inside a little bit every day I have to go to my "NORMAL" job, live from payday to payday, have no passion or interests in life. I stopped socialising (covid didn't help), played videogames every time I wasn't at work just to escape reality, and started developing depression and maybe some sort of early mid-life crisis or something. And all I could remember is the last time I was truly happy was when I was playing guitar, jamming with my band, writing music, and staying up all night mixing a track we just recorded.
So a couple of months ago I used all my savings and bought a strat, an audio interface, a pair of half-decent monitors (HS-7s), a cheap 1x12 combo practice amp, a multi-FX pedal board, and I'm trying to get back into music. Unfortunately after nearly 7 years of not doing anything music related, I have to re-learn most of it - how to play guitar, how to record, mix etc. And I keep feeling like maybe it's too late now, I lost a lot of valuable time and if I didn't give up that day, I could've been closer to my dream job or possibly even made it big with my band. Which brings me back to my original point - I LOVE these kind of videos because they motivate me to practice, write and produce music again, and pursue my passion in life.
Sorry for the wall of text, that's like literally my life story in this one comment. Thanks for making videos to motivate people like me to do what we love.
About 60 years ago my mother and I went to a music store to buy my first guitar. The salesman asked to see my hands and told me I didn't have the right shaped fingers for guitar and that I should consider piano. I'm 71 now and I play one of my 9 guitars every day for a couple of hours .... seek advice but listen to your heart.
a true hero
Well done Paul, really dug this one! The worst advice (and possibly the best too) was from an interview with Billy Corgan in a small local zine in Santa Barbara that I read while studying for my music degree. It was something to the effect of "Don't learn other peoples songs. It's a waste of time, write your own." Of course by this time I had learned many covers! And I still do because it's fun and you learn so much from learning songs you love, and even ones you don't. Cheers!
Pete thorn was 100% on point I remember at my first gig we were sound checking and our bassist told me to turn down...I regret listening to her at all because NO ONE could hear my guitar when the whole band came in. Never again.
I'm never turning down.
you gave yourself a lot more than 30 seconds, Paul ;) Great video as usual! Loved the first "worst advice": "You just need to feel it".
The real treat here was the enthusiasm everyone had to be involved ... thanks for the effort it took Paul it was worth it
Love it ❤️ ! Thank you Paul and to all the great Musicians in this video. You are all loved and appreciated for just existing, breathing and continuing to paint the universe with colorful Music!
I agree with the "learn classical music to learn everything"
The worst advice I got, I probably gave myself some 30 years ago, when I found out that each chord could be looked at as having its own scale I thought that is way too hard! Now her I am 30 years later 3 years into my deep dive on theory and loving it - thinking, why did I ever listen to myself!!
Love your channel and your approach, Adam - Australia.
When taking a master class with a known classical guitar performer, she told me when I was practicing to imagine I was sitting on a trap door over a pit of alligators. If I made a mistake the door may open and I would fall. For months and months this took the joy of just playing out of my life. Hey I want my money back.
Hey Paul, it was a pleasure to meet you there and spend a couple minutes chatting, you were by far the nicest guy from big youtube channels! Keep it like that
Thanks for making this video! So cathartic to watch these.
Mine was a variation on Philip Conrad's example of bad advice: "Picasso had his pink/blue periods where he painted realistically before he broke the rules. Therefore, you need to learn how to play classical guitar before you can learn to play any other style."
I understand the gist of this version of the advice and even agree with it in some areas, albeit in moderation. In my personal case, it went too damn far. For years, I was pushed to follow this advice and this kept me away from learning what had originally attracted me to the instrument: jazz and rock. It turned me off the instrument and music entirely for years and I've had a love/hate relationship with both ever since, even though I did graduate with a degree in classical guitar performance. It's a miracle I still play sometimes, but now I mostly stick to experimental and metal.
Paul, your video production skills are as gorgeous as your guitar playing skills. Phenomenal content - thank you.
It's great to hear this feedback from musicians who have found their their musical path . . . or maybe one path in their life. Thanks!
