Ever wonder what guitarists go through, of the ones who play it by tab or by ear? Whether you’re a guitarist or not, we will all learn something from this post.
Yes, the plight of the Guitarists. We all have our plights in life. Preachers have the plight of what sermon they are gonna write. Pilots have the plight of how they’re going to stay awake the next time they fly. Firemen have the plight of working 24 hours on and 48 hours off. Well how’s that for firemen? For working long hours?
You ask everyone, “How do you handle your plight?” “How do you do it?” So now I ask you, whats your plight?
You ask everyone, “How do you handle your plight?” “How do you do it?” So now I ask you, whats your plight?
The Plights
So what’s your plight? You do have them. And the more things you do, the more plights you will have. You decide you want to be a landscaper, well now you gotta go through weather changes. “How am I going to put up with the weather on my landscaping job?” You ask yourself. And then you have to put up with the weather. That’s your plight.
Or maybe you decide you want to be a salesman and now you’re gonna have to put up with bad customers every now and then. That’s your plight.
Or maybe you’re going to decide to play the guitar by reading tab, now you’re going to have to put up with learning tab and finding the tab, so that you can play the songs you want to play.
And you’re going to have to find people that have tab, so that you can get it from them and play it. You also are going to have to put up with having to read the tab, so that you can figure out the songs. That’s your plight.
Or maybe you decide you want to play the guitar by ear. So you’re going to have to put up with studying how to play the guitar by ear.
You’re also going to have to find people who play the guitar by ear. And ask them how they play the guitar by ear.
And if they don’t want to tell you or they don’t have time to explain it to you because actually, they have a great concert they gotta play in. So you have to put up with that.
You also have to put up with being consistent, especially in the beginning of learning the guitar by ear, putting up with playing by ear day by day, which sometimes, is hard to find time to do it. That’s your plight.
You already know your pitfalls, your foibles, your successes and failures, your plights, which means the stuff we have to put up with in life.
All The Plights
So we see all the plights. Or at least some of the plights, people go through. So let’s dive in a little deeper into the plights of the musicians.
Lets talk a little about the guitarists who play by ear. And since I’ve already covered what they go through and what their plight is, I shall have fun talking about the bad-good plights of them. Well what do you mean? The bad-good plights of them?
It’s actually a good thing going on and a bad thing going on, from time to time, in the life of a guitarist who plays by ear. It’s also mixed feelings that they have also.
On one hand they are feeling great that they can play any song by ear or at least a lot of songs by ear. And then on the other hand, they are at times, having to remember the way the song goes in their mind. Because they know the song, but they just can’t quite remember all the sections of the song they are playing.
As they are playing the song, they know at some point, the solo section is coming up in the song. And they are trying to remember how it goes. They are saying to themselves, how does the solo sound like so I can play it when the solo section comes up.
So as they are thinking this, the crowd is looking at them and they are trying frantically to remember how the solo goes, but on the outside of their face, they are playing it cool. Having the no sweat approach but inside they are having a fit, a plight, they are going through.
Now let’s talk a little bit about the the other guitar person. The guitarist who chose the route of playing the guitar by reading tab music or sheet music for that part. Enter the almighty guitar player, the king who nails the part in songs all the time because he learned it from the tabs he was reading.
He doesn’t have to worry about playing it by ear, he already knows how the song goes that he is now playing. And he is playing in front of crowds. He has the confidence of how to play it. But he too has to worry about the sections of songs he is playing. He too has to worry about the solo section coming up in his song.
Even though he knows how to play it because he learned it from tab, he even learned the solo section from the tab music of the song he is now playing.
Now he is trying to remember what the solo section of the song sounds like because now he forgot. And just like the guitarist who plays it by ear, he too has problems remembering how the solo section goes, also.
So we see some times people have the exact same plights as I just showed you. The person who played the guitar by tab, couldn’t remember the solo part in the song and the person who learned the guitar by ear couldn’t remember the solo part in the song either.
Because the person who plays the guitar by ear forgets because he can’t hear the song in his mind.
So What! That They Have The Same Plights
What difference does it make that they have the same plights? Because by having the same plights, they can help each other out.
They can discuss why they are having a hard time trying to remember the section of the song that has the solo in it.
Is it because they were so busy trying to remember the other parts of the song that they couldn’t remember the solo section of the song?
They also can say that each song that we play, that we can just think that each song has sections to it and we just need to go over the sections in our minds, ahead of time, before we play the song, and then that will cause us to remember the song. All kinds of things they can think up, to discuss with each other.
They Will Think Of This Since They Have The Same Plights
Since they both have the same plights they will probably come to the same conclusion that every guitarist comes to any way, and that is to hear the songs in their mind.
