Screw the Stairway to Heaven Rule!
Maybe I'm just getting old, but in my opinion the state of rock guitar in modern music these days is in pretty sorry ass shape. Just because you have a distortion pedal and a de-tuned guitar doesn't make you some badass on the guitar.
Just because this douchebag is the world's fastest talker doesn't mean that he's actually saying anything INTERESTING.
Just because someone can type 100 wpm doesn't mean that they can write a best selling novel.
BOY YOU SAID IT CONDESCENDING WONKA!
I'm sure there are plenty of people who will tell me how wrong I am, and how friggin awesome people like Yngwie Malmsteen are. Well I met that dude on his tourbus. I saw him yell at his wife while he watched tv with no shirt on while his gut hung over his leather pants. Believe me, there was nothing awesome about that dude. (That's a true story.)
I would be suprised if any kids these days could actually play "Stairway to Heaven." It's an awesome song. Complex, chord changes, melodies, different guitar styles throughout the song, a rising sound and a classic solo.
People always joke that the song is too basic, or overplayed, or anyone playing it immediately comes off as too pretentious
I'm calling Shenanigans on that line of thought.
It's so overplayed supposedly, but I can't remember the last time I heard anyone play it.
Too basic? Think real hard guitar players. When was the last time you heard anyone play that song and it sounded even halfway descent.
The song has developed that ridiculous reputation over the decades because its usually one of the first songs most rock guitarists try to learn to play. And after Waynes World it just became part of the universal consciousness to hate on the song. Then every guitar shop had to have that same "No Stairway" sign to show how cool they were too.
I contend that this is largely the doing of your local guitar store know it alls who just got tired hearing newbies play it over and over again at the stores while trying out their gear. Once it got that rep as a song that only newbies learn, then it no longer became cool to play. No self respecting guitarist could be caught dead playing it, especially after the Wayne's World movie. How can you have any street cred as a band or as a guitarist if you're playing Stairway? After all thats a beginners song! Thats like a concert piano player doing Chopsticks.
But actually it's not like that at all. That's what I'm trying to f*cking tell you.
The reason most beginners (at least when I was first learning, I'm not too sure about kids these days) try to learn Stairway is not because it's easy or basic, but because it's a complicated song, it's got fingerpicking, some complex chords that you don't hear in most other rock songs, a bad ass solo that covers almost the entire fretboard and a hard driving section at the end. And also because it's an awesome song, and it sounds cool as hell.
Begining rock guitarists don't want to start out learning the basic shit. We want to hit the gates running and start playing the cool sh*t right away. Hell, the first song I attempted to learn on the guitar was "Dee" by Rhandy Rhoades! I could barely play a C chord and I'm trying to play Dee, and I can't even read tab.
That's why Stairway to Heaven has been unfairly hated on by the so called "guitar elite," who can't bear let themselves have anything in common with the uncultured beginners of the world, and have tarnished the reputation of one of the most perfectly crafted rock songs ever, just to make themselves feel better at other people's expense.
And yeah I'm sure there are plenty of people who can make just as strong of an argument against everything I've said. If you want to do that then go ahead, and congratulations, you've just proved yourself superior to someone who's mentally ill and was just recently released from a mental hospital.
How proud you must be.
No comments:
Post a Comment