I'm happy to see these amazing stories from amazing people! It is motivating in many ways! Thank you!
Damn, PD!!! This is a GOAT video. 🐐 I’ve shared with all my younger friends and their kids. This isn’t music advice… it’s life advice. Thanks for working so hard to make this video happen. Truly epic my friend. BEDANKT!!!!!
I remember my first guitar teacher when I was 12, was a drunk. Then my second was a know it all who told me NOT to pay attention to the circle of 5ths. Instead his idea of to have me repeat different variations of the C minor penatonic scale.... I remember always thinking "Oh, he must know better than me etc..." I eventually went with my gut and stopped giving this guy my money and the "useless" (his words not mine) taught me all of the keys, modes, and my understanding of how they relate to one another. Best decision.
WOW, all good stuff...I didn't play musical instruments as a kid because I was told you had to do all of these structured things over and over...so now I play drums (a bit) and learning guitar...and having the time of my life finding new artists to emulate and learn from!...sure, there are some rudiments you need to know, but it is just as important to ENJOY the practice.
More Great Content by Paul David’s. I don’t know how he does it, but mini guitar-based channels have come and gone the 10 years I’ve used the KRplus platform. But Paul Davids Channel just seems to keep on producing. On an intellectual,technical, and emotional level, He entertains me and keeps me investing thank you
Hell Yea, Paul is back this man has taught me more about playing guitar than just how to play chords. He inspired me to jeep looking for what I sounded like rather than trying to sound like someone else.
Worst musical advice I was given was to push through and keep hammering if you don’t get something. That led to major burnout and actually led to retiring from playing live because I fell out of love with it.
Never force yourself to do something you love.
I resonated with this so much. Never force yourself to do something you love. Such a good quote!
Brilliant. Thanks.
For me, when I was playing guitar with a band. And then friends told me to learn music theory and scale to play guitar better. But turned out that I could play guitar well enough to make my own rig in my own way without learning scales. Well about 15yrs later I am still trying to learn scales tho lol
My first guitar teacher in the 80s told me you’ll never get anywhere playing guitar by yourself in your room. Great advice for the time (pre-internet), encouraged me to join bands and jam with other musicians. Fast forward to today and with social media, many people have become very successful playing guitar alone in their rooms. Who knows if this will continue as everything changes. So the lesson is, what might be good logical advice today may not be good advice in the future.
i never really got any substantial advice, but my advice is: record yourself, listen to it and then decide, if it's good!
you like it? keep going. you don't? keep trying!
What a great video. Thanks for putting it together Paul and team!! ❤️
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Basically, "Stick with your comfort zone."
In college, I had been playing violin in my local P&W band, like background fills and basic countermelodies and stuff. After our leader graduated, I learned guitar to be the leader (singing and rhythm guitar), and got many people advising me to go back to violin just because they liked that and no one was filling that role anymore. But now, leading music with guitar is pretty much my full-time job.
Great video, Paul! Thanks for doing all the hard work for us!
Probably my favorite video you’ve done. This was great!
My teacher always told me the same thing. He always said to focus.
For context, I have always been fascinated by the world of timbre. I guess my teacher didn't understand that timbre is just as important as any other aspect of music. Instead of practicing scales on bass constantly, I went and did my own thing.
Now I have friends who call me and ask me to design sounds for them whenever they need a cool tone.
Great vid 👍
Paul is spot on at the end, everyone needs something different at different times in their life. There really isn’t good or bad advice, there’s just advice that is or isn’t right for you at a particular time
9:55 Pauls point about the same advice being great for someone and bad for someone else may be the most important part in this video. Signal music studio’s point is that is not studying and just feeling it is bad and Adam Neely’s point is that the just having fun and playing with other people is much better than practicing for hours. These points almost completely contradict each other. Now I don’t know much about Signal music studio, but I imagine he might come from a rock and pop background. Here this advice is thrown around a ton and people don’t practice enough. It’s a real shame. I know that Adam Neely comes from a very studious jazz background at Berklee, where people may be concentrating too much on perfecting themselves and not focusing on what music is really meant for: playing with and for other people. So as Paul said, take all advice with a grain of salt and always use logic and common sense to figure out what advice is good for you!