Since they both have the same plights they will probably come to the same conclusion that every guitarist comes to any way, and that is to hear the songs in their mind.
And also see the guitar fretboard in their mind, also. By them seeing this, they can lessen the chances of forgetting the sections of the song that have the solos in it.
And the sections of the song that have the barre chords in them. And also the sections of the song that have the power chords in them. As well as the open chords section of the songs they are playing.
Throw in techniques and you pretty much have a full fledged rock song or a full fledged song of other types of songs, like pop songs or rhythm and blues etc.
By us seeing the guitar fretboard in our mind and hearing the songs in our mind we can also, if we’re a guitarist, be able to accomplish ANYTHING we set out to accomplish on the guitar, ANYTHING. If we spend enough time working on the techniques and sections of the guitar long enough.
I’ve learned from years of practicing the guitar that if I don’t know something on the guitar, if I just calm down and focus ONLY on that section or sections of the guitar.
And if I focus on the techniques for a good amount of time. And if I get the videos (YouTube) or tabs or listen to it by ear, real good and more carefully, I see that I am able to figure it out eventually. Because of all this help and with the help of my ear, (playing the guitar by ear) I will walk away so much better on the guitar.
And especially if it’s one of those songs that are difficult to figure out, like Van Halen songs…. like the solo section of the song he did the solo to on, Michael Jackson’s famous song, “Beat It.”
Try to play that solo by ear and see how easy it is to figure out OR try to figure it out by tab and see how easy it is to play….. No! It will probably be hard to play. And it will probably take a while to master.
But some songs are easy to master instantly and we can figure them out. And sometimes they take a long while to figure out, like Van Halen songs, especially the solo sections of his songs.
How To Use Plights To Your Advantage
Sometimes we can use plights to our advantage. One way of doing that is by the chord approach, yeah you heard that correctly, THE CHORD APPROACH!
I’ll explain what I mean by that later but let me say this first real quick,… Instead of playing the notes one at a time, where we play all over the guitar different strings and notes, (single notes) all from one finger….. but instead of doing that, play all those notes but with chords, any kind of chords.
Yes barre chords, power chords and open chords. It’s economy of motion…. But as you apply the chords, you notice it becomes WAY EASIER to play single notes.
Just make sure you are playing the single notes but WITHIN the chords. That my friend is THE CHORD APPROACH.
And we see that we used the plights to our advantage, where we were only playing one note at a time, doing it the hard way and we changed it to a way easier way, when we applied chords to it.
This would of been a hard plight of a guitarist who would of wore himself down, if he was to play one note at a time WITHOUT chords. You used this technique of playing chords to your ADVANTAGE.
What We Can Learn From The Plights Of The Guitarists
What more can I say? But I will say more because I told you in the beginning that this post wasn’t just for people who play guitar but it was also for people who don’t play guitar.
As you go about life wondering if your plights will hold you back or not. Because you already know you have plights. You already know your pitfalls, your foibles, your successes and failures, your plights, which means the stuff we have to put up with in life.
Or it can also mean the good parts of life. I think we can learn from the Plights Of The Guitarists by seeing how they overcame being sorry at the guitar, sucking at the guitar. (to put it bluntly) And they found a solution to getting better at the guitar. And as they did, they in turn, had less plights than they had before.
And you my friend can have less plights in your life if you too find the solutions to your problems. And start asking for help when you need it. Just like the guitarists ask for help in learning the guitar and then they are better because of it. You too will find the solutions you need and become better because of it, when you ask for help.
Some of my life’s lessons to you:
- Never let the plights of life get you down, ask for help directly from people and you will find those that will help you in ways you never thought of or even imagined.
- Often you don’t always have to ask everyone for help. But when you need help you can ask for it directly or indirectly, (by using your thoughts in such away as to tell people you need help and then they will help you) they will see your plight and want to help you, if you act right.
- Finally, help others with their plights and you will be helped with your plights because of it. Because what goes around comes around.
Related Questions
What’s one of the problems guitarists face? One of the problems guitarist have is not knowing that problems are actually good for them when they occur from playing the guitar because they can correct the mistakes that they make on the guitar and learn from them, which in turn makes them better.
What makes a good guitar player good? He must be well rounded. Have a basic knowledge of all the basic chords and be able to utilize them on the guitar. And become sufficient playing all other basic things, till he is proficient, to which he knows he is good at the guitar and others know it also.
How come some guitarists never break strings? They have learned early as beginners, that they used to break strings by playing to hard. They have corrected themselves to always be gentle with them. And others who never seen them as beginners never knew that they broke strings.
Photo credits:
12 bar blues in A for guitar in tab image courtesy of Sluffs. Public domain image: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