@Paul Speed Yes, I agree with you. However, Adam Neely explicitly said "the worst advice I've ever been given is: if you practice long hours you will become good at music. I don't believe that". He explicitly said that practicing long hours will not make you good. I do believe that statement does contradict the statement "make sure to practice and study".
Of course, practicing and learning music theory does not at all contradict playing with and for others. However, I do not believe that these were the statements made in the video, hence my clarification in the comment. But thanks for pointing it out, it is a very important point. One should of course do both!
The actual bad advice you reference: "ignore the technical side", "just practice by yourself and you will get better". The opposite of these is not "pay attention only to the technical side" and "always play with other people exclusively". It is "make sure you pay attention to the technical side" and "make sure you play with or for others often"... neither of which oppose each other.
This was great! I loved hearing all those stories plus seeing all those great instruments.
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Worst advice I got was from myself, at age 18, when I first started playing electric guitar after playing exclusively acoustic fingerpicking and flat picking for 6 years. Of course I was terrible on electric at first (it didn’t help that my 1st electric guitar was terrible). I told myself I was not cut out to be an electric player and should go back to playing acoustic only. Luckily, I didn’t listen to myself.
I think you would have known to throw that advice overboard the moment you got a _good_ electric guitar in your hands, running through a good amp.
Paul! Everyone took something with themselves from this video I'm sure. Thanks for such efforts man! Thanks for the great content.
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Like so many others in the comments, the worst advice I got was from myself. When I was young, I struggled so much to understand things on the guitar and I chalked it up to just not being cut out for it, in spite of being quite inventive making my own sounds and riffs. Thankfully, I've always been too stubborn and tenacious to give up so I never did. Now that I'm in my fifties, I love the guitar now more than ever and look forward to learning more and more. As Jude Gold says on his podcast "Keep it alive 'till your 95!"
This is one of the most informative, helpful videos, put in a easy to digest format, I have ever watched. Great job, Paul!
Great fun! Conclusion exactly right. Advice can be wise even if not the Wisdom we need. Thanks for once again inspiring us all to play!
Coming from someone who's a sound engineer first and a guitar player second, I have to disagree with Pete Thorn. Especially in smaller venues, the engineer is asking the guitar player to turn down to control stage volume. The guitar will be amplified through the PA and when the engineer isn't fighting your guitar amp to have vocals hear, the entire mix is better and the audience thinks your band is better. Trust the sound engineer, its their job to make you sound good.
Really great video! Everyone had fantastic comments which made me realize how much dedicated musicians have in common.
Practicing with a metronome and being in time is a good thing but the bad advice I’ve gotten is that when playing with a band that every note should be on a click. A former band mate was always “nudging” the guitar in the recordings and completely removing any feel from the song and made the guitar sound like it was made by a computer.
Thanks for sticking with our interests believe in yourself and try to be yourself and create music and keep at it and watch people that want to hurt your spirit dont let them break your spirit take advice and dont try to be to busy at first simple is great to learn from rick beato
It's so cool seeing all the different shapes of guitars on YT and specifically at the NAMM show... Just confirms to me how NOTHING compares to the coolness and the beauty of a Telecaster!!!!!!!!!!!!
My late father, when I told him I was first considering putting together a band, asked what I would do, since I didn't own an instrument at the time. I said I would write the songs, and he scoffed at the importance of that. Little did he understand how many great players can't write songs. I didn't start a band then, but I did start learning about songwriting, and it's made music many time smore interesting and personally rewarding for me.
The best advice I got was from my dad "Figure out what it is you love, then find people stupid enough to pay you to do it"
8:10 Gotta be technically able to express yourself, but I think this advice is what separates the do-ers from the wannabes when talking about creativity. "Feeling it" isn't enough, but once you have a musical foundation, don't be afraid to put away the Van Halen tabs once in a while and play around with your own ideas in complete freedom. Multi-track software like garage band makes it super easy to lay down an original rhythm and improvise over it.